Hand Stand#842
Hello. I would like to be able to do a handstand. I saw you answered that question before about pike push-ups and stuff, but my hardest thing is getting my feet up in the first place and my shoulder/wrist flexibility and strength. Do you have any progressions that you I’ll help with getting my feet up in the air? Thank you!
heya! Copy pasting what I wrote on the discord server
“Wanna learn how to handstand? Here - follow this structure as a base:
1) Use a general resistance training routine as your baseline for just building up muscle and strength (like the hybrid routine)
2) For specifically building up to the handstand:
a) Get used to being upside down by doing some pike holds -> elevated pike holds, or start here:
b) learn how to bail/fall - there is a good youtube video by tom merrick:
c) once you got a and b, practice back to wall and chest to wall handstands as well as balance drills such as toe pulls and heel pulls (chest to wall handstands will be more important and minimise the chance of learning bad habits)
d) As soon as you can hold handstands for 10-15 seconds with very minimal wall assistance, you can start going to some free-standing attempt (but do work up to 20-30 seconds with some wall support before leaving it more) See this, it’s important https://www.youtube.com/shorts/lVsTvdXWaFU
e) practice freestanding
3) (optional path) Work on pike pushups and their progressions (pike pushup -> elevated pike pushup -> wall HSPU -> all of those with a deficit (optional but worthwhile, especially for muscle growth) -> free HSPU to help you work up to Handstand Pushups - here’s a good tutorial for pike pushups: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/0cT6ug3WVn4 and here for handstand pushups:
If you happen to want to learn more advanced handstand skills later on, I recommend already training your middle split:
and your compression/pike mobility:Lots of videos and resources ^
For the kickup itself I recommend making sure that your shoulders are already stacked on top of the middle of your hands, and that your torso is as vertical as possible, before even trying to kick your legs up; it takes a lot of the momentum out of it and you’ll have more control/require less strength
Shoulder mobility you can work on with a prayer pose / butcher’s block (same thing, different names)
And for wrist mobility/strength I can recommend this video!
I think that should cover everything really, but let me know if something is unclear!
That’s perfect! Thank you