If you didn’t agree, I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t have clicked on whatever link brought you here. So I’m not going to waste any words trying to convince you that handstands are worth your time. This article is about how to learn them, so let’s get started. Show
 Download the Full GuideGet the proven tutorial that’s helped thousands of people nail their handstand, yours free. Here’s what we’ll cover in this tutorial:🧠 Essential handstand concepts 📝 Learning from every attempt The Best Way to Learn a Perfect HandstandI’ve seen countless ways of teaching the handstand, and the way we teach this skill is pretty different from other approaches out there. That’s not to say our way is necessarily better than other ways – that’s entirely dependent on why you want to do handstands and what you want to get out of your handstand practice. For instance, our friend Yuval Ayalon is a master hand balancer who specializes in handstands. In his own practice, he’s aiming for perfection, because he gets paid to perform. He teaches other high level hand balancers how to get as close to perfection in the handstand as humanly possible. I’m not a performer like Yuval, and I’m assuming you aren’t either. So the approach you see below isn’t built the same way a high-level acrobat would go about mastering handstands. My goal is simply to help you feel comfortable on your hands, so you can enjoy exploring one of the most rewarding physical skills I know. Our training method emphasizes motor control, and you can apply that to just about any other skill. You’ll also be building strength and balance throughout the body, along with mobility in your wrists, shoulders, and hips. Let’s get started. Skip to the section you want: 🧠 Essential Handstand ConceptsLike I said, we’ve got a pretty specific approach to learning handstands, which comes from practicing these ourselves for many years, as well as teaching handstands to tens of thousands of people over the years. In this video, I’ll give you an overview of how we structure this approach using the “5P Framework” and I’ll also go over some essential concepts that are going to help you have the most fun and success with this process. It can be a tough goal to work on, so arming yourself with good strategies can make a world of a difference. Don’t get overwhelmed. Download this entire tutorial for easy reference. 👉 Tap or click here and it’s yours. We’ll walk you through each step to getting your first handstand. When we plan a training session at GMB, we break things down into five sections: Prepare, Practice, Play, Push, and Ponder.
That structure is going to set you up for success with your handstand practice. Additional Tips for Handstand SuccessAs you’re working on your handstand, you may run into some trouble at certain points. These tips will help you out:
Skip to the section you want: ✅ Handstand Assessment: Find Your Weak SpotsIf you’re not used to practicing handstands (and really, even if you are), the positioning of the wrists, shoulders, torso, and even legs in the handstand can be quite different from what you’ve done in the past. It’s important to assess where your body is at right now to see how ready you are for the work ahead. In this video, Rose will demonstrate some movements to assess how well your body is able to get into the positions needed for the handstand. Since every day will be different with the handstand, it’s a good idea to repeat this assessment regularly. Here are the assessments shown in this video: Wrist Strength & Flexibility Assessment
Shoulder Mobility Assessment
Wall Walk Assessment
Remember: it’s okay if you can’t do all of these perfectly yet—these assessments just help you get a clearer idea of what you might need the most work on as you practice. Not Flexible Enough Yet? Improve Your Full Body Mobility In Just 15 Minutes Per Day Let’s get you flexible enough for your first handstand. Join the other 102,195 GMB clients, & get our 15-Minute Mobility Boost 👉 Click here to download it. Skip to the section you want: 🚦 Handstand Warm-Up (Prepare Your Body)We’ll start with some exercises and stretches to prepare the body for the handstand work you’ll be doing. Handstands place a LOT of strain on the wrists, which most people are not prepared for without specifically working on this area. You’ll also need a good amount of shoulder mobility to get yourself into good alignment, and leg strength is key. Put all those pieces together, and it’s clear that jumping right into your handstand practice for the day probably isn’t the best idea. This preparation routine will get your body ready. The main areas you’ll want to get warmed up before you start your handstand work for the day are your wrists and your shoulders. Here are the primary wrist exercises to focus on: And here are the main shoulder warm-up exercises to work on: In the warm-up video, we’ve also included:
Skip to the section you want: 🔢 Step-by-Step Handstand Drills & Progressions (Practice Your Handstand Skills)If you’ve ever learned to play an instrument, you know the key to mastery: practice, practice, practice. Think of the handstand like learning to play the violin. You’re going to have to practice the foundational parts of the skill, over and over, until you’re ready to move on to more complex variations. In this video, I’ve included variations starting from a rote beginner level, leading all the way to the freestanding handstand. Here are the handstand progressions from the video:
Rather than think of these exercises as step-by-step progressions, try to approach them like the pieces of a Tetris board. If you’re an absolute beginner, you’ll definitely want to start with the first variation I show, but as you progress through them, you may need different pieces than someone playing on a different board. The pieces don’t necessarily go “in order,” although they certainly can be followed that way. Just make sure not be too rigid in your approach to these variations. Skip to the section you want: 🍕 Handstand Exploration (Play with Your Skills)Serious practice is important, but playful exploration within and around the skills you’ve just practiced is a key to mastering those skills. It’s impossible to tell you exactly what you should be doing for the Play portion, since everyone is at a different level, and feels comfortable with different things, but in this video, we’ll show you some examples of Play. The idea of adding play into a training session is a completely foreign concept for most people, and it can take some time to get used to what it really means and how to incorporate it in an effective way. The most important thing to understand about Play is:
What that means is you’ll play with variations with which you are completely comfortable. Play at whatever level you’re at, and find different ways to explore those variations. As an example, let’s say you’ve been working on wall kick-ups. To Play with this skill, you may try kicking up against the wall and then moving your head around in different directions to see how it changes things. Or you could play with different ways of breathing, or with where you place the pressure through your palms. No matter what level you’re at, you can—and should!—prioritize Play in your training sessions. Skip to the section you want: 🏃♂️ Handstand Conditioning (Push Your Skills)Next up is the Push component. This is the part of the session that will feel most like a “workout,” but their real purpose is to strengthen your body and give you range of motion to hold a straighter handstand for longer. The key is to work at a lower level of skill, so that the quality of your movement remains high. Here are the handstand conditioning exercises:
You’ll notice that these exercises are drills that focus on particular parts of the handstand. This is pretty different from trying to jump up into a handstand and just hold as long as possible (not very helpful advice, especially for someone just starting out with handstands). By approaching your “conditioning” in this way, you’ll get a lot more out of your skills practice. Skip to the section you want: 📝 Reflect on Your Practice and Learn from Mistakes (Ponder on Your Performance)This is the final piece of the puzzle that can make or break your progress with the handstand: mindful reflection. In this video, I’ll talk about what it means to “Ponder” about your handstand practice, and how it will dramatically improve your overall performance and experience with the handstand. Key points for reflecting on your practice:
As you go work on your handstand, you’ll see that progress is anything but linear, and if you don’t know what to expect, it can really mess with your head. It’s easy to start feeling down about your progress if you get too caught up in day-to-day fluctuations in your performance. By taking a few minutes throughout and at the end of your session to mindfully reflect on how things went, where you struggled, and any big wins you had, you’ll start to see the bigger picture over time. Ponder is built into all of our programs. As you work on your handstand with Integral Strength, you’ll be able to take a moment and figure out what to focus on in your next session, so that you get the most out of that. Skip to the section you want: 🧘 Handstand Positioning and Breathing TipsThere are about 1,000 things I could talk about when it comes to handstands. I’ve been doing handstands for almost my whole life and I’ve taught them to thousands of people at this point, so you could say I’m pretty passionate about the topic. In this video, I’m going to go over the most important positioning tips that’ll set you up for success on your handstand journey. I’ve seen plenty of people struggle with the handstand for years, and once they’ve got a good understanding of these concepts, it changes everything for them. Things begin to click, and it just makes the journey a lot smoother. Here are the key positioning tips:
I know that probably looks like a lot, but you don’t have to try and absorb it all at once. These are just general points to keep in mind as you practice, and they take time to master. Skip to the section you want: 📆 Learning to Handstands: Develop Your Best Training PlanBecause the handstand is a skill, you’ll benefit from frequent practice, even if you can’t do long sessions each time. Basic Practice Tips:
Here’s a sample program for 4 days a week, 45 minutes per session. This is just a sample, but you can use this template to inform your own handstand training program. Monday/ThursdayTuesday/FridayPrepare10 minutes total: This overall training structure is what guides all of our programs at GMB, as well as our hundreds of free resources like this handstand tutorial. Skip to the section you want: 💪 Advanced Handstand VariationsFor most people, working toward a freestanding handstand, then taking that further to improve that, can be a journey that takes many months, sometimes years. But for a small percentage of the population who’ve already achieved a high level of skill with the handstand, they want to take their practice further. And that’s great! In the world of advanced hand balancing skills, it seems like people just keep upping the ante! You see some crazy variations these days! We’re not advanced hand balancers, and there are better resources for learning those crazy Cirque-du-Soleil-level tricks if that’s what you’re after (we recommend Yuval Ayalon, Yuri Marmerstein, or Miguel Santana for help with learning those tricks). But we do have quite a bit of experience with hand balancing, and we have some good resources for certain skills. Here’s some of our other tutorials that’ll help you learn some advanced hand balancing skills:
Skip to the section you want: ❓ FAQs about Holding a HandstandWith the rising popularity of handstands, people have lots of questions about handstands, including benefits of practicing them, best ways to get the most out of practice, and how to stay safe. The MOST FAQ: “What if I can’t keep my balance?”Handstands don’t take a ton of strength or flexibility, so anyone in reasonable shape should be able to do one without too much effort, right? Well, turns out it’s not always that easy, so we made this video to help you master your handstand balance: If you’re struggling to hold a handstand for more than a couple of seconds, the most likely culprit is to be found in perfecting these three components of your practice:
More Handstand FAQsDo handstands build muscle?Not really, no. Sure, some people may see slight changes in muscle mass (particularly at more advanced stages of practice), but we don’t recommend making that your primary focus when working toward a handstand, since there are far better ways to increase muscle mass. What you will definitely see improvements in with your handstand practice, though, is strength. You’ll see improved strength in the fingers, wrists, arms, shoulders, back, core, legs, and throughout the whole body. Do you need to be strong to do a handstand?To do a beautiful, straight-line handstand? Yeah, that’s going to require quite a bit of strength in your wrists, arms, shoulders, and core. Nobody gets to that level of skill without building a fair amount of strength. But to get started? No, you don’t need to be mega strong or anything. We begin with an assessment for a reason, though. You want to make sure that your wrists, shoulders, and arms are strong and flexible enough to support your weight in an inverted position. The assessments up above will help you figure out where your weak links are, and then the progressions will start you at the beginning levels so you can build your strength up slowly and safely. How do you get strong enough to do a handstand?With practice! Start with the most basic progressions and gradually build up your strength and control. The “wall walk” progression is the initial move I suggest for a person looking to get strong enough to start working on the handstand. The end goal is to be able to walk your feet up the wall, bringing your hands close the wall so that your body is in a vertical line with toes on the wall. Hold that position for time, then safely walk down. In the beginning it is totally fine to not be anywhere near the wall and simply have your body at a 45-degree angle. Just work at your own pace, walking up and down the wall with your feet and moving your hands towards the wall. This will build wrist, arm, shoulder, and core strength, as well as endurance to take your handstand practice further. How do you do a handstand against a wall?There are two ways to do this:
What muscles does a handstand use?The entire body. However, you will mainly feel it in your fingers, wrists, shoulders, and core when done properly. Are handstands good for you?Sure. They can be when done in a safe and healthy manner. Some of the benefits of practicing handstand include:
How do you train to do a handstand?Well, as you can probably tell by this very long and detailed handstand guide, we’ve got quite a bit to say about that 😉 But, the process can be boiled down to:
How long should I do a handstand for?If you’re asking this question then I say for as long as you can 🙂 Depending on the particular goals you have, being able to hold it for 10 seconds could be adequate. If you’re looking to be able to work on more advanced versions of the handstand, like the one arm handstand for example, I suggest being able to hold the handstand very comfortably for up to one minute. That is not to say that you must have a one-minute freestanding handstand in order to start training the OAHS. However, being able to hold a one-minute handstand would generally mean that you have the strength and endurance necessary to set you on the right foot (or hand in this case) for training the OAHS. How do you hold a handstand for a minute?Like anything, you gradually work up to it. A great way to train at any level is to perform your best freestanding hold for as long as you can, then immediately go to the wall facing inwards and hold it for 5 to 10 seconds longer than your freestanding handstand attempt. Then, take a long enough break so that you can repeat that. This will help build endurance while also allowing you to improve your balance while freestanding. How long does it take to learn handstands?There isn’t one answer to that. It depends on so many variabilities for each individual, so there’s really no way for me to give a blanket answer to that. For some people who might have a strong background, a natural aptitude for hand balancing, and lots of time to devote to it, it could take only 6-8 weeks. While for others, it could take several years if you don’t have much time to devote to handstand practice, or you are starting from a very beginner level of training. Neither one is better or worse than the other—it entirely depends on what you want from this practice. If your goal is to become a circus acrobat, yeah, you need to devote a whole bunch of time to this, and work your ass off until you get it. But for the rest of us, that timeline shouldn’t matter. It’s all about the process. Should you do handstands every day?I wouldn’t say you should but some people do enjoy doing them everyday. If that is something you’d like to do then I suggest slowly building up to doing that. Handstand practice can take a toll on your wrists, shoulders, and lower back for many beginners so make sure you work up to doing them every single day if that’s something you want to do. Are handstands bad for your back?They can be if you find yourself performing “banana” handstands due to poor core stability or poor range of motion in your shoulders. But if you build up your strength slowly and with an emphasis on control, practicing handstands is not bad for the back at all. Can headstands be dangerous?Any movement can be dangerous. That is why it is good to start at the beginning and gradually work on increasing your strength, flexibility, and control with each progression or variation before moving on to the next level. But no, headstands are not inherently dangerous. Are handstand push-ups dangerous?Only if done in a dangerous way. Check out how to do it in a safe way here. Can you lose weight doing handstands?Weight loss comes down to good nutritional habits. Not doing more handstands. Is the headstand or handstand harder?The majority of people will find it easier to learn the headstand because the length of the lever, your body, has been decreased. In a handstand you are further away from the floor and therefore will require better balance in more joints of the body. What is the longest someone has held a handstand?No idea, but those kinds of “feats” seem a bit silly to me. Plus, there are a lot of factors to be considered like what kind of handstand, what kind of form allowed, etc, etc. Does doing handstands help hair growth?No. Handstand practice is extremely frustrating and stressful and a large cause of premature baldness in the movement community. (…kidding, of course, but Google says a lot of people have this question, so we figured we’d add it in here). Skip to the section you want: 🙋♀️ What Else Can You Do to Improve Being on Your Hands?Whew! That was a LOT of information! If you’re working on handstands, or plan to at some point in the future, I recommend bookmarking this page and coming back to it as often as you need to. Working towards, and maintaining, a solid handstand is great training in itself! If you like working on your hands and the full body activation and stimulus it provides, then you’ll probably enjoy working on locomotion variations, which is what our Elements program offers. Give it a look and see what you think! Build a Consistent Training Habit With a Foundation in the BasicsWith Elements, you’ll build a foundation of strength, flexibility, and control over 8 weeks, setting yourself up for a successful lifetime of staying fit and active. Can I teach myself to do a handstand?How do you train to do a handstand?. First, train safety and strength—practice bails and wall walks.. Then, train the entry for balance while continuing to work on strength—practice kick-ups and wall work.. Finally, work on your endurance for the freestanding handstand—practice freestanding kick-ups, holds, and wall holds.. Why can't I do a handstand?Press handstands require a tremendous amount of core strength. If you don't try to use your core and expect gravity to get you there, it's not going to work. Extend through your shoulders and push the floor down. Use your shoulder flexibility to extend your arms further and press your body further upwards.
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How to do a handstand for beginners
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