The Beginner's Guide to Holding a Handstand
Learning to hold a handstand is a challenging skill that can take many months or even years to develop. While there is certainly a time and place for handstand walking or kicking up against a wall, neither is particular transferrable to holding a strong freestanding handstand. Instead, it’s necessary to work on specific drills that cultivate a hollow body line and balance, both together and separately. It’s also worth noting that having enough mobility in the shoulders, back, wrists, and hips is important for the strength and efficiency of your handstand (otherwise you’ll be struggling against internal resistance). The guide below outlines everything you need to know to begin your journey to holding a handstand.
First, ensure you have the prerequisite mobility to perform a handstand.
Before performing a handstand, you should be able to achieve the following without pain:
Active wrist extension to 90 degrees or more.
Active shoulder flexion to 180 degrees or more.
Protraction and retraction of your shoulder blades.
Active flexion and extension of your thoracic spine.
Flexion and extension of your lumbar spine.
Flexion and extension of your cervical spine.
Active hip flexion to hip level or higher.
If you do not have the prerequisite mobility outlined above, check out my Overhead Mobility Program or my Pike Mobility Program.
Second, know how to align your body for a stronger line and better balance.
Utilizing the hollow body position in handstand allows you to stack your joints, which makes the handstand feel lighter and will make it easier to develop more advanced skills later on. Be sure to pay attention to the following elements of alignment:
Use “spider grip”, meaning the top of your palm is pushing down into the floor and your fingers are gripping the floor. The middle of the fingers are lifted up off the floor, making your hand look like a spider with the fingers as legs. This grip allows you to use your fingers to balance and stay up in handstand longer.
Rotate elbow pits forward and fully lock the elbows; this helps the joints stack, which makes for an easier handstand.
Keep shoulders open (180 degrees of flexion) and elevated (think of shoulders shrugging up toward the ears) to maintain better tension throughout the body.
Pull ribcage in while maintaining open shoulders to engage the core and align the body.
Tuck the pelvis under (posterior pelvic tilt) so the lower back is flat and the hips stack directly over the shoulders.
Next, practice failing out of handstand so you can eliminate fear.
Fear can be a huge factor that limits your progress when it comes to handstand training. If you’re afraid of falling over onto your back, your brain might not let you kick up far enough to stack your joints, or you may give up on doing a handstand altogether. In order to combat this fear, learn how to fail safely. Failing is as simple as doing a cartwheel, or pivoting and planting your leg. Feel free to use a mat or other soft surface when you first practice failing, that way there is little to no risk of injury.
Develop strength and accuracy of the hollow body line.
Wall facing holds (as opposed to facing away from the wall, which is what most people do) will build your shoulder strength and endurance in the hollow body position. The wall is there so you don’t need to worry about the balance element, and to give you feedback on whether you are holding the correct alignment. Be sure to think about the alignment elements outlined previously: hips stack over the shoulders, which stack over the wrists. Utilize “spider grip” and spot your thumbs with your eyes.
The accuracy of your hollow body line is developed by doing kick ups and/or tuck ups. These drills help you practice entering the handstand, and finding alignment as quickly as possible. The goal is not to hold your handstand at the top, rather, to improve accuracy until you start finding balance “accidentally”. These drills can be done against a wall initially, but should be taken away from the wall eventually (if you’re comfortable with your failure drills, that should be no problem). When performing the tuck up, make sure you begin with your shoulders slightly behind your wrists as shown in the video below.
Find your balance.
Ideally, one should balance their handstand in the hollow body position. However, if you try to hold your hollow body position when you haven’t found your balance yet, you will likely have a harder time finding balance and keep falling over. My advice is not to worry about having a hollow body line when you’re initially trying to balance - you can adjust it later. Instead, think of balancing as a separate practice from line work, and focus on balancing any way that you can, whether that’s by adjusting your leg, shoulder, hip, or ribcage position. Once you can hold your handstand for 20-30 seconds, you can make adjustments to get into the hollow body position, and use only your fingertips for balance.
Balance practice should be done away from a wall, with plenty of space around so you can fail out safely. An important note that will help you progress faster is to choose an easier handstand variation to focus on than the full version with legs together. The full version is the hardest to balance, with much less room for error. If you increase balance time and confidence with another variation, you will likely progress to the full expression more quickly. Any of the shapes shown in the image below are a great place to start!
From top to bottom and left to right: diamond, straddle, stag, split leg, tuck.
Practice as often as you can recover from.
Consistency of your handstand practice is important; your body becomes good at what you do frequently, even if it’s just five minutes a day. That being said, pay attention to your body’s signals and give yourself more recovery time if you experience pain or soreness, especially in the wrists and shoulders. Most importantly… have fun! While it will take time and effort to become proficient at handstands, once you are competent the practice is so much fun you will never want to stop.
As someone who practiced on her own for months before seeking coaching, I completely understand how frustrating the process of learning to handstand can be, and I am here to help you! If you hit a plateau or need help with developing a routine, consider purchasing my Handstand Assessment, where I help make adjustments to your handstand technique and create a personalized program for you.