The One Arm Elbow Lever (aka Crocodile) is one of my favorite handbalancing skills.
It takes a lot of practice and patience to learn to balance in this position, but once you get the hang of it, you can have a lot of fun with this move.
In fact, it doesn’t require much more effort than the two-arm version once you get the feel for the balance.
Of course the first step toward learning a one arm elbow lever is to learn the standard two arm elbow lever.
Assuming you’ve got that taken care of, the next course of action is practicing a self-assisted version of the full one arm elbow lever by using your secondary arm to spot yourself.
As with the standard elbow lever, I recommend learning to do the one arm elbow lever on a bench or other elevated surface before trying it on the ground, as being elevated leaves more room for you to lift your legs into position.
Elbow Placement
The placement of the elbow for this exercise should be right by your hip – don’t go too close to your belly button, which is a common mistake. As such, you will need to lean your body ever so slightly toward your balancing hand in order to avoid tipping over in the opposite direction.
Additionally, when practicing on an elevated surface, you can experiment with wrapping your fingers around the side, or flat-palming it – one might come a bit easier to you, but both ways are ultimately worth practicing.
Once you have your elbow in place, tighten your abs and lift your legs. It’s best to start with your legs wide and knees bent in order to get a feel for the balance.
After both legs are in the air, you can begin to play with taking weight away from your assisting arm. I recommend going up on the fingertips to begin shifting more weight onto your primary hand. From there, you can slowly start taking fingers away.
Don’t be in a hurry to get to the full one arm elbow lever. Staying on one finger for a while can be a very helpful progression toward acquiring this skill.
Be My Lever
It will take a lot of practice, but eventually, you will be able to balance solely on one arm. Once you get the feel for this, you can try fully extending your legs and eventually bringing them together. Holding a one arm elbow lever with your legs closed makes the balance significantly more difficult.
After it’s no longer challenging to hold a one arm elbow lever on a bench, you can explore performing the move on the ground, or even on bars and other odd objects.
You can also try changing the angle of your body to make the move more challenging, such as rotating to a sideways position.
Watch the video below for more: