 We've done our handstand, we did a certain amount of prep to try and make sure that we create the right movement, we've then done an awful lot of stuff around learning how to actually control our body whilst upside down, then that last bit being about strength, trying to be strong getting into this position. The human flag is we're taking that same movement so we shouldn't, we're going straight into it so we shouldn't necessarily prep out and move out. If you were doing a standalone human flag session, you would probably do something to work on this overhead mobility, overhead range of motion that you've got the same as you would do for your handstand. Job we've got to do is then be strong but not upside down, we're going to take ourselves out horizontally. So three main things we're going to work on, we'll break it down and we'll build it back up. When we first wanted to try and learn the human flag, I think I originally thought it was Photoshopped when I'd seen it done. Tim with his dislocated shoulder use, the first time I did it he put his arm down and he went, mate that's the place I used to dislocate my shoulder in. Now I didn't know, we'd not even been knowing each other that long, I'd come from my rugby background of literally make shut up, crack on, let's just have a go at it. If I'd have known the chances of him dislocating his shoulder in that overhead position, I'd have just gone, well let's not do that, like that's going to be, you know how bad things happen, because that's going to affect everything we're going to do, just like work wise and whatnot. But luckily I had a stupid rugby mentality still because I only just finished playing rugby and we did it and alongside the work with handstand improving, as I said, overhead shoulder stability and strength you can produce, you need that same quality of shoulder stability, particularly that bottom arm that's going to act as an anchor, it's going to be anchoring down and you're pushing away, just like when we're upside down the handstand and we're pushing the floor away to make ourselves nice and long, it's that same push away there. The top arm is cranking down, so we're going through some active hang positions, but the job is to try and pull that shoulder blade down and connect it in towards the hip on that top side, and that's the third portion, the final part, getting that hip then to connect upwards, if the hip can connect up and pull up, that lateral trunk strength to pull ourselves up, that's what keeps you out horizontal, so push, pull, hip driving up, as long as your legs stay connected to your hips, which they should do, then you're going to get yourself out horizontal, it's just then we've got to get into good shape, so the flexibility to get into this position through, if I can't open this bottom shoulder up, because we're tight, just like in a handstand, I'm not going to be able to create this shape, I need that good position to be my stable foundation, and then I've got to then just crank in some strength, really strong pushing, really strong pulling, connecting the hip on that top side, so if I can put those things together, I've got a clap! The world records one minute and six seconds by this massive, no, tiny little Japanese dude. So when we were trying to learn, we went, okay, how do we do that? Go on YouTube. How's the human flag? There was a guy like, literally, gave his phone to his missing guy, film this, we've got a tutorial, human flag. Ready? Just did one, and we went, okay, well, now I know that you can do one, but you haven't shown, I haven't explained it at all to us. So one thing we've, that's not necessarily talked about an awful lot so far this weekend is, background before we did any kind of things at all was, Tim had been doing five years of SNC in the Paralympic sport, I joined that coaching team with him, and then when we're training Paralympic athletes, you can't just do squat, bench, deadlift, or, you know, if we've got a sprinter, we should be doing deadlift, we should be doing power cleans, or the textbook would say, and we should be doing squats, but when someone's got, you know, through the amputee, you can't do those things. So we have to change the training environment to suit them to get the same result. So we were used to problem solving. So what we ended up, we went, okay, well, what do you need to do in a flag? Problem solved it. If we're going like, right, we need these three things, when then it starts to go, where am I weak in those things and build then exercises to match those things, work on them separately to build up the strength of those three components, we need to do something to give us the chance to feel that movement pattern. So connecting those three together, and then we've got to spend some time getting strong in those shapes. So the same sort of process, but just a different, different position. The nice thing about it linking from the handstand is, it is a handstand shape. It's just different components in terms of strength. Yeah. So one of the first, we've done quite, you know, some of the stuff we were doing in the warmups on the floor, we were going on one side and coming out. Some of that's quite nice, because we're opening the shoulder up and getting used to being on one arm. That's starting to get you used to this shape, where we're externally rotated. So arm opened up, it gives us the chance to get then a really nice position. And we want the head of that human is driving in to the body. So we've been doing a little bit of that already. So we'll, I'll show you one of the thing on the floor. But the thing we haven't touched on yet, because we haven't done any necessarily pulling is the difference between a dead hang where I'm just resting completely slack and active. So rather than my ears being by my shoulders, I used to get bullied at school for having big ears. So my job is to try and show you them but I'm still a bit sensitive about it. I'm trying to drive my shoulder blades down to raise me up. Nothing coming from the elbow or just coming from the shoulder blade. So like mid lower traps to drive those down. My job on the human flag is I must be able to do that and then let go gradually if I can and be able to hold on that one side and create still creating tension. If I lose that and slump internal rotators, those pecs and lats tight will wind me inwards. My job is to pull and set. Yeah. So I'm creating torque that external rotation that's hard to do and find it's all those tight internal days and driving, keeping that down. That's that's pulling that shoulder blade down into a nice position that I'm then able to create force from. And that's straight arm pulling strength. So that's the active hang for the push. The sorry for the for the pull on that top side, the bottom, the bottom arm, we're going to get into just something like really specific for this flag serve. So we've done some of those pulling patterns where we've moved and we've explored some of this. So it's not too alien, but we're just going to position the arm into that open position. So twists of the fingers are pointing a little bit more backwards. Your job then is making again that we're not slumping. So that same principles are going to apply. Push yourself away and then I want that bottom arm to create more of an angle position that the arms are in any human flag. So any human flag, you make more like a triangle with the hands. So rather than being a sort of side plank, I'm going to slide myself away and then I'm going to try and push up and lift myself away. If I want to, I can go and get used to driving out of that position. So coming down, driving through and away. Want to make it harder? From a spelling point of view, put both feet on top of each other, come down, open up, drive away. So can you repeat what's the difference between this and side plank? So in the side plank, you're going to have that arm vertical. So here I'm driving away. So I'm coming at an angle and then my job is I've got to get used to it rather than being closed, opening that chest up. It exposes you nice and strong and tight in here. That's an exposed position but that's where we need to be strong. If you can't open this bottom arm, if I stay here, chest facing towards sort of the bar on the floor and I can't open that up and I'm not stable in that position, it's not going to be a strong and confused push down. That push and that pull are two opposite forces. Two opposite forces create torque. Talk is what leverages those hips up. Yeah, just want to show that one. If you want to create a little bit of extra overload, we can put the weight, you got it? So kettlebell on the back of the wrist. One thing I really like about this exercise is you can see the reflexive shoulder stability. So we talk about control around the joint. Jack is having to work hard to control the shoulder or the humeral head inside the socket on the fossa and the scapula, sorry. So nice little progression. You can play around with it but it's just not only is it good for our human flag practice but it's also good for just creating really stable shoulders because we're getting some exposure to instability. It's nice that it reflects the drill. This one actually was side plank though, right? I was trying to. So I'm trying to slide myself more and more and more. Away, away, away, away. Yeah? Your arm isn't vertical like we do human flag. I'm making a triangle. Does that make sense? I'm not vertical. The point of this exercise is that if they fall into our movement preparation or pattern, sorry, so they're starting to create the skill component of what shape do I need to be into and then you can start to think about how much force you're going to produce in that shape but you need to create that position to begin with. Okay, is that okay by the side? So single arm hangs, acts like it's a bit of tea push at work. Still make sure we train both sides of everything even when one feels better than the other like your and Jim's quite asked a great question of which if I've got a strongest arm, which one should I have it at the bottom or at the top and the reality is for you to hold yourself out horizontally the torque that raises you up needs to be two equal forces but it just needs to be equally very, very, very, very high so it doesn't you might feel better with it on one than the other but it's not to say you should put your strongest if I'm right-handed that you should have your right hand at the bottom or the right hand at the top it's just going to it's going to depend on various factors that are related to you and your sort of strength but just the main thing the main takeaway is make sure you train both sides equally you don't want to get an imbalance yeah even though one stable shoulder is probably going to feel more comfortable on the bottom my left shoulder is arguably the what is ironically the one I've had surgery on but that's my preferred bottom on my right shoulder because I never did as much rehab on it is the one I can flag on it but I don't like it as much but if I don't train it I'm just causing massive problems so and also when you're on holiday you want to take a photo you don't know which side you're going to need so it's good to have both that's the real reason like these are the important problems that we have to face my my best side is right end at the top which is good because the bar over here and I was like you all stood there I've got to do it this way but it's good it's good to it's good to make yourself do what you don't want to do right so we need to then look at connecting that hip so we've done bottom arm pushing top arm pulling in a relatively safe easy environment that we're not too stressed about some of the the stability and balance in that single arm position on the floor was difficult for some of us potentially but it's not too not too sort of super hard my job is might come around so you can see it come around the the front a little bit whether you're whether you're doing this with a pure single arm position I want you to try and raise not raise your feet I want you to pull your hip to that active hang on that side and feel that your hip is what's going to raise your leg up it might be that you need to do that with one or two fingers on the other side as you're just building up but just focus gives you the chance to feel that shape and the idea that you can raise your legs by what you do at your hip and until you get that connection between that shoulder setting or pulling into a good position that you can create force from you get to pull up from there if this is slack on the top you've got nothing to pull towards the same way if you do it like from trying to do like a toast bar if my shoulders are in a dead position that's as high as I can get my legs when I set the shoulders boom I've got something to pull against yeah it's like when you run on sand it's super hard because you haven't got anything stable to push against let's have a quick go that and then we'll bring it together this is difficult because everyone sees you on a stability ball and goes well that must be easy because you're lying on a three ball but the ball moves about so it might be when you get your partner to start with or me or Tim to come and just steady the ball a little bit for you when you're setting up but they can eventually let go of you but the fact that it moves around gives you a little bit of a stability challenge but the main thing is it's going to support our center of mass so that we can feel the whole thing so remember the three things bottom arm pushing in a nice open position so he's not closed down chest to the point to the floor he's pushing that through handstand shape yeah top arm pulling actively so active hang but we've just done shoulder blade pulling down and then he's going to try and connect the hip up to that so he's got push pull and when he raises the hip up more more more we get pulling here then the legs start to raise up so we're going to feel this section here so let the feet go down lose that bit and then pull the back up yeah he's not raising the feet he's raising the hip to that top arm pull yeah that gives you a chance to feel those three things in action yeah you're going to feel an awful lot through that top side on this exercise unless so through the bottom that gives you a chance to feel the whole thing the other another second one i'm going to show you to do and you can have a play at both of these is um on here angle flag again just come forward a little bit so you can see a bit more comfortably um trying to be out fully horizontal is the most difficult in terms of fighting gravity if i'm at an angle so 45 degrees there's less of me up fully away from that pivot point so i'm just reducing that distance there so it's a little bit easier at 45 degrees i can create that angle by taking my top hand rather than being on the vertical pole on the just a little bit further away the closer that top arm is to hear the more chance i have if i'm strong enough to pull myself all the way up but my job then is to put these three things into action so chest not facing the bar chest opened up so even just getting used to that pushing away and getting feeling that bottom arm position see how that's the same as that t-push up but i'm just hanging from the bar once i'm in there pushing hard away top arm then pulls in see that action and then hip pulling up but what i want us all to do is make the uh strength easier by shortening that leave length so you're in here you open up make it easier by pulling those levers in these to the needs to chest which can top arm pull and then hips up and this is the biggest part i want you to get to you get to hear but now we're going to get those hips up to that action there that's the missing link for most of us once we've got the push and the pull we don't really do anything in the gym where we work that lateral trunk strength in a maximal sort of strength isometric position like that yep have i got those two things one of the one of the things that's really important is that i can get this hip super high no point in me hanging out here when i need to be getting somewhere up there so so the job is can i create how do i progressively build this up once i've done that angle flag position let me finish my birthday last week so a couple of things i can do to progressively change this i've got two options always making sure you're getting that hip super high nice and high is one i can move my hand closer to the upright close i get to the upright i can then probably get that close to horizontal so that's one way to get myself in there the other thing is then changing my lever lengths so i can go into say like a single leg position or i can go from that real tuck position to straightening them out gradually but as you can see there's no point in me straighten them straightening them straightening them if that hip just keeps dropping further and further down you're going to build up way more specific strength training the position you want to be in which is cranking that hip nice and high up so that's ways you can scale those um we what we're we're talkers like as a as a general sort of arbitrary number of like a minimum of five seconds of trying to when we're trying to do a nice symmetric just so we're getting enough time and attention to be able to create an adaptation that we want if we just come into a position where we just sort of kick up and i go they go to 10 sets of point one of a second i've got one second of tension there's a pretty crappy position it's not really going to give me the strength adaptation over the number of weeks that i want um but saying that the some of us they need to look at how do i get into um into a position where i start to use this full vertical bar so to start with what we call like a vertical flag can you just create this shape where you're not holding the top bar and just angle yeah next up can actually get up into that tuck position and then you want to be able to hold hold that tuck in the same way we were doing that and then progressively build out your lever length so having one leg straight one leg bent and you can move what's nice when you have that position like the top uh knee on top that then lets you progressively change that position so you actually know right last week i had my heel on my knee now i've moved a little bit further you can progressively change that um and then was the last question about coming down yeah flamie was just asking about she said we don't we don't do a lot she doesn't see us doing a lot of lowers so some people kick up high and lower jacos on a bit of that i don't i don't like it because of the position it puts my shoulder i don't want all my weight in that position which i used to think was going to be a big problem for me so i i generally avoid it and just pull into it but um it is an option to go up and then stack your body weight over the base support which doesn't require a lot of strength it's just an unusual position and then just lower down you can ramp the force there as you come down closer to the horizontal so we can use we can use um whether you're tucked or whether your single leg or even you can straddle before you go for the full thing um in that same in that say use those progressions in that same medium what um what shout out the question about he's always he said he was done learned it by lowering down the um what we want to make sure that we do have is we want we want to have strength not just in one portion as soon as i say something we don't want to have strength just from the top down to halfway we want to have strength through the full range of motion that we're trying to work through so even when you're lowering down controlling that lower um but as tim said i haven't done this for a while but once you're into there you're stacking yourself on that on that um bottom arm you can hold there for quite a while that lowering down slowly but even when you lower down to your you hold but even controlling that last portion rather than just falling down like the idea of having strength all the way through much much better yeah but you can lower you can certainly lower down what's difficult people is getting up into that top position for a lot of the time you can use it like eccentrics can be used but you don't have to yeah it's not a necessity so i would say the last portion now is to play around with some of those positions get some coaching from me and and get to a point where you feel that you are be able to create a good amount of tension in a good position that you found where that level is and no way you want to go to next yeah the flag we talk about it's like jackie tells me obviously it's easy it's not that complicated you get to a point where you find that where your level is and it's just a matter of building strength in that position and you've got to put your time on task same as anything you've got to earn that right to progress to the next one by just building that strength and chipping away at progressing through to to ultimately be able to extend that lever position out