Handstand progression

The handstand ladder starts with a pike hold on a box, moves to a chest-to-wall handstand, and ends with a freestanding hold. Each step is a hold, and only the seconds your line is clean count towards its target.

Clean, from the side, means wrist, shoulder, hip and ankle stacked in one vertical line. A wall handstand held with the hips piked or the shoulders closed is time on your hands, not time in line, and the timer does not count it.

The steps

Each skill is a ladder of steps. Every step has a target — clean seconds for a hold, full-range reps for a set — and you move on when you hit it in one set.

1
Pike hold on a boxTarget: 30 clean seconds in one set.Hips stacked over shoulders, shoulders over wrists, arms by the ears.
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2
Chest-to-wall handstand, 30 sTarget: 30 clean seconds in one set.Wrist, shoulder, hip and ankle in one line. Push the floor away.
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3
Chest-to-wall handstand, 60 sTarget: 60 clean seconds in one set.The same line, held twice as long.
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4
Freestanding handstand, 10 sTarget: 10 clean seconds in one set.Off the wall. Only the seconds in line count.
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5
Freestanding handstand, 30 sTarget: 30 clean seconds in one set.Off the wall, in line, for 30 seconds.
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The targets are common coaching numbers, not a standard. The thresholds for “clean” are starting values, and they are written out on each page.

What counts as clean

Wrist, shoulder, hip and ankle in one vertical line.

Pike hold

Wrist–shoulder–hip straight: arms by the ears, shoulders open.
Hips stacked over the hands; lean off vertical counts at 0.5× a joint degree.
The line score starts at 100 and loses 1.25 points per degree the body is off the ideal shape; a second counts when the score is 75 or more — about 20° off in total.

Faults the camera names: “shoulders not fully open”, “hips not stacked over the hands”

Handstand (wall and freestanding)

Wrist–shoulder–hip straight (shoulders open) and shoulder–hip–ankle straight (hips in line).
The wrist-to-ankle line vertical; lean off vertical counts at 0.5× a joint degree.
The line score starts at 100 and loses 1.25 points per degree the body is off the ideal shape; a second counts when the score is 75 or more — about 20° off in total.

Faults the camera names: “shoulders not fully open”, “hips out of line”, “leaning off vertical”

A fault is named on screen once it costs 8° or more. Reps that fall short are named and not counted.

Setting up the phone

Stand the phone on its side two or three metres away, looking at you from the side, whole body in frame. The pose model runs in the browser; the video never leaves the phone.

What it cannot see

One camera sees one side. It cannot see a handstand drifting towards or away from it, or one arm doing less than the other.
It needs the whole body in frame and reasonable light. When it cannot see a joint, it stops counting rather than guess.
The thresholds — how straight is straight — are starting values from the geometry of each position, not yet tuned against many athletes. Expect them to change.

Check step 1 on camera All progressions

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