Over the years I’ve begun to get over my fear of being upside down, and now I practice handstands often. I still use the security of the wall, but just inverting in the first place was a big step. A lot of my progress was thanks to reading articles here on Breaking Muscle.

So, here are my favorite tips from the archives that explain some steps you can take to get upside down.

Step One: Acknowledge Your Fear

Willow Ryan’s piece, Dear Willow: I Am Afraid of Handstands – Help! was one of the first articles I read that convinced me to start working on inversions. I liked it because Willow didn’t try to convince the reader there’s nothing to be afraid of. Instead, she focused on working through your fear and taking small steps. As she explained:

Any way or attempt is better than being frozen in a pose. Create different thoughts around your sticking spot. The only way out of a ditch is to use your bean, grab some tools, and get to work. Think one foot in front of the other and move incrementally when the fears are the loudest. You can tread slowly and gently in this time while you adapt to new sensations or actions as your fears present themselves.

If you’re afraid of being upside down, that’s okay. Do little things like hanging out in downward facing dog or even over the side of your bed. These small steps will help you get used to the feeling of being inverted. And don’t forget to breathe. Not only will breathing keep you in control of your fear, but it will also create space and extension while you’re upside down.

Step Two: Practice Arm Balances

Practicing arm balances regularly was something I only discovered recently. Do them every day to build arm and upper-body strength while also challenging your balance – without the added trick of having your feet over your head.

This isn’t an original thought. Coach Max Shank demonstrated how you can use frogstand to build up to a handstand in 2 Ways to Bulletproof the Freestanding Handstand:

Practice holding frogstand (also known as crow stand) every day to get more used to the feeling of holding your weight on your hands instead of your feet.

Step Three: Elevate Your Feet

Once you have confidence in your upper-body strength and can breathe while shifting weight into your hands, it’s time to practice the hard part: getting upside down. In his article, How to Maintain and Control a Handstand, yoga instructor Jon Kolaska demonstrated how to practice downward dog at the wall to get your body inverted without kicking up.

If you watched the whole video, you might have heard Jon say some people practice handstands this way for months or even years. So if you’ve made it to this step, be confident in your progress.

Step Four: Loosen Up and Kick Up

The next part is where I’m stuck right now. I can get into the handstand against the wall. I can hold it for over a minute easily. But kicking up is another story.

Coach Logan Christopher gave helpful advice for anyone stuck on this phase of the handstand in his article How to Work Up to a Handstand Against the Wall. Logan demonstrated how to position yourself for a graceful kick up and avoid breaking heirloom family vases:

Step Five: Care for Your Shoulders

When I started practicing handstands regularly, I noticed my shoulders started to feel tighter. Make sure you take care of your shoulders if you’re focusing on handstands in your training. In her article, Are Handstands Good for You? A Yoga Teacher’s Perspective, yoga instructor Bethany Eanes gave three tips for keeping shoulders healthy while practicing handstands:

1. Six days a week work on opening your shoulders and understanding external rotation of the joint.
2. Limit your chaturanga push ups to no more than fifty in a given week.
3. One day a week, without tiring your shoulders first, work on your alignment in handstand.

So, You Got It? Now Make It Better!

Gymnastics coach Pamela Gagnon (pictured above) summed up the importance of taking it slow while working on handstands:

Just as in a house of cards, when executing a handstand, you cannot haphazardly place your body upside down or get inverted. There are steps, progressions, and specific skills and drills designed to build your confidence, strength, balance, and coordination. Watch a gymnast kick to a handstand. It’s done with purpose. A gymnast’s legs aren’t thrown wildly in the air. Instead, he or she demonstrates body awareness, control, and aptitude.

Once you’ve mastered your handstand, I highly recommend you check out Pamela’s workout series, which she details in her article, My 4-Week Program for Achieving Handstand Happiness. Before you know it, you’ll be walking on your hands.

Happy handstanding, and let us know how it goes!

More Handstand Articles:

• Kipping and the Handstand Push Up: Is It Safe?
• 7 Steps to the Freestanding Handstand Push Up
• How to Hold a Freestanding Handstand
• What’s New on Breaking Muscle Today

Photo 1 courtesy of CrossFit Impulse.

The post 5 Steps to Work Through Your Fear of Handstands appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

With social media, we can often feel disheartened because we are exposed to the very best, whose job is to have a certain handstand.

There is no competition or judges for the regular person; you are only training for yourself.

It’s important to know what you want from your handstand journey. The majority of us aren’t gymnasts or professional hand-balancers, so we don’t have to have a perfect handstand, whatever that is.

With social media, we can often feel disheartened because we are exposed to the very best, whose job is to have a certain handstand.

There is no competition or judges for the regular person; you are only training for yourself.

This article is for people who want to improve their kick up consistency, which means kicking up into a handstand and holding it most of the time. I know from personal experience, it’s frustrating to waste energy constantly falling and not actually holding a handstand.

It’s important to be comfortable on your hands so that you can make cool moves such as:

• Press to handstand
• Handstand pushups
• Walking handstand

I call this a journey because it is. You can have the best training one day, then the next day nothing goes right.

It doesn’t matter how experienced you are. There will still be bad days. You will get better at reading your body and adjusting.

Prepare Your Wrist

I’ve discovered during my personal training career that the majority of people have weak wrists. Don’t be discouraged if this is you, but you must accept where you are. We live in a beautiful society, but it has its disadvantages, one of them is we never use our wrists.

We don’t hang, crawl, or apply pressure to them (typing on the laptop doesn’t count).

Remember, the body is efficient. Use it, or lose it. This goes for physical, technical, and mental skills.

When I used to teach big classes, I quickly realized that if I had 2-3 exercises that involved a little pressure on the wrist, the groans I heard weren’t from physical exertion but wrist pain.

When you start training your wrist, it only takes a few weeks to see improvements. How do you strengthen the wrists?

Build habits in your daily life because just doing one or two days a week is not enough, even if it’s for an hour.

I love this Bruce Lee quote:

It takes 5-15 minutes daily to get the best results or spread it throughout the day by building cues or reminders.

For example, every day before you eat or after a shower, do a set or set a timer, anything to make it convenient for yourself by incorporating it into your life.

The majority of the day is spent making habits we’ve built. It’s not a habit when it takes too much energy and willpower.

What if you don’t get wrist pain?

Wrist work is still needed.

You have to realize that handstands aren’t a natural position.

Your ankles are designed to support your full weight and gravity, but our small wrists aren’t.

That’s why strengthening the wrists, fingers, and forearms are important, and also, the elbows and shoulders.

Progress in handstands and calisthenics is determined by how strong your joints and tendons become because these small areas have to withstand the load and force passing through them.

You can find more mobility routines here Prehab/ Rehab for:

• Wrists
• Elbow
• Shoulders
• Hips
• Knees
• Ankles

So before you go upside down, spend a week or two getting the joints ready.

When you get into handstands against the wall, there is bound to be some discomfort in the wrists (they will get stronger and adjust), but it shouldn’t be painful.

Babies Do It Every Day

There’s no perfect handstand program, but you’ll hear athletes/coaches saying their way is the best, and neither am I saying my way is the right way.

I’m sharing how I’ve taught myself and clients to balance on their hands. Everyone is different, and we all learn differently. That’s what makes the world go round.

Two components will make the difference regardless of what program or training style you apply.

The First Component Is Consistency

We hear this word all the time because, without it, there is no success. It doesn’t matter how great your training session might have been.

Training something once a week will do nothing.

You will not build the neural adaptation and spatial awareness to master the handstand.

When babies are learning how to walk/stand, they do it every day. They have the desire and curiosity to step into the unknown, learn, and adapt. That’s the kind of mindset you want to have.

You don’t have to spend hours every day, but make it a habit of being upside down. Those pockets of time when you’re bored or doing menial tasks, practice your handstand instead. Five minutes is all you need.

Heck, one set daily will do the job.

This is In addition to 2-3 training sessions (about 1 hour) a week to practice various drills and weak areas.

The Second Component Is Time on Your Hands

The second component is the actual time you spend balancing on your hands. Failing to kick up and hold the handstand can be a part of your training, but please, not the whole hour. It teaches you very little.

You need to get the most out of your training. You actually want to feel what it’s like to bear weight on your hands, shifting your center of mass and how your hands are constantly making small adjustments.

Do exercises on the wall or close to the wall, and that way, if you fall, you have support.

Some people can only hold a handstand in one particular position. I’m not talking about creating shapes with your legs because their area of influence is poor:

• If the legs go too much one way, they fall.
• If the shoulders are stiff, they fall.
• If the core breaks, they fall.

This could be that they’ve never actually spent time in those positions. How can you adjust if you don’t know what position your body is in?

Spend some time in a:

• Banana handstand (arched back)
• In a pike (are your glutes too tight, hands uneven?)

When you know what not to do, then you can correct it.

• When I was learning the handstand, I was obsessed with being in a straight line. Otherwise, it didn’t count.
• I would abort the handstand if I knew I wasn’t straight.
• This resulted in me not actually being able to navigate or adjust while being on my hands.
• My kick up was poor, and I didn’t understand what was going on.
• Then I started focusing on my hands, shoulders, and hips.

I would kick up, and whatever position my body was in, I would try and hold it.

Babies will try all different things, spending ten seconds here, then falling, another ten seconds there, and then falling.

That’s similar to a handstand journey, spend ten seconds freestanding, another 30 seconds doing a drill on the wall. Gather those valuable seconds on your hands. By doing them frequently, you will progress.

Guidelines

Don’t overcomplicate it, be consistent, and actually spend time on your hands.

Here’s a training template you can work off and adapt.

• Choose exercises to focus on the areas I’ve outlined.
• Most of the exercises you will do as a superset.
• A superset is when you perform one set of an exercise (B1) and then immediately switch to another exercise (B2).

You can rest when you have completed the set.

Handstand Session Template

Training sessions can be structured like this, or they can be irregular play.

You can change the exercises you do every month, week, or session by session.

Doing stretches during your session is good to loosen the muscles and to calm your breathing. The more relaxed you are, the better your handstands will be.

You can find a beginner handstand program here Handstand 0-60.

Flexibility and handstands go hand in hand because being able to stack your feet, hips, and shoulders on top of your hands help make handstands less draining.

Without shoulder flexibility (+180° overhead straight arm raise or backend), your wrists and forearms will take most of the load. These areas fatigue quickly under your weight.

It is much better to let the shoulder take most of the load, just like your hips do for your lower body.

Without hamstring flexibility, a forward fold, or the pancake stretch, you will be unable to control your kick up, and you will find it hard to have your legs straight in a handstand.

You can train your flexibility together or separately from your handstands.

There’s No Perfect Handstand

There’s no perfect handstand. There’s just the desire and curiosity to step into the unknown, learn, and adapt.

Spend five minutes a day on your hands and train 2-3 times a week, working on drills to improve your balance, endurance and kick up consistency.

You can always improve your alignment along the way. Take care of your joints because they will determine how far you can advance.

The post How to Learn a Handstand and Fall Less appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Walking on your hands is great for upper body strength, balance, coordination, working out imbalances between your arms, and more. It’s also fun! This article is going to provide a step by step (pun intended) guide to walking on your hands.

You will likely hear me say this again and again, with skill and strength progressions you must completely master one skill before moving on to the next. This ensures a proper foundation that allows you to continue to progress. Most of the time when people come to me to work on hand balance or walking it is because they have neglected the need for this foundation. Instead, many athletes have been encouraged to “just try to do it.”

Step 1 – Have an Exit Strategy

Fear is the biggest problem I come across. When you’re afraid of falling over, the result is a tendency to not commit to the forward lean necessary to walk in a handstand. You may not feel like you’re afraid but your body will keep you in its comfort zone. Most commonly, this comfort zone is the way you get in and out of your handstand (i.e. the kick up and step-down).

The best exit strategy is to cartwheel out. First, determine which side you like to cartwheel on. Is it the right leg forward with right hand first or the opposite? Knowing this will determine which way you turn out of the handstand. I do a right-legged cartwheel, for example. So to rehearse my exit, I kick up to a handstand, fall towards my back and when I feel the fall past vertical initiate, I leave my right hand in place on the ground and move my left hand forward to allow my body to turn towards a cartwheel movement.

Practice this for a minimum of 10 reps per day. You must get through the vertical position (don’t turn early) and you must get very comfortable with the bailout.

Step 2 – Find Your Controlled Lean

Learn how to control how much you lean forward. This will help control your speed of walking. The harder you lean, the faster you will walk, and vice versa.

As a drill, stand about 3′ away from a wall. Kick up to a handstand and slowly and deliberately pull yourself to the wall. Avoid kicking up straight into the wall as this will defeat the purpose of the exercise. This exercise will teach you how to consistently get into the proper position for walking.

Step 3 – Controlled Walking

Take what you did in Step 2 and now add a predetermined number of steps you plan to take. So let’s say you want to take two steps on your hands. Start a little further from the wall at a distance that allows for your desired number of steps (in this case, enough room for 2 steps). Kick up to a handstand and with a controlled lean, take 2 steps, followed by a controlled lean into the wall. You determine when you walk, how many steps you take, when you stop, and when you lean into the wall. Practicing this will help you develop a lot of control in your walking and before you know it, you’ll be able to take those steps completely away from the wall.

Step 4 – Put It All Together

Time to put your hard work to action. Kick up to a handstand and control your lean forward (Step 2), take a predetermined number of steps (Step 3), control a lean forward (Step 3), and cartwheel bail out (Step 1). You are now walking on your hands! Now have fun with it. Set up distance goals, add obstacles to maneuver around, change up terrains, and see if you can start and stop. Let’s see your practice! Use #GymnasticStrength #ChrisLofland and I will give you feedback.

Also check out my Handstand Balance, Muscle Up, and Complete Gymnastics Strength, Mobility and Flexibility programs.

The post A Practical Guide to Walking on Your Hands appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

You’re inundated with Instagram images of impressive physical feats like handstands on a daily basis. And sure, it’s impressive. But it’s easy to forget that each picture is merely a snapshot of a physical practice. There are hours, days, and weeks of preparatory work needed to achieve these results.

I’m going to teach you the crucial order of operations for sustainable, injury-free handstand practice.

Handstands may look effortless, but they take a lot of preparatory work.

Alignment Matters

I’ll be the first to say, handstands are fun. The art and practice of hand-balancing is tremendously rewarding, both as a strength builder and for show. But it also opens up potential for serious injury when we don’t heed prerequisites. I’ve learned that the hard way.

A lifetime of sitting pretty much ensures that your body doesn’t work like a human body should. If you’re serious about building up to a handstand but don’t want to hurt yourself in the process, you can use natural movement to reclaim your human capability and safely prep your body.

You’re a living machine. As such, you need to ensure that your mechanical bits are in working order. Every movement, from handstands to deadlifts, is built on a coordinated effort of the joints involved. Your joints must function within their normal range of motion before you can load them. The body is a master of compensation. If one joint is out of alignment or lacks the necessary range of motion, surrounding tissues are forced to take the fall.

Let’s take a look at how to align some of the biggest troublemakers in a handstand.

Restore Wrist Flexibility

To effectively and efficiently hold a handstand, your wrists must be able to reach a relatively extreme range of extension (bending the hand back toward you). This position is unfamiliar for most people, as a majority of our daily functional tasks are accomplished around 40 degrees of extension.¹ As the body generally follows the “use it or lose it” principle, you may not have the necessary range of motion any more.

Luckily there’s a natural human movement that can help you regain range of motion and strength in this position: crawling. I know, I know – I talk about crawling all the time. But the truth is, it’s a fundamental building block of human bipedalism. And handstanding is just another form of bipedalism, so it makes sense that crawling should be an integral part of your handstand progression.

Try This: Aim to spend 10 minutes each day crawling. Spread it throughout the day as needed, but build up to 10 minutes on hands and feet daily. Crawling is a fantastic warm up for regular training days, or you can sneak in a few minutes in the morning or evening. You’ll quickly see improvement in your whole physical practice.

Spend at least ten minutes a day crawling to restore wrist health.

Restore Shoulder Range of Motion

This is where we separate the arched back “banana handstands” we see on social media from the true handstands. Yes, it’s perfectly possible to hand balance without full shoulder range of motion, but your practice will be limited, and your shoulder health will suffer. Kinesiology doesn’t spare feelings.

To find renewed space in your shoulders, you’ll need to unravel years spent at a desk hunched over a computer. The shoulder slump stops many aspiring hand balancers dead in their tracks. Fortunately, opening up the shoulder girdle is as simple as engaging your inner monkey.

Start things off by reaching up to a bar or rings overhead. We rarely use this range of motion in our day-to-day life, but reaching overhead is a critical step in reclaiming that range of motion. The joints need to be able to find their full range without load before adding intensity.

If you find that you’re able to easily and comfortably reach overhead, it’s time to brachiate. Brachiation, the practice of supporting yourself while hanging from your hands, is a key piece of the puzzle for building strength and stability in the shoulder girdle.

Try This: Ease into hanging from a low bar, keeping your feet on the ground. This will allow you to manage how much stress you introduce to the arms. Start with 5-10 intervals of 30 seconds. You will gradually learn to support more of your weight in your hands. When you can hang free of support, lengthen your intervals up to 40 or 50 seconds, working up to a minute. Keep in mind, if you aren’t accustomed to this range, you’ll quickly tire out the shoulders, so take frequent breaks. Better to build a strong foundation than to rush the process.

Brachiation restores strength and stability in the shoulder girdle.

Prerequisites Matter

It’s easy to get caught up in the quest of shiny new movements, but we can’t escape the reality of the physical body. Before you dive into new skills, make sure you have the necessary prerequisites. Sufficient range of motion and stability in the wrist and shoulder joints never go out of style, and they’ll help you avoid injury as you deepen your practice.

Natural movements like crawling and brachiating are crucial for ensuring that your body works the way a body should before going upside down. It took you many months of natural movement to learn to stand on your own two feet. Why would standing on your hands be any different?

You’ll Also Enjoy:

• 5 Steps to Work Through Your Fear of Handstands
• How to Crawl Your Way Back to Shoulder Health
• 3 Drills for Building Wrist Flexibility
• New on Breaking Muscle Today

References:

1. Ryu JY, et al. “Functional Ranges of Motion of the Wrist Joint,” Journal of Hand Surgery 16 (1991): 409-419.

Photos courtesy of Chandler Stevens.

The post Crawl and Hang to Improve Your Handstand appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

“You kick up and ease into position, but try as hard as you might, you just can’t seem to hold the handstand for longer than a few seconds.”

You’ve mustered up the courage to move away from the safety of the wall and braved the challenge of a freestanding handstand. You kick up and ease into position, but try as hard as you might, you just can’t seem to hold the handstand for longer than a few seconds.

You have the strength, you have the mobility, and you have the stability. So what’s wrong?

From the Wall to a Freestanding Handstand

Don’t worry, there’s nothing wrong with the hard work you’ve put in over the past few months. The wall was great for improving strength, building endurance, and reinforcing your line. But you’re not actually “standing on your hands” when using the wall for support. Just as you held onto the couch while learning to stand as a baby, you’ve used the wall to help you become comfortable standing on your hands.

The wall was great for improving strength, building endurance, and reinforcing your line.

And like letting go of the couch to balance on your feet, moving from the wall to a freestanding handstand is a completely different animal. You’re literally learning how to stand on your hands. This takes technique, balance, and body awareness that you’ll build with practice.

But there are a few things you can do right now to instantly improve your freestanding handstand. Practice them diligently and your time spend balancing upside down will go up with each session.

1. Squeeze Your Thighs Together

Not squeezing your legs and thighs together is a common beginner mistake. When you’re upside down, make your body as rigid as possible. By squeezing your thighs together, you’ll create more tension through your trunk and core.

“The more tension you create, the sturdier your handstand will be and the less effort you’ll put into maintaining balance.”

Combine this with pointing toes and squeezing your glutes and you’ll generate a ton of tension. The more tension you create, the sturdier your handstand will be and the less effort you’ll put into maintaining balance.

2. Play the Piano and Treat Your Hands Like Feet

No, you don’t actually have to go out and lean how to play the piano. You also don’t have to learn how to play one with your feet. (Although, that would be impressive!) What I’m taking about is finger spacing and where the points of pressure should be on your hands.

Your fingers should be spread apart as if you were playing the piano. This creates a wider base and provides a little more stability. Think about your fingers like the toes on your feet. Healthy feet have toes that are spread apart, providing greater balance and sensitivity. When you stand on your feet the pressure is spread across the toes, ball of the foot, and heel.

“Your fingers should be spread apart as if you were playing the piano. This creates a wider base and provides a little more stability.”

During a handstand, the points of pressure on the hands will be similar to that of the foot. After all, we’re basically forcing your hands to act like your feet. The pressure should be placed on the tips of the fingers, underneath the first knuckles of the hands, and on the heel of the palms. The second knuckles should be raised and not touching the ground. We now have a wide base with sturdy points of contact.

The pressure should be placed on the tips of the fingers, underneath the first knuckles of the hands, and on the heel of the palms.

When your weight drifts too far forward, making you feel as though you’re about to fall on your back, you’ll push down into the fingertips pushing your body back into balance. When your weight drifts back, making you feel you’re about to land on your feet, you’ll push into the heels of the hands rebalancing your handstand.

To grasp the concept further, try it out while standing on your feet. Stand up tall, lock your knees, and assume a rigid posture. Now, lean forward only hinging from the ankles. Your toes will dig into the ground in an attempt to prevent your from toppling over and push you back into balance. Lean back and your heels will press down, pushing you back into your upright position. When balanced in a handstand, we’re attempting to make your hands do the same.

3. Reach for the Sky (or Through the Ground)

Another weak link in your handstand can come from inactive shoulders. Relaxing the shoulders during a handstand puts more pressure across the chest, makes you more likely to arch your back, and requires you to use more effort in order to hold the handstand. Combine those, and you have a recipe for one ugly and tiring handstand.

“In order to clean up your handstand, lock your shoulders into place and get them actively involved. This can be achieved by ‘reaching for the sky.'”

Remember, during a handstand a rigid form is your friend and your body should only hinge from the wrists. In order to clean up your handstand, lock your shoulders into place and get them actively involved. This can be achieved by “reaching for the sky.”

When you’re upside down, think of reaching your hands through the ground. When you do this correctly, your shoulders will shrug up and hug your ears and your scapula will be elevated. By doing this, you’ll create stability through the shoulder girdle and be able to balance in your handstand with greater ease.

When upside down, I think of reaching my hands through the ground.

4. Improve Your Focus

Selecting a focus point while you’re upside down will go a long way in helping you maintain your balance. I suggest looking through the top of your eyes at a point between your hands and inline with your wrists – but don’t crane your neck. The goal is to stare at the point without moving your eyes at all.

While focusing on this point, it might be handy to run through a mental checklist of the other techniques used to improve your handstand:

1. Squeeze your legs together
2. Point your toes
3. Squeeze your butt
4. Shrug your shoulders
5. Spread your fingers
6. Breathe naturally

An easy exercises to improve your focus can be done while standing. Choose an object in the room, something small, and stare at it for sixty seconds without looking away or becoming distracted. This will help improve your ability to focus without the added complication of balancing upside down.

“I suggest looking through the top of your eyes at a point between your hands and inline with your wrists – but don’t crane your neck.”

Summary

At first it can seem a little daunting to have so many things to remember, especially when you’re trying not to fall over. Don’t worry, in time you won’t have to think of these techniques and they’ll just happen naturally. With continued practice and attention to the little details, you’ll be well on your way to becoming a handstand ninja.

Check out these related articles and videos: 

• How to Hold a Freestanding Handstand
• Conquer the Art of the Freestanding Handstand (Video)
• Freestanding Handstand Therapy (Video)
• What’s New on Breaking Muscle

Photo 1 courtesy of CrossFit Empirical.

The post 4 Techniques To Instantly Improve Your Freestanding Handstand appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

It took some time, but I did get there. It’s been many years and I have done a whole lot more since that first push up, including 22 handstand pushups against the wall in a single set, eight full-range handstand push ups (up on chairs, getting my hands to my shoulders), six freestanding handstand push ups, and a tiger bend. And it all started with that first rep.

In this article I’m going to give you ideas on how you can make handstand push ups easier or harder for you – no matter where you’re currently at. You see, most people are making a mistake with handstand push ups. They talk about it as if there is one way to do it and that it’s all the same. They are wrong!

Small modifications in your form with this exercise can make a huge difference in its difficulty. It can be the difference between being able to complete a rep or not. It can be the difference between able to rep them out or struggle through one rep. And all of this just depends on how you position your body.

The Truth About Handstand Push Ups

Let me tell you how I discovered this truth. Almost ten years ago I was training in my garage gym doing a circuit of chin ups and handstand push ups. I had hit my rep goals with the handstand push ups touching my head to the floor, so I thought I was ready to start extending the range of motion of this exercise.

I knew this would make it harder, but I wasn’t quite prepared for what took place. In order to add height I had to change my handstand position slightly from what I had been doing before. And when I tried, I couldn’t handle a single rep. I knew it couldn’t just be the height. So I eliminated the added height and replicated my new position, but this time on the flat ground. I managed to do a rep – but just barely.

What had occurred here? It’s actually quite simple. By changing my position, even though it was small, I changed my range of motion. Thus, I was doing a harder variation even without actually increasing the range of motion by putting my hands on a raised platform. So, that’s what I want to give you in this article – a couple ways to change the exercise to make it exactly as difficult as you need it to be. Here are the two ways I learned:

Increasing and Decreasing Range of Motion

This is the ultimate key to handstand push ups. With a bodyweight exercise you are limited in how you can manipulate your weight, because basically you’re handling your full bodyweight at all times. Since you can’t change that, the main variable to play with, besides sets and reps, is the range of motion.

Note: I’m going to assume if you are reading this article you’re comfortable holding a handstand against a wall. If not, be sure to read my previous article on this topic.

The locked out handstand position is more of a support than a moving exercise. But from here we can start to move. Unlock the elbows just an inch then push back up. Is that easy? Then do two inches, then three and so on. The best way to make this measurable is to take a stack of books or something similar and put them under your head. To make it harder, you reduce the height of the stack. Here you have a progression that will get you to the ground.

And you can take it beyond that to work up to full-range handstand push ups. Now build up the height of what your hands are on so your head can lower deeper down. Eventually you can work to the full-range position, which I like to do between two chairs.

Changing Hand and Arm Position

Now, let’s talk about how you can increase or decrease your range of motion just by changing your hand and arm position without any external objects. Typically in a handstand the hands are kept shoulder width apart. That’s good for a handstand, but it doesn’t need to be the case for handstand pushups. This exercise isn’t like regular push ups where you want to keep the elbows in to protect the shoulders. With the overhead angle the elbows can be kept in or flare out and your shoulders will be safe either way.

Taking a wider position is great for beginners or for someone just looking to do more reps. This is illustrated in the bottom picture. The reason for this is that it actually reduces the range of motion by a couple of inches. This reduces the range of motion about two or three inches. This may not sound like much, but it is. The reason why is that the sticking point for pressing is typically around the head. Therefore you’re eliminating the hardest part of the press here, which makes the exercise significantly easier.

Changing hand and arm position is just one of the ways you can manipulate your body position to make this exercise easier or harder. Increasing and decreasing range of motion also allows you to create useful progressions for yourself. When you combine these two methods with solid training, then you can become very strong in this exercise.

In case you missed it:

How to Work Up to a Handstand Against the Wall

How to Work Up to a Freestanding Handstand

How to Hold a Freestanding Handstand

References:

1. Christopher, L., “The Ultimate Guide to Handstand Pushups.” (Legendary Strength, 2009) pg. 18-19

Photos courtesy of Logan Christopher.

The post How to Work Up to a Full Range of Motion Handstand Push Up appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

It is even more amazing to achieve this skill as an adult. Lots of kids do it, but because they weigh less and are not as tall, the skill will come more easily to them. Not to mention the fact that kids generally have an easier time learning many things.

When you can hold a freestanding handstand you’ve achieved a pretty amazing skill. While this is something that almost anyone could work up to with persistence and the right game plan, most people do not.

It is even more amazing to achieve this skill as an adult. Lots of kids do it, but because they weigh less and are not as tall, the skill will come more easily to them. Not to mention the fact that kids generally have an easier time learning many things.

But have no fear if you’re not a kid. I learned the freestanding handstand as an adult at 6’2” and weighing 180lbs. Plus, there are guys much bigger than me who have gone on to perform even more impressive hand-balancing skills.

Work on Your Lead-Up Stunts

In the previous article, I showed you several lead-up stunts for the handstand. By practicing these you’re going to build the foundational skills you need to do a freestanding handstand.

These skills are easier to build through these progressive movements (wall handstand, frog stand, headstand, forearm stand), than if you just went straight for the freestanding handstand itself.

Most people won’t have the patience to stick to these easier skills, but if you do, then your work will pay off, making your efforts in the free handstand that much easier when you finally start it.

The Importance of the Kick-Up in a Freestanding Handstand

When thinking about the handstand there are two main parts: getting into position and balancing.

When I was first learning the handstand I made many mistakes. Although I had practiced for a couple years off and on, I was far from consistent. I would kick-up and immediately fall over probably eight times out of ten. This was not just a waste of time but of energy as well.

It was later, when I was teaching other people, that I realized how important the kick-up was. The kick-up is how you get into the handstand position, by kicking your legs. You can also get into the handstand by doing a wide range of press-ups, but those are more advanced skills to learn later.

If you kick too hard or too little, you’ll not be able to get into the “sweet spot” where you can even begin to balance. Thus the battle is lost before it begins. But a proper kick-up sets you up to actually start balancing.

The goal is to be able to kick-up with the same amount of force each time. This gets you into a balanced position, or at least close to it so you can control your body by over or under balancing, to get into a neutral alignment.

Everyone focuses on the balancing, but that doesn’t matter if you can’t get there in the first place. Once you can kick up and enter a handstand where you are balanced nine times out of ten, then you’re really ready to start focusing on the balancing of the handstand.

There are several different methods of kicking up. The most common involves keeping the arms locked out overhead, lunging forward and kicking up into place. This is how gymnasts do it (of course, getting into a straight-bodied position).

How to Balance

Its called hand balancing for a reason. The primary method of balancing is through the hands. To save yourself from over balancing, you press the fingertips into the floor. To save yourself from under balancing you let up on the fingertips. In each case you want to apply enough pressure in order to return yourself to a neutral position where as little effort as possible is used.

But the hands aren’t the only method of balancing. The secondary means of balancing is a bit more advanced and is called shoulder weaving . Shoulder weaving involves moving the shoulders forwards and back (pictured right.)

What you want to avoid is walking on your hands in order to catch your balance. Walking is easier in that you can catch yourself by taking a step, but this should not be relied upon. Walking is a more advanced skill that should be done under control at all times.

Walking should be intentional, not a byproduct of losing your balance. If you only maintain your balance by walking on your hands you may never learn how to stand on your hands.

Another thing to avoid is bending the elbows. Although this can be used to save some balances you don’t want to use it habitually. Instead keep the elbows locked out and use the hands and shoulders instead.

If you have built a firm foundation with lead-up stunts, then practice your kick-up, you’ll find the balancing aspect isn’t that difficult. By following a smart progression like this you’ll cut your learning curve in half if not more.

In case you missed it:

• How to Work Up to a Handstand Against the Wall
• How to Work Up to a Freestanding Handstand

Photo 1 courtesy of CrossFit Impulse.

Photo 2 courtesy of Logan Christopher.

The post How to Hold a Freestanding Handstand appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

In my previous article I showed you how to get up and hold a handstand against the wall. In this article you’ll learn to take a much more advanced step by balancing out in the open.

The skill required to balance in this manner is significantly higher. That being said, just about anyone who is willing to put in the work will be able to accomplish this goal in time. How long will it take? That depends entirely on how much you practice, as well as how you train it.

You can take the long route, and this is what most people do. It is what I did. After being bitten by the handstand bug, it became my goal to be able to kick up and confidently hold a handstand anywhere and anytime.

So I worked on doing exactly that. While I was ultimately successfully, this is the wrong approach to take. Let me tell you why: holding a handstand is a fine-motor movement that takes lots of practice.

Trying to do this without building a firm foundation is like entering the gym and trying to squat 500lbs on your first attempt.

It’s not going to happen. To get a good, strong squat, you would start with where you’re at, focus on building good form, and build from there. In time you could work up to that 500lb squat. But just starting there will doom you to frustration and failure (and possibly get you crushed). The handstand is much the same.

So instead of just jumping into the freestanding handstand itself, there is a much better path, using progressions we’re going to refer to as lead-up stunts.

What Is a Lead-up Stunt?

I originally discovered the concept of lead-up stunts from Professor Orlick, a professional hand balancer and teacher of many others. He outlined the idea in his book Hand Balancing Made Easy.

Orlick laid out a wide variety of stunts that focus on the skills you need to do a freestanding handstand, except you’re able to do them in pieces, broken down into a much easier manner.

This allows you to make progress faster, which then contributes to your abilities when you finally go onto the handstand.

I took all those drills he had and focused on just a few of them that delivered the biggest bang for you buck. This is the secret to developing a handstand faster than most people think is possible.

In fact, I’ve had students build up to a thirty-second freestanding handstand in just a few months, without spending hours a day practicing.

Stunt #1: The Wall Handstand

This was covered in the previous article. For that reason we won’t go into all the details, but the benefits of this drill are obvious as it helps you build your skill in holding the handstand position.

Since you don’t have to worry about balancing when the wall supports you, you can focus on getting your hands, arms, body, legs and head all in the right place.

Further, the wall handstand will allow you to build endurance in holding handstands. If you get tired after just five minutes of handstand practice, that won’t leave you with much practice time. But if you build your body to be able to handle more, you can get more practice in.

Stunt #2: The Frog Stand

The frog stand is known by a variety of names. In yoga, it is called the crow stand. I’ve also seen it described as the gargoyle. The name isn’t all that important. What is important is that this move allows you to work on balancing with your hands just like in a handstand.

The useful thing about it is that your body is close to the ground, creating a low center of gravity, which makes balancing much easier to do. This way you can build up the hand manipulation skill needed to balance, which later will help your handstand.

There are two main forms of the frog stand. One of them has the elbows bent. To do this you squat down on the ground placing your hands flat on the ground about shoulder width or slightly wider. Your knees will rest on the outsides of the bent elbows. Tip your weight forward until you can take your full weight onto your hands.

The other variation, more common in yoga, involves keeping the elbows locked out. Some will find this easy; others will find it near impossible. Here the knees can be outside the elbows on the top of the knees pressing into the backs of the upper arms.

Either way you do it once your weight is fully supported by your hands you’ll press or release pressure from the fingertips to keep yourself balanced.

Left: bent arm frogstand; Right: straight arm frogstand.

Stunt #3: The Headstand

When I first started working on a handstand I couldn’t even hold a free balancing headstand very well. This was stupid of me.

The headstand teaches you to keep your body as one unit, but you have a slightly lower center of gravity, as well as a much bigger base of support, making it easier to do then a handstand.

When you’re starting out it is recommended to kick-up against a wall in case you over balance. Once you’re practiced at that, you can start doing the headstand out in the open.

The easiest version of the headstand is the tripod version. Your hands are placed in front of your head so that they form a triangle or tripod. This gives you a big base of support.

With a little practice this position becomes very easy to hold, as you press into the ground and release with the hands to balance, keeping your body stiff and straight the whole time.

A more advanced, and thus harder to balance variation, involves putting your hands in line with your head. Another option is to fold your hands behind your head so just the forearms are contacting the ground.

In both of these your base of support has lessened thus you have to keep your body from moving even more so then before. And you’ll learn how to balance it in the air even better.

Left: tripod headstand; Right: yoga headstand.

Stunt #4: The Forearm Stand

In the forearm stand you’ll once again learn how to balance out in the open. Your center of gravity is lower than a handstand but a little higher than the headstand. You have a very large base of support, which includes the length of your forearms and the hands.

Thus it is easier to balance than the handstand but one step closer to it.

With the forearm stand it is virtually essential to arch your back. If your flexibility and mobility in your back is limited you may need to work on that before beginning this move. As with the other moves it is a good idea to do this move against a wall the first few times you try it.

Lay your forearms and hands on the ground so that they are parallel. It is okay if they angle in slightly. Your head will hover above the arms just slightly but shouldn’t touch the ground.

Starting in the sprinter’s stance in this position you’ll kick up so that you are balanced on your forearms. Use the full length of the arms in order to help you balance and remember to keep the body tight.

How to Train the Lead-Up Stunts

There are a few other lead-up stunts and more variations of these that will transfer over to your ability to do freestanding handstands, but these four will give you more than enough to get started.

My suggestion is to build up to a minute hold in each position. Don’t even attempt a freestanding handstand until after you can do each of these. Then when you start working on the handstand in earnest, you’ll be far ahead of the game.

In my next article I’ll discuss the next steps to take and skills you need, including the most important factor that so many people gloss over (a big mistake I made myself), as you work towards a freestanding handstand.

The post How to Work Up to a Freestanding Handstand appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Note: The freestanding handstand, which I’ll cover in a future article, is a different matter altogether. This move takes far more practice, but once again if you’re willing to put in the work, you can achieve it.

The most difficult piece of the handstand for most is simply being upside down. If you’re not used to this position – and most people aren’t – then you’ll find you tend to lose control of your body when you do go upside down. That’s why I say coordination is the biggest thing you’ll have to learn.

Use the Headstand to Get Used to Being Upside Down

A stepping-stone towards the handstand is to practice the headstand. In the beginning I recommend doing this against the wall, as well. Set your hands on the ground about shoulder-width apart or slightly wider. Your head should be in advance of your hands so that the three form a triangle, not a line. This tripod handstand gives you a wide base and is easier than other forms of the handstand often done in yoga, where the hands are folded behind the head.

Once your hands and head are set, then kick one leg, followed by the other – until you are upside down. Hold this position and don’t forget to breathe. That’s a critical part of learning how to control the move and even relax in it. Take a look at this video for a visual guide and further pointers:

Curved vs. Straight Handstands and How to Get Up

Both the curved and straight handstand work. In the beginning, if you’re just trying to get into and hold the handstand, worrying about keeping it straight is just going to get in your way. No one “naturally” holds a straight handstand position from the beginning. Therefore, you will be curved when you start out and that is totally okay.

If you are training for a straight handstand, you’ll want your chest to face the wall. To get into this position you start in a pushup position next to the wall and walk your feet up until you are vertical. Another option is to cartwheel into place.

Left: curved handstand; Right: straight handstand.

The curved position is easier and will have your back facing the wall. To get into this position, you kick up into a handstand. As a beginner, the best way to do this is to start in a sprinter’s stance. Have both your hands flat on the floor with your elbows locked out. One knee is bent at about ninety degrees and the other is close to straight. Kick up and toward the wall with the back leg, and then jump up with the other.

The kick up is a tricky part for many people. But all it takes is a little practice. Sometimes you’ll use too much power (hopefully not so much that you put holes in the wall). Other times you’ll use too little and not get up into the handstand. Better to err on the latter at first, and then just increase the amount of force a little bit with each attempt until you get up there. Once practiced, you’ll land like a feather against the wall. Watch this video for instruction and demonstration:

Tips for the Handstand Position

• When in the handstand position, the fingers should be pointing straight ahead (either the index or middle finger as your guide) and be fairly well spread. Grip the ground slightly, instead of passively laying your hands there.
• The elbows should be locked at all times. This is critical. If you don’t keep them locked then your weight is being supported by your musculature, rather than you bone structure. No matter how strong you are, your bones are stronger, so we want to use them.
• In many weight lifting moves you’re told to suck the shoulders into the sockets. Here you want the opposite. Shrug your shoulders towards the ears. The reason for this is that it creates a better locked-out structure once again.
• Regardless of whether you’re doing a straight or curved handstand, you’ll want to maintain tension in your core. Don’t just allow you lower body to flop wherever it might with gravity. Instead, tighten your abs and lower back, but once again don’t forget about the breathing part. Holding your breath is a beginner’s mistake. It’s okay the first couple times you try, since you’ll be focused on everything else, but you’ll want to start practicing breathing while maintaining tightness.
• Handstands against the wall can be held with the legs straight and the toes pointed. This is ideal as squeezing your legs together helps with the tight position and this will be important if we move forward to freestanding. But sometimes you don’t have overhead clearance; in that case, you can bend the knees and spread the hips to some degree.
• Your head has two options. You can bend your neck back and look at the ground and your hands. The other option is to bring it to a neutral position, in line with the arms, and look ahead. Both are fine.

Holding for Time

Now that you’re in the handstand what do you do? Hold for time. This can be a great exercise to teach whole-body coordination as well as maintaining tightness under pressure. Its great to do as a finisher after many workouts.

Build up to a minute or more. The easy way to do this is to simply try to do more every workout. But in doing this, you’ll quickly plateau. So instead, or once you reach that plateau point, back off in time and do more sets. Make it easier to hold it and do more total volume. This in turn will lead to a longer single hold.

Photos courtesy of Logan Christopher.

The post How to Work Up to a Handstand Against the Wall appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

The total load lifted is a product of how many reps and sets you do at any given weight. Just to refresh everyone’s memory: if you lifted 100kg for 25 reps (say as 5 x 5), then you’d have lifted 2500kg. You could then do the same equation for every exercise you did in that training session and add up your total load lifted for the entire workout.

The Problem of Progressing Bodyweight

But how do you progress when the load is bodyweight? And in particular how do you progress when the exercise has a large skill component such as with pistols or handstands? I always laugh when I see people attacking handstands by just randomly throwing their legs up in the air. That’s like walking up to a loaded bar and thinking you’ll be fine to snatch it, even though it’s double your current max.

Usually, people begin their handstand journey by following a couple of well-worn paths – beginning with exercises like headstands or beginning with doing handstand holds against a wall. But let’s go back even further and imagine that you are new to the gym and have your eyes set on being able to do a freestanding handstand. It’s a good goal, and one that will teach you many things about training in order to accomplish it. In other words, it’s a goal worthy of your time and leads to many other physical skills, while giving you plenty of core and upper body strength as well as good shoulder mobility.

Proper Handstand Progression

Step #1: Crawling

The first step, and this will sound odd, is to start with crawling. Not for the benefits that are linked to your core, although those are a great reason, but because it will get you used to having a lot of weight on your hands. People fresh to training suffer at the beginning with many bodyweight exercises because they lack the strength and flexibility in their wrists to support their entire body weight. Crawling is an excellent way to get used to having your hands flat on the ground with a decent load on them.

Step #2: Headstands and Hollows

The next step is a two-part deal. Like a chicken and egg sort of thing, neither is more important then the other, and you need to learn both. One of the steps needed at this stage is to learn where vertical is and how to stack your body. This is where headstands come in. Headstands provide a way to get all of your body lined up, but with a larger support area than you’ll have for handstands so the balance needed is much less. At the same time you need to be learning how to get tight and stay that way, and this is where hollow drills come in handy.

For tips on how get through these first steps I really like the Handstand One series by Gymnastics Bodies. Have a look at these two videos, too, which explain the hollow body position needed for handstands, as well as a demonstration of how it can be done in many positions to further teach body awareness. And yes, twelve-year-old gymnasts are far stronger than you – just deal with it now.

If you have Handstand One what you’ll quickly see is that the expectation is that in order to progress to the next drill you need to be able to hold each position for five sets of sixty seconds. And this is one of the real barriers to people starting down the bodyweight skills path, regardless of whether it’s a handstand, planche, or lever. Trying to jump from “barely can hold hollow position for thirty seconds” to “kicking up to a handstand” is like having a squat max of 50kg and seeing if you can do 150kg. While the injury risk isn’t the same it’s just not going to happen for you.

Step #3: Balance

At this stage many give up. They see how many possible steps there are before a freestanding handstand and quit well before they get even close. Maybe they’re able to hold handstands against a wall for a period of time, and thus think that must mean they’re close to a real handstand. But there’s a big difference between a good hold against a wall and a freestanding handstand – and that difference is a little thing called balance.

While you’re on your feet, without you realizing it usually, you are going through hundreds of tiny balance adjustments. The reason you’re largely unaware is because this is a skill that you’ve practiced for many years and it is now second nature. Not so with standing on your hands, though. It’s going to take a lot of time to develop that feel for where the balance point is, learn how to stay tight so you’re not like a wet noodle, and to develop the hand strength to deal with it all.

It’s easy to get stuck at the point where you can comfortably hold a handstand against a wall, but not be able to advance from there. I know I’d been there for months. It wasn’t until I learnt some rebalancing drills from Ido Portal that my progress took off again. These drills are used to learn where the balance point is and deliberately come in and out of it from holds facing both into the wall and away from the wall. All during these drills I am working on my strength and work capacity in this position as well as alignment and wrist strength.

The video below shows one version of this. At the beginner stages you won’t get much of a hold and your reps will consist of learning to stay tight and use the hands to pull your entire body away from the wall.

The final nail in the coffin for many when trying to begin hand balancing is that these skills take a lot of time to develop. I currently do thirty sets of handstand drills five days per week in order to progress quickly. Even though my hands and wrists were in decent shape when I started this, they’re still adjusting to the much higher workload and I am guessing it will take a few weeks for them to adapt properly.

The next step will be to start working on getting into the balance point from a kick up, and I will introduce sets of that into my training. But it’s been a big step to go from five sets daily of the early progressions in the GB system to thirty sets. And there’s the real reason why you don’t see many people progress with bodyweight skills – they won’t train with the kind of volume and frequency they need to advance.

So, if you’re working on any of the harder skills, add more volume, even daily volume, and see what happens. It’s a long path, and for the harder skills it might be an even longer journey than massive totals in classic gym lifts. I’ve been told that a full flag is the culmination of up to three years constant effort for most. Enjoy the journey and soak up the lessons, because if you’re serious it’s a long haul.

If you have a bodyweight exercise goal, share it in the comments below. How is your progress coming? Have you stalled out?

Photos courtesy of CrossFit Impulse.

The post Advancing Bodyweight Skills: Proper Handstand Progressions appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Breaking Muscle Video – The Hotel Room Handstand (Traver H. Boehm)

Handstands are cool, this is fact. Check out this video inspired by a BM reader email asking about hotel room workouts and how to do handstands. Find out how to do something healthy and quick!

Dear Willow: I Am Afraid of Handstands – Help! (Willow Ryan)

I am wondering how to get over the fear of doing handstands in yoga. I’m feeling my “inability” to do a handstand is not a physical limitation, but rather, it is only a fear that holds me back.

Book Review: “Foundation One” and “Handstand One” by Christopher Sommer (Andrew Read)

Christopher Sommer’s amazing new courses, Foundation One and Handstand One, break down complicated gymnastics techniques for the beginner. They also incorporate much needed mobility drills.

Virtuosity with Dusty Hyland – Handstand Walking, Vol. 1: Position (Dusty Hyland)

Season 2 of Virtuosity is about handstands and handstand walking. By the end of this series, you’ll be handstand walking up stairs! This week Dusty starts with basic handstand position.

Learning to Fly: Overcoming Our Physical Fears (Mahala Grant-Grierson)

Is fear stopping you from moving forward? Our physical practice can also become practice for overcoming fear in other places. For me, my practice is learning and conquering the handstand.

Breaking Muscle Video: How to Control and Maintain a Handstand (Jon Kolaska)

This video will help you learn to maintain and control a handstand. If you are nervous about inversions, don’t worry – we start with Downward Dog and how to kick up to the handstand.

Strength & Conditioning – Al Kavadlo: Week 3, Day 1 (Al Kavadlo)

Barbells and kettlebells are great for pressing, but no matter how strong you are, handstand push ups are a unique challenge and must be treated as such. Get ready to flip the classic overhead press on its head – literally!

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock.

The post How’s Your Handstand? 7 Articles to Make It Better appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

I am wondering how one gets over the fear of doing handstands in yoga. I am fine in a headstand, using the wall and sometimes without it. However, even while relying on the wall, I still can’t get up into a handstand. I position myself close to the wall, put my hands down on the mat, look at all the space between me and the floor (which really isn’t much), then the brain gets busy! I think my usual strong center of gravity is all over the map – my arms won’t hold me, my legs can’t kick up, etc. So, none of it works. I’m feeling that my “inability” to do a handstand is not an actual physical limitation, but rather, it is only a fear that holds me back in that very moment. So my question is, how do students get over this? I know I am not alone.

Sincerely,

Hungry for Handstands

Dear Hungry for Handstands,

Willow

(Click here for articles by Willow)

The post Dear Willow: I Am Afraid of Handstands – Help! appeared first on Breaking Muscle.