Aerial Exercise: Tips for Straddling-Up
Scully said, “I’m completely frustrated at my inability to get inverted from straddle back. Do you have any tips?”
Yes ma’am!
A straddle back or straddle-up as we call it, is when you flip upside down with your legs in a wide V. This can be one of the most challenging things when you’re starting to train as flipping both your legs over your head with even an ounce of grace takes a lot of ab strength.
It’s important condition the muscles you use to climb, flip, and drop while working through tricks. If you just try and invert over and over, you might get there, but working your abs on their own will make the process faster and help with other movement in the future.
Outside of doing crunches and parking it in boat pose for hours, one of the best ways to prep your abs for aerial is to practice the straddle without inverting.
Do a pull-up, raise your legs as high as possible in a V and lower down slowly. You can also do this in a swinging motion – stand between the silks, pull-up and with your legs together swing backwards and then up into V as high as you can. Repeat these moves in sets of 10.
Another way to work on your straddle-up is to have someone help you into position, rest in the straddle for 5-10 seconds, and then lower down as slowly as possible, legs wide.
Edit: As Lauren reminded me – work on your straddle-ups with bent arms, if your arms are straight you have a lot farther to go!
For conditioning at home I love P90X Ab Ripper X – it’s 15 minutes and over 300 core exercises. It’s as painful as it sounds, but it will build your ab strength FAST! (Here are some sexy dudes doing the workout on YouTube)
If you are able to hook one foot or even one toe you might be able to pull yourself into position, but remember, in the end you want to be straddling with straight legs. It’s easier to crunch into a ball to invert and then pop your legs out, but it’s a bad habit to get into!
Any other questions??
03.01.13 in aerial yoga, workin' out
I think V ups were really difficult at first, too. So you do trapeze and silks – what do you like more? Also – do you do other aerials, like lyra? What ones are your favorites?
Missy
Thanks so much for the suggestions. I work on this position multiple times a week and it is so frustrating. One of the things people coach me to do is immediatly straddle wide before I try to invert but then the silks are so high and tight across my back I can’t pull myself up enough to get my arms bend and arch over.
Do you think it is still safe/correct to lift, arch and then spread your legs as you go to bring the X to your lower back? I don’t want to develop bad habits but I also want to successfully get ass over tea kettle on my own power. Havin g my coach give my butt a boost is just depressing.
You’re welcome! When you’re straddling from an x-back think more about leaning back & pushing on the silks in front of you than swinging your legs up. Eventually you’ll find the point where you just tip backwards. (hope that makes sense!)
The x should slide to your lower back as you tip upside-down and into the pose.
Also, swinging your legs up when they have a dance wrap on is much easier than foot locks, so try it both ways.
I’ve gotten into the habit of getting up “froggy style”
It used to help me get up gracefully when I didn’t have enough strength. Now I have the strength and I still bend my heels to my butt first. I definitely consider it a bad habit now.
Also, it helps to keep your arms bent at first. Straight arm straddles are way more difficult than bent arms.
Yes! I knew I forgot something – straight arms makes it waaay more difficult.
Straddling is definitely my biggest struggle, as you know. Looks so easy, but is soooooooooooo hard. I need to do an ab workout at home since the gym has pretty much no good ab machines. It’s my least favorite body part to work out though, heh.