Building Strength for Handstands
Handstands are something that a lot of us want to accomplish, and there are so many ways to get there!
Before trying these progressions for building the strength prerequisites for a handstand, make sure that you are able to meet the following criteria:
Get comfortable being upside down (don’t be afraid to fall)
Have the shoulder mobility to get your arms 180º overhead
Enough wrist mobility to extend wrists to 90º
Vertical Alignment
When practicing inversions and handstands, try to focus on stacking your joints vertically.
1. Maintain long spine
2. Hips over shoulders
3. Pull in the abs and squeeze glutes for stability
Level 1: Headstands
Start with your legs bent first
Try shifting your weight from your head onto your forearms
Learn how to push the floor away with your shoulders
Squeeze your abs and glutes for additional stability
Level 2: Forearm Stand
Keep your hands apart and grip the floor with your hands
Start with bringing your legs into a tuck balance
Focus on pushing yourself away from the floor
Level 3: Elevated Handstand
Using a box or a bench to elevate the feet is going to allow you to shift more weight onto your upper body with straight arms. This is also a great way to get more comfortable upside down with proper alignment and joint stacking.
Grip the floor with your hands
Close the gap between your ears and your shoulders
Stack your hips over your shoulders, and shoulders over wrists
Level 4: Inverted Push Up
This inverted push up is one of my favorite ways to increase arm strength for arm balances and inversions.
Slow and controlled repetitions
Focusing on the descent will help you build strength quicker
To make this more challenging, replace the dumbbells with two boxes to get more range of motion.
Hollowbody Hold
Even though this is not an inversion, I absolutely love this hollowbody hold for learning how to properly maintain tension in the frontline while holding a handstand.
When teaching handstands, one reason I don’t start with wall drills, is because it teaches us how to hold ourselves up without a focus on alignment.
If we focus on alignment first, we will be able to train smarter, but also safer, decreasing the amount potential injury that can occur to our joints and tissues.
Squeeze your abs and pull your ribs down
Maintain tension in the glutes as you squeeze your legs together
Focus on closing the gap between your ribs and hips
Don’t forget to breathe!