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The Bendy Blog: Flexibility Training Articles
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Bend Don’t Break: Neck Flexibility for Chin & Chest Stands
A common challenge students run into when wanting to start working on more advanced contortion backbends like chin and chest stands is a lack of neck flexibility and strength. These poses in particular are incredibly demanding on our neck, requiring not only a large amount of cervical extension (aka “arching/backbending through the neck”) to begin with, but also an incredible amount of strength in these muscles to keep the neck safe in these poses when you have a large portion of your bodyweight potentially smooshing down into your neck in a precariously arched position.
Example Chest Stand Training Progression
A chest stand is arguably the most iconic contortion pose, requiring extreme levels of back flexibility (from the neck, upper and lower back), as well as incredible core control. It’s no wonder so many students dream to be able to one day do a chest stand! In this post we’ll take a peek into what a skill progression might look like on your journey to this magical trick.
Trouble Breathing in a Chest Stand? Elevate Yo’ Shoulders!
Having trouble breathing in a chest stand? Is your neck upper back flexibility holding you back? Most people need to spend a lot of time training upper back (thoracic) flexibility as well as neck flexibility to get a nice round curve in a chest stand (and to be able to safely hold that pose without dumping too much pressure into the neck). But in a pinch you can use props to help adjust and progress!