Olympic Gymnast Laurie Hernandez Conquers New Handstand Challenge By Creating A Wide Circle With Her Legs
Laurie Hernandez amazed her fans by using her legs to create a wide circle while doing a handstand. On Tuesday, the 19-year-old Olympic gymnast took to Instagram to introduce her 1.5 million followers to a new social media challenge. Her physical feat was one that could only be accomplished by those with incredible strength, flexibility, and balance.
Laurie revealed that the inspiration behind her unique take on the viral handstand challenge was Brazilian gymnast Arthur Nory. He had filmed himself using his legs to create what he called a “Tik Tok Clock” for a video that he uploaded to Instagram and TikTok.
Laurie mimicked Arthur’s actions in her video, which showed her in a handstand position with her toes pointed. She was surrounded by a circle of numbers in different-colored squares. The top numeral was zero, and both sides of the “clock” were numbered from one to seven. A large eight marked the lowest point of the circle.
Like many TikTok challenges, Laurie’s video was set to music. In this case, it was a remix of the Daft Punk song “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger.” For her challenge, the athlete rocked a black T-shirt, gray sweatpants, and white ankle socks.
Laurie moved her legs along with the lyrics, “work it, make it, do it, makes us, harder, better, faster, stronger.” With each word or phrase, she changed her position. She first moved her legs into a series of V shapes, widening them until she was doing a full side split. The progression of poses got more difficult as she continued moving her legs into an upside-down V, keeping them perfectly straight as she did so. When she reached the 8 on her clock, her legs were together, and her body was in a jackknife position with her knees even with her chest. In one smooth motion, Laurie then performed the progression in reverse.
Laurie’s Instagram followers were absolutely floored by her demonstration of athletic skill. As of this writing, her post has racked up more than 90,000 likes and hundreds of comments.
“I can’t even hold a handstand. You are one cool human,” read one response to her video.
“MY MIND IS BLOWN,” wrote actress JoAnna Garcia Swisher.
Many of Laurie’s fans also responded to the question in her caption.
“Nope. No I can not. But I’m super happy enjoying my wine and watching you KILL IT!!!” wrote actress Gina Torres.
“I would try it but the ER is busy enough. They don’t need me as a patient right now,” another commenter quipped.
Laurie isn’t the only Olympic gymnast who has conquered a handstand challenge. As previously reported by The Inquisitr, four-time gold medalist Simone Biles astonished her fans by using her feet to remove her pants as she balanced on her hands.
