It can be a daunting task, learning to handstand for beginners. You see someone doing an amazing handstand and you think ‘Wow! That looks incredible!’ And you make ‘getting your handstand’ a major goal for you but where do you start?
On this page, we’ll be explaining the step by step process of learning this move as a beginner and all the pitfalls to avoid along the way!
If you’re a newbie, you’ll want to make sure to avoid the following things that could stunt your progress before you start!
It is NOT your fault if you set out thinking you can learn to handstand in 5 minutes or 30 days. We’ve seen the ads and on behalf of all LEGIT handstand coaches, we are sorry but you’ve been lied to.
If you want to avoid getting frustrated because you’re not seeing fast enough progress, you’ll need to adjust your expectations to a more realistic time scale. This is not a case of ‘you can do anything you put your mind to’.
If handstands were that easy, we’d all be incredible world-class handbalancers in a month!
Be patient. It’s a journey (that should have wicked results), it is not a race.
“Take the time to put in the work to build good foundations if you want long term progress”
A lot of people end up listening to and following advice from coaches who don’t have the necessary knowledge, expertise and understanding to effectively teach people this skill.
Unfortunately, this ends up being worse for people that just them doing bad drills, for the following reasons.
So it’s really important that you only follow advice from the right people. Which is why we’ve put together two checklists further down this page to help you avoid bad advice and find good advice.
People always want to go straight to the balance / holding part of doing a handstand because what people SEE as ‘doing a handstand’ is ‘balancing on your hands’ or ‘holding your handstand’ So if they can’t do one, they THINK it’s because they can’t ‘balance on their hands’. However, balance is JUST ONE of multiple factors that make up ‘doing a handstand’.
If you try to hold it straight away, it’s not going to work well because you haven’t built the proper foundations you need to be able to learn how to balance / hold it yet.
It’s like trying to run a marathon before you can jog a mile. If you’re lacking correct running technique, leg strength and cardiovascular fitness, then you’re going to suffer majorly trying to run a marathon.
It’s the same with handstands. If you’re lacking the basics like strength, flexibility and alignment and you constantly try to ‘hold’ it, then you probably won’t improve much and you risk developing discomfort or pain that will actually take you AWAY from your goal of learning this move.
If your body is not ready to be put under the strain of doing handstands for such long periods of time, then pushing your body past what it’s capable of AND doing it with bad technique is a great way to injure yourself!
So we’ve talked about some major things that could hold you back from achieving your goal. Now we’re going to tell you the BEST thing for actually moving you towards your goal…
Getting expert coaches that have expert knowledge. If you do this then…
People always ask us, ‘ Gabby and Reuben, what do you actually NEED to do a handstand?’
And we reply, ‘You need to build the following things…
BEFORE just trying to hold it over and over again!’
Many coaches and courses START with you doing handstands straight away. Now, this may sound like a good thing… (You take a handstand course and the first thing they get you to do is a handstand, which is what you want.) However, this is NOT the best way for someone to start learning this move!
We are the ONLY coaches (that we’re aware of) that have a course specifically designed for beginners, which DOESN’T start with you trying to do a handstand straight away!
As we mentioned above, changing your environment too fast or too soon can result in discomfort or injury. So you’ll want to start learning this skill by building the correct foundations and technique.
You might be wondering, ‘Why can’t I just skip the foundations and go straight to trying it?’ You can. You can do what you want. We’re just trying to help you understand why, although this may ‘SEEM’ like the fastest way to your goal, it actually isn’t.
We often use the following analogy to help our students understand that the best way to learn a skill is not NECESSARILY the way that ‘SEEMS’ to be the best.
Imagine you’re at the start line of a race with ten others. The gun goes off and WHOOSH, everyone starts running. Except you, you don’t. You stay at the start line to build a race car. It’s true that whilst you’re building your race car, all of the others are speeding ahead of you and it ‘SEEMS’ to everyone (including yourself) that the others are getting closer to the finish line and you’re not.
However, when you finish building your race car, you will overtake all the others quickly, easily and by SO MUCH.
Years later, the others will be wishing they’d taken the time to build a race car like you did because they’ve hit a plateau, they never reached the finish line or they just gave up, demotivated by lack of progress. They will be asking you how you did it!
It’s the same with handstands.
If you learn in the right way, you will progress more, get less frustrated and you’re less likely to injure yourself.
Taking the time to understand how to build your race car might not ‘SEEM’ like progress but it really is!
This is why we created our ‘7 Pillar Method’. To help you understand the parts you need for your handstand AND the order in which you need to build them, just like the race car. This will make a MONUMENTAL difference to your success.
This method has helped over 1,000 of our students learn to handstand and showed them EXACTLY what they needed to focus on.
The great news is that, as a beginner, you have such a head start by knowing this information. Most people find out all the stuff we’re saying here a year or two into their journey (when they’re frustrated, struggling, not seeing progress and wanting to give up!) So congratulations because you will save yourself so much time by implementing what we’re telling you!
Our 7 Pillars of Handstand
As a beginner, you’ll want to focus FIRST on Pillars 1, 2 & 3 of our 7 Pillars (Specific Strength, Flexibility & Alignment).
Below we will give you some easy to follow drills from each of the first 3 Pillars.
The Serratus Anterior Press Up Drill.
This drill is great for serratus engagement and activation, which helps with scapula control.
Step 1 – Place your hands on the floor shoulder-width apart with your index fingers facing forwards.
Step 2 – Make a plank position with your shoulders above your wrists and your legs together.
Step 3 – Whilst keeping your arms straight, bring your shoulder blades together.
Step 4 – Then push the floor away from you as much as you can, forcing your shoulder blades apart.
Step 5 – Then bring your shoulders blades together again, still with straight arms.
Step 6 – Repeat Step 4 & 5 multiple times.
DOs and DON’Ts.
The Savvy Shoulder Stretch.
This stretch increases your overhead range by targeting areas that commonly limit overhead mobility.
Step 1 – Find a bar or a flat surface roughly your waist height.
Step 2 – Hold the bar or place your hands on the surface with your arms straight.
Step 3 – Walk backwards and bend 90 degrees at the hips, making sure that your feet are hip-width apart and on top of your ankles.
Step 4 – Relax into this position, allowing your shoulders to open as far as is comfortable without arching your back too much.
Step 5 – Stay in this relaxed position for 30 seconds.
Step 6 – Then contract your chest and shoulder muscles. Imagine that you’re pushing the bar or surface down into the floor with your hands and arms. Also, tense your stomach muscles and suck your ribs in to create a feeling of resistance. Push and contract for 10 seconds.
Step 7 – Repeat Step 5 & 6 multiple times.
DOs and DON’Ts.
The Golden Line Alignment Drill.
This is our favourite drill for improving alignment in handstand. In this drill, it’s important to focus on The Golden Five: Toes, Pelvis, Ribs, Head, Hands. If all these parts of your body are positioned correctly, your alignment HAS TO be excellent.
Step 1 – Start standing with your back facing the wall.
Step 2 – Reach down and place your hands on the floor.
Step 3 – Step one leg and then the other leg up onto the wall.
Step 4 – Walk your feet up the wall at the same time as walking your hands in to the wall, until you reach a handstand position with your hands shoulder-width apart.
Step 5 – Stay in this position while you try and improve your alignment by focusing on The Golden Five.
Step 6 – Then come down, by simply walking your hands out and your feet down the wall until they reach the floor.
DOs and DON’Ts.
There’s no magic fix for handstands. They’re hard to achieve and take graft and commitment. So, even in the case where you find some great drills, just repeating these drills is not going to cut it (you might get there eventually this way but it will literally take you years!)
There’s so much misinformation about how to learn handstands, which makes it really hard to find information and drills that actually help you improve. Even if you did spend weeks and weeks sifting through all the information to find the best information and drills, you’d still need to put them into a well-designed training program in order to make substantial progress. This program would need to take into consideration when to do the drills, how many reps of each or how long to stay in each position, how many sets of each drill, how much rest time, how often and in combination with what other drills, etc.
Basically, you can learn this move in two possible routes…
Route 1 – You develop your training program all by yourself (which includes; finding the correct information, finding/developing effective drills, putting the drills together into a program, testing it, re-evaluating it, modifying it, improving it multiple times, before you end up with a training program that really works). This takes years.
Route 2 – You find experts (who you trust are experts), who have already done all of this for you and you simply implement EXACTLY what they tell you (what, how, when and how much).
People often choose to go the first route (normally because they don’t yet realise how important it is to have expert knowledge to help them reach their goal).
And they commonly end up getting frustrated, losing interest and giving up.
So you CAN take some drills from the internet, hope you get lucky and you may have some success, you may see SOME progress BUT if you want PROPER RESULTS, you NEED a well-structured training program.
If you do want to learn by yourself then you need to make sure you know the answers to the following questions if you want to improve efficiently.
If you’re not sure or you don’t know the answers to these questions, then every time you go to train handstands you’re going to be wasting time, energy, motivation and willpower. You’ll feel uncertain and be constantly trying to decide if what you’re doing is the best thing to get you towards your goal. This is EXTREMELY draining and gets in the way of you improving.
So, if you’re unsure whether learning by yourself is the best decision, you’ll be happy to hear that we have built an online course that is specifically designed for beginners! (And our students have had INSANE results with it. You can check them out on our Instagram Highlights!)
PLUS…
The best way to start would be to first get clear about a few things before you just jump into trying one!
First, define your goals. You’ll need to choose which route you want to go to learn this complex skill. Are you going to go at it alone or are you going to get some expert advice?
If you decided you wanted to lose weight, would you just wake up the very next day, run 10k and only eat kale without understanding more?
Would you think about writing down a plan? Would you look up some youtube videos? Would you seek out some professional help, perhaps get a personal trainer or someone to design a nutrition program for you?
So, first, you need to decide how you’re going to go about your goal. This involves asking yourself questions such as…
If your WHY is clear to you, you will have a better idea of how to go about achieving your goal and the best way to train.
Next, you need to think about whether you’re someone that wants to train for the long term, someone who wants longevity in your physical practice and abilities.
If you just want to go as fast or as hard as you can without any patience, if you want to skip all the basics in an attempt to rush to the result then you might get lucky but more than likely, you’ll just get injured and this will either take you out or slow you down. You will have to keep fixing things along the way, which is frustrating and demotivating. You’ll be constantly blocked from achieving your goals.
Our friend Tom did a video about his 8-year fitness journey. In it, he spoke about short term vs long term goals. When he started, he went after short term goals. Then after 2 years of hardcore weight lifting, daily practice and dedication, he got injured, losing A LOT of the progress he had made in those 2 years.
By NOT focusing on the foundations and basics first, he ended up stunting his overall progression. He was stopped from moving towards his goals and was forced to go back to redo his training all over again.
After his injury, he decided to work on the foundations and the basics as well as seek professional advice, help and support. This enabled him to make efficient, effective and safe progress in his physical skills, in a way that promotes longevity, so he’s able to enjoy these skills for many years to come!
Handstands can be enduring and unforgiving on the body. We aren’t anatomically designed to stand on our hands (let alone for long periods of time) so it’s important to make sure you’re safe to start training handstands.
If you have any pain or injuries…
It’s better to problem solve any injuries or niggles you may have with a qualified health professional beforehand to save you having problems and getting frustrated along the way.
If you’re pain-free, it’s going to be a faster and more enjoyable route for you to get your handstand!
It’s extremely important to be able to find the right advice if you want to get ACTUAL results. What this normally comes down to is working out who you can trust. To help you with this, we’ve made you the following checklists.
Things to be aware of!
Things to pay attention to!
Being an incredible artist/performer is not the same as being an incredible coach. They are two DIFFERENT things! That doesn’t mean that someone CAN’T be both but it takes A LOT of time to become great at one and EVEN MORE to become great at both. Just because someone can do a fabulous one arm does not mean they are a fabulous coach!
If someone is trying to teach you how to do a straight handstand but they can’t do one themselves, then this is not a good sign!
Are they claiming you’ll get it in 5 minutes? Ask yourself, is this realistic? Do their students’ results support their claim?
Honest reviews by their actual students who started with different levels of ability are what you want to see. (P.S. You can check out ours on our Instagram Highlights!)
Good drills are designed for specific reasons. It’s important your coach can tell you WHY and not just HOW TO!
There are no ‘easy handstands for beginners’. They are not easy and people are often surprised at how technically difficult doing a good handstand actually is. However, there are many preparatory exercises you can do to progressively build the parts you need. We go through all of this, in detail, in our online courses.
The easiest route to getting a handstand is to first understand what you need, to be able to do a tough skill like this. We often get asked whether there is an easy route to learning this move and the truth is there is no short cut that will instantly get you there. Handstands take a lot of work. It’s not just a question of finding a few good drills, repeating them for a while and then BOOM, you can do it!
That being said there is an EASIER route, a more effective, efficient and safe way to learn this skill. We created a route we call the 7-Pillar Method, to help people learn to handstand in the easiest way. This method will save you from years of inefficient training.
You can read more about our 7-Pillar Method on our homepage here.
People are constantly unsatisfied with the progress they’re making with handstands. We see it everywhere and it’s almost never a question of motivation, willpower or training time. It’s almost always because they’re practising the WRONG things. If you do not practise the RIGHT things, you will struggle to achieve your goal.
We also see people trying to do things well past their capabilities and technical levels when they are just not ready yet. They will just attempt to jump into a handstand when they haven’t yet built the foundations they need to do one. They will try to kick up over and over again when they haven’t yet learned how to fall from a handstand safely. They will start trying to do a tuck handstand before they can even make the tuck position lying on the floor. Trying shapes/moves/entries that are way past your level of ability will, at best waste your time and at worst get you injured!
Most people think that working on headstands and forearm stands (elbow stands) are a good progression to learning to handstand but the truth is that they barely relate to each other!
Apart from gaining some upside-down awareness, they are almost useless in relation to handstands.
You would gain much better upside down awareness by doing specific preparatory drills for handstand anyway.
Here are a few reasons as to why working on your headstands and forearm stands to help with handstands is inefficient and wastes time!
Here are a few more drills to get you started at home with us!