- What's up guys? It's Chris Heria.
Welcome to another vlog.
Today I'm hanging out with my friend, Mel G fit.
Say what's up to the vlog, Mel.
- What's up everyone?
- Today. We're gonna be doing some handstands.
I'm gonna be running Mel through handstand progressions.
And hopefully by the end of the session,
we'll be doing some handstands.
- Let's do it. I'm ready.
- Now, every progression that we're gonna be going
through today, normally it takes a significant amount
of time to train every single one,
but we're just gonna run through them all
in a couple minutes, see how far you get.
- Let's do it, let's do it.
I'm ready. I'm excited.
- So we're already warmed up and ready to go.
Now I would normally have you start off
with the first progression, but I know you're pretty tough.
We're gonna start you off with the second progression.
All right? So that's gonna be an Elevated Pike Hold.
This is gonna build your strength to be able to hold
a handstand position and get you over the fear
of actually being in a handstand position.
All right? - Cool.
- So put your feet on an elevated surface.
Get into a push-up position.
Walk up until your glutes are pointed up
and you're in a pike just like this.
So you see a large portion of my body weight is on top
of my shoulders.
Let's see you hold it for like 15 seconds.
- Okay. - Start in a push up position
and you walk up, keeping your legs straight.
Glutes up. There you go.
Just hold it.
- Woo. - Woo. You got that.
Normally when you're first getting started,
you would train just this move for a time,
eventually building your strength up to be able
to hold this comfortably for at least 30 seconds.
All right. You're good.
- Woo, yeah. - How'd that feel?
- Amazing. - It's not that hard.
Yeah, it's really not that hard.
A lot of people will think that when they see
the handstand, they're like, oh, that's impossible.
- Yeah. - So you're ready to move
onto the next step, that's pretty easy right?
Now before we move on,
I know we've been friends for a while,
but this is the first time you've been on my vlog.
So how about you tell everybody,
how did you even get into fitness?
What's that story?
- [Mel] So I ran track, right,
for years and I fell into like fitness
and bodybuilding and weightlifting because I stopped track.
So I felt the same exact rush
doing weight training that I found in track,
so I feel free when I work out.
And that's why I fell in love with the process.
- The next step would be either going up into a wall walk,
just walking up like this and walking all the way up
into a handstand.
We're gonna skip this one and we're gonna go straight
into the handstand Kick-up.
So if you couldn't do a handstand kick-up,
you develop that strength by doing wall walks
up and down the wall, but I think you got this.
So let me show you what a handstand Kick-up looks like.
Put your hands shoulder width apart.
You wanna look directly in the middle of your hands,
but just above them.
Yeah, your eyes and your hands to make a triangle, right?
Your fingertips line up with your shoulder tip
and then one foot swings and the other foot kicks.
And you wanna give enough energy so that when you reach,
you don't slam against the wall.
- Mmm. - Okay?
- Got it. - Let's see what you got.
What?
This girl's a pro. Hold that, hold that, relax.
Breathe. You're gonna hold it for like 10 more seconds.
When you're ready to come down,
you bring one leg down first.
No matter what, don't bend your arms.
All right, you're good. You can come down.
Nice and controlled. What?
- That was awesome.
- You killed that. - That was a vibe.
- That's so sick.
A lot of people have trouble even just-
- [Mel] Really?
- [Chris] kickin' up for the first time like that, but-
- [Mel] It's like I feel free up there.
- [Chris] But you're a track star, girl. You're killin' it.
- Damn right. I'm not like you, yet.
- All right.
So the next one, it's gonna get a little tough now, okay?
So once you can handstand kick-up comfortably
normally people would train
this for a while until like they master it,
but we're just running through it.
The next step would be to kick up into the handstand
and then just use your fingers to press.
You see, it's kind of like you're pressing
on a keyboard or like you're grabbing a ball.
Something like that.
You wanna press with your fingertips until your feet
just pry off the wall and then you come back down.
So I'm gonna show you what it looks like, okay?
And remember, every time you kick up into the wall,
you wanna just arrive to the wall versus kicking off
so hard and just slamming- - So like come very gently?
- Right, 'cause that's gonna come in handy
'cause eventually we're gonna not use the wall.
And when you're not using the wall,
you don't wanna like fly past the straight position.
You wanna always land in like that straight position
or practice landing in that straight position.
So when you come up, try to arrive nice and slow.
Now from this position,
you wanna be as long and straight as possible.
You see how I'm pushing my scapulas down,
pointing my toes.
We're gonna keep our ankles tight, tight together,
press with your fingertips.
You see when I press, my feet come off the wall?
- Yeah.
- I'm not kicking off the wall, I'm just pressing.
So I'm gonna press hard enough so that my feet come
off the wall and eventually come down.
- And I stay as long as I can there?
- No, you just wanna get up into position and then
just start pressing until your feet pry off the wall
and then come down.
Boom, there you go. And you just press your fingers.
Yeah, that's it. Keep going a little more.
There you go.
There, right there now press until you come down. Boom.
Excellent.
Now next time you try it again,
after you come with two feet and you're off the wall
and you feel like your body's coming down, let one leg go.
- That's what I felt like I should have done.
- Yeah. Boom, there you go.
So now just press feet, tight together.
As straight as you can and press your fingertips
how you did before.
There you go. Keep pressing, now.
Keep pressing. Boom, there you go.
For those of you that are meeting Mel for the first time,
Mel has a pretty big following on IG.
You have like over half a million followers.
How did you get your social media following,
and how did that start?
- [Mel] How it kind of all started I think
just being passionate with my craft and what I was doing,
I was creating content with no intention,
just kind of doing it and having fun.
And I think that makes all the difference.
I think you can agree with that,
like creating stuff, having fun.
And people feel that energy,
some of the stuff picked up on other fitness pages
and it just started to grow,
and I was really consistent with it.
People never expected a girl like me to be like killing
it in the gym, I guess, pulling heavy weight,
doing crazy routines.
And they were like, wait, what is this going on?
- [Chris] That's impressive for sure.
- Right?
And like, all the muscles were popping out I was
a little leaner then.
And then it started to grow once I started being able
to impact someone else's life.
So like helping them with an idea or helping them
with a routine or even just like a program, right?
- For sure, every time I sign on on IG, and I mean,
I see the little stories,
I always see Mel's stories and like,
they are just like loaded with transformation pictures,
all the progress pictures of all the people
that are following you and doing your workout routines
and stuff like that.
It's really amazing, it's really inspiring.
So the next step is gonna be the exact same thing,
except that once you've been pressing and you get
to about here, where are you gonna feel stacked,
and I'm sure that you've probably felt it at this point,
where you feel like there's like an equilibrium moment.
- [Mel] Right.
- Where you're weightless almost for a second, right?
- Yeah second, right.
- So that moment you wanna kind of like capture
that moment and stay there as long as possible.
So, what we're gonna do is we're gonna push
until you feel like you're in that moment and then
when you are, you're gonna release the pressure.
So the best way to balance that is to always have
a little bit of weight.
Like your body wants to go this way.
And you're counterbalancing that weight by pressing
a little bit with your fingertips to fight
you from falling down, to push you a little bit this way.
So if you push too hard, you might end up going this way,
but that's why you release.
So it comes back and then press, release,
press, press like that.
Okay so that's what we're gonna be doing with this step.
So I'll show you what it looks like. So kick up.
Handstand.
You're gonna press until you get off the wall
and then look at my hands and see what I off
I press then release press, release.
Press, release.
- I guess that's when it gets into a balance.
- Yup. So that's what we're gonna practice.
Let's try to hold that equilibrium point for about like
a good five seconds for the first time.
Don't feel bad to touch the wall.
'Cause you can touch the wall and then
just bounce right off.
- Back from it, yeah. - Yeah.
Even if you're tapping it at the very beginning,
that's actually really good.
You can just start tapping it and eventually you'll
just like not touch it.
So touching is fine too. Yeah.
Boom, there you go. So press right here.
You're gonna pulse.
So press and release, press and release, feet together.
Tight press and release. Boom.
There you go.
Release. Release it completely.
There you go. Press.
There you go. That was awesome.
Let's go for one more then we're ready
for the last progression.
Man, you are flying through this, Mel.
- Let's do it. - Let's go.
People normally take a couple of weeks to get as far-
- Really? - As you are right now.
Yeah.
- Well I have a good coach, you know.
- Let's get it. We're gonna get this in a couple of hours.
- Boom. There you go.
So press, release, release, now press and release.
Now pulse it right there.
Release, press release, release, release, release,
hard press, release, release hard.
There you go. Killing it.
That was a really good one. Excellent.
And the more you do that,
eventually you're gonna be able to hold
that or just play with that longer and longer.
- [Mel] And I think focusing on the hands are so important.
- It's all in the hands for sure. Yep 100%.
And of course the more you do this,
you're gonna be able to hold it.
It's gonna be a lot more comfortable.
And for the first day it always feels brand new,
but eventually this is gonna be like an unconscious
thing that you're gonna do the more you do it
like tying your shoes.
- [Mel] I definitely felt... (indistinct)
- I know you got a lot of things going on.
You're training, like, so many clients, hundreds of clients,
'cause I've seen them.
Why don't you tell us a little bit about Fit-Esteem.
- [Mel] Fit-Esteem is like fitness meets mindset really.
So like really empower women because I think you can
agree with this, that like moving anything,
your mental has to be there to get the physical.
You gotta be like in a mental state of mine of like,
I'm gonna do this.
I'm gonna go after it.
So that is kind of like where I do my coaching, right?
Mentorship with mindset, coaching with the fitness.
- I love how you combine fitness and the mental
aspect of it.
Because a lot of times you can have the whole game plan,
but if you're just not mentally there to see it through,
you won't see the results that you really want.
- It's really insane that you say that,
because it's literally first mental before physical.
- For sure.
And a lot of people actually, they'll try to make up
any other excuse before they come to terms
with themselves where it's you, and it's your mental state
and you're not taking this seriously or you're not
doing what you really are supposed to be doing.
You know? - Exactly.
- So that is like a foolproof plan.
And maybe that's why you have
so many amazing transformations.
And so many women following your programs.
I think we're ready to move on to the final progression.
Of course, if we had more time,
I would love for you to work more on this.
But just for the sake of you moving on and learning
the last progression, continue to train
this and eventually get it on your own.
Let's go for the last progression. You ready?
- Let's do it.
- We're gonna not use the wall at all and then learn
how to dismount.
It's gonna be a lot of lower body that you're gonna
have to balance up there.
Are you ready for this?
- Oh, can't wait. (laughs) Okay.
So this is what we're gonna do.
So when you dismount,
it's kind of almost like doing a half
cartwheel from my handstand.
If you really don't know what side you're comfortable with,
you can just kind of like pretend to kick up and then
go down to one side.
If that feels comfortable, pretend to kick up,
come the other side, it's like, all right,
I like the left side.
So I'll go with that. So you kick up.
When you're ready to come down, as you start to come down,
you put one leg to the side,
you twist the hips and you can also replace that hand.
You don't have to do it for the first time,
but it'll start to become like an automatic thing.
But the main thing is just to whatever side you wanna
go down on, you twist the hips to that side.
You bring one leg down first, like a sideways cartwheel.
- All right. - You think you got that?
- I think I wanna go to the left.
- All right. So I'll be on this side then.
Let's see first attempt.
I'm gonna hold your handstand so don't worry.
We're gonna take this nice and slow. Just gotta trust me.
You got this. You trusts me right?
- Yes. I trust you.
- Okay. (laughs) - Okay.
- Here we go.
Boom. Excellent.
So hold that nice and straight.
When you're ready to come,
you turn to the side and you bring that foot down.
Exactly. What?
You freaking killed that.
- [Mel] Oh my god, I felt like I was floating,
the momentum was so slow.
- So we're gonna try this one more time. You ready?
- I got it, yeah. (soft electronic music)
- So bring your hips back more like this. There you go.
Nope, exactly. Right there.
Now, when you're ready to come down,
you can bring that foot down to the side.
So from here, bringing that down, and then you twist.
And then that's it. You killed it.
I think you got one more.
- Yeah. One more. - All right? Let's do it.
- [Mel] I feel like the first ones were better.
- I'm gonna show you something too,
so when you're doing this handstand
and this is totally normal, especially when you're trying
learning handstand against the wall.
If you don't do wall walks too,
and you just practice just handstand kickups,
naturally that position is gonna put your body in like
an arched position.
Just because your hands are here and your feet are
against the wall.
So it's not a straight position. So try this real quick.
Just try to go like that and just arms
straight, feet straight.
Don't touch wall yet. It might be hard for you. (laughs)
But from this position it's like, wait,
there's no range of motion here.
Just push your hips back until your glutes
stretch the wall.
Keeping your legs straight and your body straight too.
So from there, it's back. Cool, exactly.
Just like that.
So you see how your hips just move back a little
bit like that?
Now when you're doing that, your feet are on the ground.
But when you're up in the air,
your feet might need to compensate a little bit like that.
You see? So they come a little for it.
'Cause if not, if you push your hips back,
your feet will go back to just get more hunched.
So that's the move.
Once you're the handstand position,
just go boom, like that.
You're gonna feel like automatically gonna straighten
out and it's gonna be way easier to hold.
All right, let's try it.
- Let's get one last one. I know you got this.
Here we go, Mel.
Kick up, now hold it.
Now I'm holding you now, put the hips, yes. That's perfect.
No, the other way. There you go.
Now from here, press and release. There you go.
Now when you're ready, dismount with one leg,
go to the side.
And that dismount was fricking awesome. You killed it today.
Appreciate you so much. There you have it guys.
As you can see, the handstand's really not that hard,
Mel just tried to learn it for the first time-
- First time.
- She ran through all the progressions in a couple
of minutes, which is pretty impressive.
And of course, I want you to train these on your own
in a couple of days and we're gonna see where you're at.
- Definitely. You were great so...
- Appreciate it. Thank you guys so much for watching.
If you haven't checked out Mel already,
check out Mel, on Instagram.
It's Mel G fit as well on all other platforms.
If you enjoy the video,
then definitely smash that like button,
leave a comment down below and let me know
what you would like me and Mel to do next.
And we'll see you in the next video.
Mad love, peace out.
(soft electronic music)