Tuesday 7 January 2014

Elbow levers

Double elbow levers are essentially a hand balancing skill where the body is held horizontal to the ground supported by your elbows. The exercise will challenge your core and proprioception.

Prerequisites:
decline plank ; crow stand




1. The set up: to be able to hold the position, you will want to have your hands facing back towards your feet or to the side. Your elbows are bent, and digging into your abdomen, just above your hip bones. To get into the position, bring one knee up in between your hands, and rest your weight on both elbows.
From here, rest your head on the floor, and straighten both your legs. You should now be in a very stable position with five points of contact on the ground.
2. From the set up above, lift your head up, straighten your upper body, and hold this position.
Start with a few seconds; rest for what remains of a minute; then repeat 5 times. Build up to 5 holds of 15s, with rests of 45s.
 3. For this step, raise one leg of the floor. Think of extending the leg straight behind you rather than lifting it.
Again, start with a few seconds; rest for what remains of a minute; then repeat 5 times.
Keep alternating between legs.
Once you can achieve 5 sets of 15s with 45s rest, it is time to move one to the next step.
 4. From the above position, now straighten your second leg behind you. Think of straightening and elongating your body rather than lifting your legs off the floor.
Again, build up to 5 sets of 15s, with 45s rest.
Once you've achieved that, you can start working towards holds of one minute. Aim for one minute work in total, so for instance, do 3 sets of 20s with 40s rest; or 2 sets of 30s with 30s rest. Keep building this up until your can hold the position for one full minute.

4 comments:

  1. Hello, I have trouble breathing when I'm holding the position, any tips on what I'm doing wrong or what I should be doing?

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    Replies
    1. This is not uncommon... Just focus on your breathing (it's possible), and eventually you'll get used to it... It will take time though.

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  2. Awesome post. New balance pose for me so your step by step really helped. Still working on getting the time longer!

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  3. My elbows always seem to slip while doing the exercise. Should I push my elbows more into my hips? I've been stalling for a few weeks now on this exercise :(

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