erperreault
Level 4 Valued Member
Despite numerous efforts in the past, I was never able to hold a full handstand against the wall. I tried various progressions (pike handstand, walking feet up the wall behind me, etc) but every time I tried to kick up into a full handstand (at one point I was attempting this daily for about two weeks) I just ended up with a sore head after my arms crumpled. I dropped handstand attempts three or four months ago and haven't touched them since.
Just now on a complete whim I kicked up and literally laughed out loud at how easy it felt to hold that position, sticking for probably 15 or 20 seconds and wiggling my feet around with joy... This is obviously not an impressive feat next to the beast-men on this forum, but coming from sedentary&overweight a few years ago it feels incredibly liberating!
I've been following S&S since the book came out, have worked up from 16kg to 24kg swings, and the middle two TGU sets with the 24 as well. I suspect that in the past my body simply didn't understand how to stabilize my arms well in an overhead position, despite training various presses, and the sustained tension of TGU is probably what made the difference. So, thank you TGU, and thank you Pavel, for this glorious progress!
And a few random side thoughts: I tried out the recovery breath timing and loved it, so I don't use the clock any more except as an occasional check-in. Generally, 5 breaths between each TGU single puts me right around 10 minutes, and 5 breaths between each swing set puts me right around 5 minutes. I am following the S&S program as written with prescribed warmup and stretches, getting in a solid 6 days a week consistently. The only change I've made from the book is to add Original Strength resets and two additional stretches (Brettzel 1.0+2.0) throughout the day, otherwise completely vanilla S&S for roughly two months now. My weight hasn't changed but I've been getting comments about looking trimmer and fitter.
Just now on a complete whim I kicked up and literally laughed out loud at how easy it felt to hold that position, sticking for probably 15 or 20 seconds and wiggling my feet around with joy... This is obviously not an impressive feat next to the beast-men on this forum, but coming from sedentary&overweight a few years ago it feels incredibly liberating!
I've been following S&S since the book came out, have worked up from 16kg to 24kg swings, and the middle two TGU sets with the 24 as well. I suspect that in the past my body simply didn't understand how to stabilize my arms well in an overhead position, despite training various presses, and the sustained tension of TGU is probably what made the difference. So, thank you TGU, and thank you Pavel, for this glorious progress!
And a few random side thoughts: I tried out the recovery breath timing and loved it, so I don't use the clock any more except as an occasional check-in. Generally, 5 breaths between each TGU single puts me right around 10 minutes, and 5 breaths between each swing set puts me right around 5 minutes. I am following the S&S program as written with prescribed warmup and stretches, getting in a solid 6 days a week consistently. The only change I've made from the book is to add Original Strength resets and two additional stretches (Brettzel 1.0+2.0) throughout the day, otherwise completely vanilla S&S for roughly two months now. My weight hasn't changed but I've been getting comments about looking trimmer and fitter.
