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What do you consider to be from zero? Zero exercise experience ever? Zero gymnastic experience? Zero sport experience? I've never been able to maintain balance

What do you consider to be from zero? Zero exercise experience ever? Zero gymnastic experience? Zero sport experience? I've never been able to maintain balance of a handstand as a kid, I haven't actively played sports since middle school, and I haven't done any amount of meaningful exercise in over 3 years now. Yet, I feel very confident I could do a handstand within 30 days of practice.

2muchcoffeeman 4y ago
I’ve seen a lot of strong gym going people try to get handstands and almost all fail. Please be careful.
unrealhoang 4y ago
Also the hardness of handstand is strictly dependent on your weight. A normal person at 50kg should have no problem learning handstand in 30 days, 90kg with no prior fitness training to handstand in 60 days is next to impossible.
- Jtsummers 4y ago
  A 90kg person can definitely get to it in 60 days. My only fitness before starting BJJ in 2015 was running (which I did regularly) and I weighed about 90kg. I was successfully hand walking down the length of the mats during our warmups in a couple months (though I was falling a lot in the first month, and was never stellar at it). I'm also uncertain how 50kg is the weight of a normal person. If I get below 75kg I'm around 5% body fat, and I'm barely above the US male average height. Getting to 50kg would mean losing a substantial amount of muscle mass, I literally have never had enough fat and so little muscle (even when I was obese) to be able to healthily cut down to that weight. And, again, I'm only about 1cm over the US average.
  - smsm42 4y ago
    If you're a regular runner, you probably are pretty lean, way leaner than an average techie, and probably leaner than most people. 90kg can be 90kg at 15% fat, or 90kg at 20% fat, or 90kg at 30% fat. Those would be very different starting points.
  - pedrosorio 4y ago
    > I'm also uncertain how 50kg is the weight of a normal person. (...) In this paragraph you seem to be interpreting "A normal person at 50kg" from the parent comment to mean "the average person, who weighs 50kg", when what they are saying is "a 50kg person who is neither too fit not too out of shape". A slim (but not extremely thin) 5'4" (1.62m) woman weighs around that much.
- taylorius 4y ago
  I'm 6'4" (192cm) and 120kg. I do Capoeira (which I would HIGHLY recommend for fitness, and general good times. It's a blend of martial arts kicks and acrobatic type moves - very dynamic, and visually spectacular). I'm developing my handstand, and strength-wise it's fine, my problem is the fear of falling over backwards. My practice space is hard wood floor, and I do NOT fancy crashing down like a falling tree. If I know the wall is there to catch me if I go over, I'm fine - so I probably need to try with a crash mat or something.
  - tomcdonnell 4y ago
    To get over the fear of falling over backwards, you must learn to turn your tree trunk like fall into a collapse to a ball and then a forward roll. If you have a bit of muscle on your back and shoulders rolling even on a hard floor should not be too uncomfortable. (A crash mat is still a good idea though.)
quickthrower2 4y ago
I imagine for the typical HNer: Reasonably fit at school, let themselves go abit since working full time. Might go to the gym for strength (10% probability) or keep fit generally (30% probability), but very unlikey to do a lot of core work / yoga / gymnastic type exercises. Doing a plank for example would be difficult. This is my guess. If writing an article that says 0-30 then you have to assume worse that that - someone who has never run a mile.
- Teever 4y ago
  Why? Is there really anything fitness wise that a person who literally has never run a mile can do in 30 days? You might as well criticize this by saying that an 80 yo couldn't do this in in 30 days.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - johnamata 4y ago
    Learning to do pull-ups was for me. I bought a pull up bar around late February and I just did dead hangs randomly throughout the day, attempting to do chinups every time. I started with chinups as I found it easier than pullups. I did easily around 100 attempts a day and by the end of the month could do 10x5 pullups (neutral grip, i find it more natural), but the breaks from each set is like 3-5+ minutes. Today my routine is 20 sets of 12 pullups 3x a week, this time the breaks from each set is about 1 minute. I also started pushups around that time, and within a month I could do 10x10. Now my routine is 10 sets of 32 reps. I could max out more reps but my bottleneck is breathing: I would run out of air before my muscles fatigue, same with my pullups. Looking for advice on that but I think the biggest factor is either my breathing is wrong, or that because I dont do cardio.
    - manwe150 4y ago
      cardio capacity develops differently than strength and generally slower, but can be trained for directly too like you did for strength by frequently doing things that make you breathe hard and then pushing that limit depending on what you are doing now, you could also focus on continuous breathing so that you don’t hold your breath, which can be a normal reaction to doing something with power, but limits endurance
lemming 4y ago
Yet, I feel very confident I could do a handstand within 30 days of practice. So was I :-) If you're talking about a freestanding handstand, held for 15-20 seconds, then I would bet a beer that your confidence is misplaced. It's surprisingly hard, it requires a lot more strength than you'd think and the balance take a lot to learn. You don't have to take it from me, you can take it from Jeff Bezos's friend's handstand coach: https://www.inc.com/tommy-mello/in-a-recent-shareholder-letter-jeff-bezos-compared-running-a-business-to-doing-a-handstand-his-analogy-is-pretty-accurate.html https://www.inc.com/tommy-mello/in-a-recent-shareholder-lett...
- 2muchcoffeeman 4y ago
  6 months for an adult is pretty good!
  - lemming 4y ago
    Yes, I guess that was with daily practice and a coach. I’d say a year is probably more realistic for most people, or even more. It certainly took me longer than that.

2muchcoffeeman 4y ago

I’ve seen a lot of strong gym going people try to get handstands and almost all fail. Please be careful.

unrealhoang 4y ago

Also the hardness of handstand is strictly dependent on your weight. A normal person at 50kg should have no problem learning handstand in 30 days, 90kg with no prior fitness training to handstand in 60 days is next to impossible.

Jtsummers 4y ago
A 90kg person can definitely get to it in 60 days. My only fitness before starting BJJ in 2015 was running (which I did regularly) and I weighed about 90kg. I was successfully hand walking down the length of the mats during our warmups in a couple months (though I was falling a lot in the first month, and was never stellar at it). I'm also uncertain how 50kg is the weight of a normal person. If I get below 75kg I'm around 5% body fat, and I'm barely above the US male average height. Getting to 50kg would mean losing a substantial amount of muscle mass, I literally have never had enough fat and so little muscle (even when I was obese) to be able to healthily cut down to that weight. And, again, I'm only about 1cm over the US average.
- smsm42 4y ago
  If you're a regular runner, you probably are pretty lean, way leaner than an average techie, and probably leaner than most people. 90kg can be 90kg at 15% fat, or 90kg at 20% fat, or 90kg at 30% fat. Those would be very different starting points.
- pedrosorio 4y ago
  > I'm also uncertain how 50kg is the weight of a normal person. (...) In this paragraph you seem to be interpreting "A normal person at 50kg" from the parent comment to mean "the average person, who weighs 50kg", when what they are saying is "a 50kg person who is neither too fit not too out of shape". A slim (but not extremely thin) 5'4" (1.62m) woman weighs around that much.
taylorius 4y ago
I'm 6'4" (192cm) and 120kg. I do Capoeira (which I would HIGHLY recommend for fitness, and general good times. It's a blend of martial arts kicks and acrobatic type moves - very dynamic, and visually spectacular). I'm developing my handstand, and strength-wise it's fine, my problem is the fear of falling over backwards. My practice space is hard wood floor, and I do NOT fancy crashing down like a falling tree. If I know the wall is there to catch me if I go over, I'm fine - so I probably need to try with a crash mat or something.
- tomcdonnell 4y ago
  To get over the fear of falling over backwards, you must learn to turn your tree trunk like fall into a collapse to a ball and then a forward roll. If you have a bit of muscle on your back and shoulders rolling even on a hard floor should not be too uncomfortable. (A crash mat is still a good idea though.)

quickthrower2 4y ago

I imagine for the typical HNer: Reasonably fit at school, let themselves go abit since working full time. Might go to the gym for strength (10% probability) or keep fit generally (30% probability), but very unlikey to do a lot of core work / yoga / gymnastic type exercises. Doing a plank for example would be difficult. This is my guess. If writing an article that says 0-30 then you have to assume worse that that - someone who has never run a mile.

Teever 4y ago
Why? Is there really anything fitness wise that a person who literally has never run a mile can do in 30 days? You might as well criticize this by saying that an 80 yo couldn't do this in in 30 days.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- johnamata 4y ago
  Learning to do pull-ups was for me. I bought a pull up bar around late February and I just did dead hangs randomly throughout the day, attempting to do chinups every time. I started with chinups as I found it easier than pullups. I did easily around 100 attempts a day and by the end of the month could do 10x5 pullups (neutral grip, i find it more natural), but the breaks from each set is like 3-5+ minutes. Today my routine is 20 sets of 12 pullups 3x a week, this time the breaks from each set is about 1 minute. I also started pushups around that time, and within a month I could do 10x10. Now my routine is 10 sets of 32 reps. I could max out more reps but my bottleneck is breathing: I would run out of air before my muscles fatigue, same with my pullups. Looking for advice on that but I think the biggest factor is either my breathing is wrong, or that because I dont do cardio.
  - manwe150 4y ago
    cardio capacity develops differently than strength and generally slower, but can be trained for directly too like you did for strength by frequently doing things that make you breathe hard and then pushing that limit depending on what you are doing now, you could also focus on continuous breathing so that you don’t hold your breath, which can be a normal reaction to doing something with power, but limits endurance

lemming 4y ago

Yet, I feel very confident I could do a handstand within 30 days of practice. So was I :-) If you're talking about a freestanding handstand, held for 15-20 seconds, then I would bet a beer that your confidence is misplaced. It's surprisingly hard, it requires a lot more strength than you'd think and the balance take a lot to learn. You don't have to take it from me, you can take it from Jeff Bezos's friend's handstand coach: https://www.inc.com/tommy-mello/in-a-recent-shareholder-letter-jeff-bezos-compared-running-a-business-to-doing-a-handstand-his-analogy-is-pretty-accurate.html https://www.inc.com/tommy-mello/in-a-recent-shareholder-lett...

2muchcoffeeman 4y ago
6 months for an adult is pretty good!
- lemming 4y ago
  Yes, I guess that was with daily practice and a coach. I’d say a year is probably more realistic for most people, or even more. It certainly took me longer than that.