How to Handstand - Absolute Beginners to Pro

Transcript

it doesn't matter who you are or what strength level you're currently at by the end of this video you'll understand perfectly how to learn a handstand handstands are a huge staple and generational skill in the body weight Fitness industry learning a handstand at any age is like learning how to walk again it takes a serious amount of time and dedication to even learn how to balance on your hands properly however just like with taking our first steps all we need is consistency someone to guide us along and a willfulness to complete this exercise so even if you're an absolute beginner let's get started starting with chapter one the form breakdown there are several points we need to focus on when doing a handstand we'll go through all of them but let's start with the proper hand position there are actually three main balance points when it comes to balancing on your hands the first one is going to be your fingertips the second is the inside of your knuckles where your calluses usually are and the third one is going to be your palms when we focus on all three of these balance points on the ground we end up gripping it it looks as if you're almost trying to scrape the ground with your fingertips again this only happens because we're focusing on all three balance points it's the same as if you were standing if you lean too far forward or back you'll fall over so if you lean too far forward push in with your fingertips and if you lean too far back push in with your palms now let's talk about the perfect elbow position you'll notice when the babies first try to walk and stand they keep a slight Bend in their knees it takes time to straighten your legs and walk or stand effortlessly it's the same when upside down most people can avoid keeping a slight Bend in their elbow actively think about straightening your arms moving forward are your shoulders in the right position placing your shoulders and scapula in the correct position is essential for maintaining a solid handstand so in order to increase our scapular awareness I want to talk to you about four main movements of the scapula the first one being scapular retraction when you push your shoulder blades together scapular protraction where you push your shoulder blades away from you scapular elevation where you raise your shoulders and hands into the sky reaching out as far as you can and scapular depression where you bring your shoulders down we need to focus on scapular elevation elevating so high that our shoulders should be over our ears this is going to help us become a solid foundation for the handstand there's a couple of different ways you can practice this the first one is going to be sitting on the ground and if you have access to dumbbells do a shoulder press and make sure to press over your ears making sure to maintain a slight pause at the top to practice that scapular elevation and if you don't have dumbbells a resistance band can work just as well even if you did this just a couple of times before you actually practice your handstands you'd feel a significant difference moving forward to the next portion what is your core doing you cannot have a lazy core during the handstand you have to actively tilt your pelvis forward and make sure you're squeezing your core we can practice this on the ground notice how when you lay on the ground your lower back Rises into the sky as soon as you lift your shoulders off the ground you end up activating your core similarly raise your legs into the sky and stretch out as if you were holding a sideways handstand this is called a hollow body hold and it's one of the best ways to practice tilting your pelvis forward if the full hold is too much for you bring your knees into your chest just make sure your lower back is still pressed into the ground progress forward with single leg holds until you can do the full thing now let's focus on the lower body what are your legs supposed to be doing nothing can relax during the handstand squeeze your thighs together and make sure to actively Point your toes through the handstand if you have any questions on proper form please leave a comment below chapter two where should we look when we're doing the handstand after you place your hands on the ground shoulder length you should be looking right in the middle of your index fingers this is something you have to get used to keeping your eyes on the ground should help you with your balance and prevent falling over if you have any more questions on Where to look please leave a comment moving on to chapter three how should we breathe this is a static exercise so you just want to breathe regularly however when you're upside down breathing becomes something you hardly think about so what I did in order to practice my breathing is I simply counted you can do this while you're in a pike hold or in an actual handstand simply count from 1 to 10 and you'll notice that you get a lot of breath out if you have any further questions on breathing please leave a comment below now let's finally talk about how to train for this movement beginners should start by learning the Frog stand this is your introduction into hand balancing you'll know you've mastered this when you can hold it for at least 20 seconds start by putting your elbow into your knee that's going to help you balance you can start off by doing Simple frog stand rocks rocking into the position and pushing yourself back into neutral once rocks seem like no problem for you I want you to hold yourself into the end position of the rock don't forget your balance points in your hand next I want you to alternate with leg Taps doing one leg and then the other making it easier for you to understand the balance points and what you need to hold the Frog stand fully this can be scary for some people so if you're worried about falling over simply place a pillow or some kind of cushion in front of you so you won't Bonk your head if you lean too far from forward and if you need additional assistance I want you to use elevation this will help you get into the position properly and it makes it a ton easier to lift your legs before you know it you'll already be in the proper frog stand position once you've mastered the Frog stand the next thing up is going to be the pike hold this is the first time we're training with our arms fully extended and training for this movement is actually pretty easy all you have to do is start in a wider Pike and as you get closer you'll feel more pressure in your hands no matter where you start in your Pike hold journey I want you to remember to have your shoulders pressed over your ears have have your arms fully extended make sure there's no Bend in between them and also make sure to squeeze your core additionally as you progress this is a great time for you to practice the balance points in your hands after you mastered the pike hold I recommend you take it one step further by adding your feet on top of a small elevation focus on everything that we've talked about up until now the more we can expose ourselves to this inverted position the easier time we're going to have when completing the handstand the next step is to take the pike hold even further going to place it on an even higher elevation what we're doing here is exposure therapy making sure our top half is a solid foundation for the handstand but now let's focus on the lower half of our body and one of the best ways to do this is by practicing the headstand the best way to set up for this is by putting your hands around eye level turn your hands slightly outwards the bent arm position means you'll feel most of De pressure on the outside of your hands toward your pinky just like with the Frog stand set up with a pillow or some kind of cushion to protect you from a fall make sure you perform this next to a wall so if you fall forward you have some kind of failure protection start in a tuck position and slowly extend your legs as you get more comfortable in the headstand position this is the perfect time to practice that lower body activation as you experiment with all types of headstand positions like a tuck single leg make sure to keep those toes pointed and to keep those thighs squeezed together again we're only doing this so we can practice that lower body Activation so when we're in a handstand we know what it should feel like after you've mastered the headstand we're going to do wall handstands simply walk your feet up a wall with your chest facing that wall get as close as possible to that wall so you can practice the proper activation if you have any more questions on How to Train please leave a comment below moving forward to chapter five the main entry points start in front of a wall and kick up with your dominant leg once both feet are safely on the wall you'll notice you have a banana bag position bring your opposite leg forward to straighten out your handstand then I want you to ever so gently bring your dominant leg from the wall and you'll already be in the perfect handstand position sometimes having your leg spread is a great way to maintain balance and control before you bring them together some people like to kick up into a handstand which is a great way to start other people like to go from the Frog stand into a handstand and other people simply jump into it if you have any other questions on entry points please leave a comment below now let's go into chapter six common issues if you just started your handstand training and your handstand looks like this you're not alone holding a handstand like that can lead to a lot of issues number one is going to be headaches and this usually happens because our joints aren't stacked properly you don't want to have a banana back position remember we have to bring our hips in line with the rest of our body and we touched on this earlier before but the best way to learn how to bring your hips in line is to do hollow body holds additionally sometimes our shoulders are the culprit I want you to steadily increase your shoulder mobility and to do that set up with me on the ground here with a bench make sure you keep your elbows tucked towards your ears like you're in the handstand place your elbows on that small elevation or bench and this is what we call a Butcher's Block this is the beginner hold but if you want even more make sure to set up like you're in an actual plank position sink your hips to the ground like you're activating your core after you progress through this level you can hold some sort of lightweight I usually use around 10 to 15 lbs if you're falling too much to one side that means you have an imbalance so I recommend you do these shoulder Taps these will help you get used to holding yourself on one side of your body this exercise forces you to have control of one side before you even lift your hand but it doesn't stop there after shoulder Taps have become easy for you I want you to work on hip Taps this is going to be increasingly difficult you can start off by doing this in Pike holds and eventually working your way up to doing it on the wall like I am here and the last common issue you might face is wrist pain so if you want to invest in parallettes that's going to be the best thing for you parallettes are amazing because they force your wrist to be in a fixed position only going forward or back this is clearly different from when you're doing it on the ground and you have access to all 360° of movement if you have any more questions on common issues leave a comment below moving on to chapter 7 how do we safely bail handstands can be very scary so we need to know how to fall out of one in case it goes wrong pay attention to how I bail out of this handstand here you can see I kept one hand on the ground as I was falling I didn't lift that hand until my leg touched the ground let's take another look here as I'm falling you can see I leave one hand on the ground and as one of my legs touches the ground then I'm safe to get it up what I'm doing is basically cartwheeling and guiding my body as I'm falling this is going to assist you with falling and bailing out of a handstand properly I promise you after you practice cartwheeling a couple of times handstands are not going to be as scary as they seemed last but not least when have I mastered the handstand mastering a handstand is no joke and I can guarantee you your body will have significant changes by the time you're able to perform one properly I really hope you guys appreciated this video you can use this as a true guide and tutorial for your handstand Journey if you want to see my app or programs please go to strict fit.com