Handstand Muscles

Today’s post will answer another question from the many I regularly receive.

“Hey I am Stefan I am now starting out with doing the handstand, but my question is what muscles are involved in doing the handstand and what exercises can I do to improve it?”

Let’s start with the first question, what muscles are involved in the handstand? And the answer is all of them.

Ultimate Guide to Handstand Pushups
Ultimate Guide to Handstand Pushups on Amazon

When you’re starting out you need to be able to keep your body tight if you want to have any chance of staying upside down. This means every muscle must be engaged from the tips of your fingertips down to your toes.

This doesn’t mean you flex everything as hard as possible but you must stay tight. As you advance you’ll learn how to use only as much tension as is needed and no more. This allows you to go for longer periods. But to start out with squeeze all those muscles, arms, back, abs, legs and even the toes.

Now onto the second question. There is a rule of thumb in training. In order to get good at something you must do that thing. So if you want to get good at handstands you must do a lot of handstands. There is no way around this.

This is true but in some cases you’re better off working on easier skills. Do skills that are easier then the handstand itself that build up the same abilities that the handstand needs. For the handstand these include a wall handstand, frogstand, forearm stand, and headstand. All the details and proper progression for this is laid out in the Secrets of the Handstand Quickstart DVD.

Work on easier skills that lead up to the harder ones. For anything else in hand balancing check out the Hand Balancing Mastery Course.

As an analogy, if you wanted to learn the piano you wouldn’t start out with the Rach 3 but instead focus on scales and simple songs first. This concept holds true for all skills you desire to build.

Good Luck and Good Hand Balancing,
Logan Christopher

Want more?

Subscribe to our e-mail newsletter to receive blog updates. Find it in the top right of the sidebar.

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

7 Responses to Handstand Muscles

  1. Hunter February 23, 2010 at 11:32 am #

    Nice post. I have been handbalancing for a while now and am working on accomplishing a free handstand pushup. I wanted to add – and I am sure you have seen some of the same in your training – that a relatively heavy kettlebell clean + press / military press does help with the ‘tightness’ needed in the handstand. I notice this especially when I put my mind on my core – the abdomen + surrounding areas – during the press. Do this while handbalancing to make make definite marked progress in holding the handstand.

    Hunter

  2. Logan February 23, 2010 at 11:37 am #

    Good idea Hunter. I’ll give that a try pressing then handstanding. When I interviewed Mark Reifkind he suggested a Bottoms Up Clean and Press as a similar way to work handstand pushups.

    -Logan

  3. Wraymaster January 30, 2011 at 9:34 pm #

    I’m not entirely happy with this explanation of handstand muscles used. Although i agree with you that ALL muscles are used when performing a freestanding handstand, im more interested in an explanation that breaks down the MAIN muscles used.

    To my understanding the main muscles used are:

    Wrist flexors: the hand muscles, the entire forearm basically
    Core: Abdominals
    Shoulders: Anterior and Lateral Deltoids

    Please correct me or add to these MAIN muscles used

    • Logan January 31, 2011 at 10:49 am #

      @Wraymaster: It’s hard to say the main muscles used. I do agree with what you laid out. I would add the triceps to keep your arms locked out. The lats are used in stabilizing the body as well as the lower back muscles, not just the abdominals.

  4. Starla Teichelmann November 11, 2019 at 10:52 am #

    Are you looking for effective advertising that isn’t full of BS? I apologize for sending you this message on your contact form but actually that was the whole point. We can send your promotional text to websites through their contact pages just like you’re getting this ad right now. You can target by keyword or just start mass blasts to websites in the country of your choice. So let’s say you need to push through a message to all the real estate agents in the United States, we’ll grab websites for just those and post your ad text to them. As long as you’re promoting something that’s relevant to that business category then you’ll get awesome results!

    Send an email to [email protected] for the details

  5. Tyrell Reed December 7, 2019 at 4:28 pm #

    Do you want more people to visit your website? Receive thousands of keyword targeted visitors directly to your site. Boost revenues fast. Start seeing results in as little as 48 hours. To get details email us here: [email protected]

  6. Jerilyn Gadsden December 20, 2019 at 7:39 pm #

    Are you looking for effective online promotion that isn’t full of crap? Sorry to bug you on your contact form but actually that was the whole point. We can send your ad message to websites through their contact pages just like you’re receiving this message right now. You can specify targets by keyword or just execute mass blasts to websites in the country of your choice. So let’s say you’re looking to blast an ad to all the contractors in the United States, we’ll grab websites for only those and post your promo to them. Providing you’re advertising some kind of offer that’s relevant to that type of business then your business will get an awesome result!

    Write a quickie email to [email protected] to get info and prices

Leave a Reply