I know my progress is really slow and not impressive at all compared to others. But I put in hard work like many others, just not as smart. I have made many stupid mistakes and used ineffective training methods. Yet it also means I could share these mistakes with you guys so hopefully nobody will be repeating them. I made a video (link:
) documenting my progress over the past year where I have gone from not being able to do a handstand at all to being able to do (1) 40 seconds of handstand hold, (2) 1 rep of handstand pushup and (3) press to handstand.
I'm sure there are many handstand experts out there giving advice on how beginners should learn a handstand but some of them are simply too advanced for beginners to comprehend and incorporate into their trainings. So I want to share the advice that has worked for me at least as a person who has gone through the whole process:
1. Don't try your luck
In the first three months of my journey, I relentlessly did handstand kick ups, hoping I could all of a sudden miraculously hold a handstand. But it simply doesn't work that way. My wrist flexors weren't strong enough and I simply didn't know what to do with the rest of my body (i.e. Abs, legs, lower back etc). Even if I could succeed holding for a few seconds at the top, there's no guarantee that I could do the same thing the next day. It's really frustrating and stupid to train handstand that way.
2. Maximise upside down time
I like to think that the golden rule for training handstand is to maximise the time you spend upside down. That's the only way you could develop neuromuscular control over your body and not feel weird and out of control once you start doing a few seconds of free handstand. You could maximise your upside down time by doing 3 sets of at least 30 seconds of handstand hold against wall every workout. I recommend the chest to wall version and I still do it every single session.
3. Divide and conquer
Handstand is a really complex move that involves coordination of various muscle groups. I find the yoga progression for handstand very reliable and it should be used as a reference for training handstand. This means doing a lot of frog stand and headstand. Training frog stand will help develop your wrist flexors' strength, range of motion and balance. Training headstand will make you become more aware of what to do with your lower body and abs. Doing these accessory work will help you fix your weak links in isolation and eventually develop the body awareness necessary to hold a handstand.
4. Train press to handstand as soon as you could hold a handstand for 10 seconds.
If you would like to hold a handstand every time, you should learn different ways of entry into a handstand. Compared to a handstand kick up, pressing into a handstand gives you a higher success rate because you could enter into a handstand slow and controlled. I started training press to handstand after I was able to do 10 seconds of handstand hold and that is around six months into training handstand (as you can see in in my video) and it has significantly increased my success rate since then.
The timeline for my handstand journey is something like this:
I have hyperlinked the milestones and matched them with my video for the sake of convenience.
1-2 months: Fail/0 second (0:11 to 1:28)
3-4 months: 5 seconds (1:38)
4-6 months: 5-15 seconds (1:52 to 2:44)
6-8 months: Press to handstand against wall, free press to handstand attempts (2:52 to 4:00)
9-11 months: Press to handstand (4:00 to 4:15)
11-12 months: Free handstand pushup (4:11); 7 handstand pushups (against wall) (4:35); handstand press by the pool (5:05); 40 seconds handstand hold (5:18)
Below are all the exercises I have done to train my handstand:
Check out my latest handstand progress on my instagram (@jme_cal). I will also share on my Instagram some thoughts on discipline, bodyweight training and philosophy in general!
I'm sure there are many handstand experts out there giving advice on how beginners should learn a handstand but some of them are simply too advanced for beginners to comprehend and incorporate into their trainings. So I want to share the advice that has worked for me at least as a person who has gone through the whole process:
1. Don't try your luck
In the first three months of my journey, I relentlessly did handstand kick ups, hoping I could all of a sudden miraculously hold a handstand. But it simply doesn't work that way. My wrist flexors weren't strong enough and I simply didn't know what to do with the rest of my body (i.e. Abs, legs, lower back etc). Even if I could succeed holding for a few seconds at the top, there's no guarantee that I could do the same thing the next day. It's really frustrating and stupid to train handstand that way.
2. Maximise upside down time
I like to think that the golden rule for training handstand is to maximise the time you spend upside down. That's the only way you could develop neuromuscular control over your body and not feel weird and out of control once you start doing a few seconds of free handstand. You could maximise your upside down time by doing 3 sets of at least 30 seconds of handstand hold against wall every workout. I recommend the chest to wall version and I still do it every single session.
3. Divide and conquer
Handstand is a really complex move that involves coordination of various muscle groups. I find the yoga progression for handstand very reliable and it should be used as a reference for training handstand. This means doing a lot of frog stand and headstand. Training frog stand will help develop your wrist flexors' strength, range of motion and balance. Training headstand will make you become more aware of what to do with your lower body and abs. Doing these accessory work will help you fix your weak links in isolation and eventually develop the body awareness necessary to hold a handstand.
4. Train press to handstand as soon as you could hold a handstand for 10 seconds.
If you would like to hold a handstand every time, you should learn different ways of entry into a handstand. Compared to a handstand kick up, pressing into a handstand gives you a higher success rate because you could enter into a handstand slow and controlled. I started training press to handstand after I was able to do 10 seconds of handstand hold and that is around six months into training handstand (as you can see in in my video) and it has significantly increased my success rate since then.
The timeline for my handstand journey is something like this:
I have hyperlinked the milestones and matched them with my video for the sake of convenience.
1-2 months: Fail/0 second (0:11 to 1:28)
3-4 months: 5 seconds (1:38)
4-6 months: 5-15 seconds (1:52 to 2:44)
6-8 months: Press to handstand against wall, free press to handstand attempts (2:52 to 4:00)
9-11 months: Press to handstand (4:00 to 4:15)
11-12 months: Free handstand pushup (4:11); 7 handstand pushups (against wall) (4:35); handstand press by the pool (5:05); 40 seconds handstand hold (5:18)
Below are all the exercises I have done to train my handstand:
- Frog stand
- Headstand
- Handstand hold against wall (chest to wall)
- Handstand hold against wall (back to wall)
- Assisted handstand pushup (chest to wall)
- Press to handstand
- Handstand hold
- Hollow body hold
- Downward facing dog
Check out my latest handstand progress on my instagram (@jme_cal). I will also share on my Instagram some thoughts on discipline, bodyweight training and philosophy in general!
