The question I answer today comes from a girl who generally doesn’t exercise. She placed a bet with a friend, saying she could learn a handstand by the end of August. From the time she sent me her question to the time the bet should be fulfilled, it would give her a timeframe of 4-5 months.

Generally if you practice on a consistent basis with a good program, it should take you less than a year to learn how to balance (considering you can already hold a handstand against a wall). Maybe not rock solidly under every circumstance, but you should be able to experience it.

But if you don’t even exercise, have little experience in movement and might even have postural deficiencies it’s another story. From the 7 years I’ve been a Personal Trainer there’s one thing that has gotten really clear to me while working with beginners in exercise:

Starting to create a habit of exercising on a consistent basis is super hard for most people who are starting out. So many people come up with different strategies. I’ve seen the “I’m gonna place a bet to make myself work” so many times. Heck, I did it myself before I got a coach and started working on handstands properly. But I’ve also watched people jump into something their bodies weren’t prepared for that did more damage than good. And as soon as the bet was over, the interest would fade anyway and things would get back to how they were. Only this time they had an injury to remember, giving them more reason not to work on what they wanted to achieve.

Where to start?

So in this episode I want to give you some thoughts on where to start if you don’t exercise and you’ve never really been upsidedown before. I’m all for setting clear goals, but they have to be realistic for your personal situation and highly actionable. As a very beginner this might mean to set the goal of joining a yoga class on Monday and Thursday at 7pm. Do it for a couple of weeks, then move ahead to the next step.

This is a topic I could share a lot of stories on. There’s a really good quote by Bill Gates that comes to my mind when I think about this topic: “Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years.”

Let me know your thoughts and questions!

The world is your playground, so just go ahead and do whatever you love!

–Soundschi

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