Just starting out with your hand balancing training? Wondering how long will it take you to master the freestanding handstand? Take a look at this video for instant motivation and to get a rough estimate of how long will it take you to achieve this move.
To fasten up your progress and reach a stable 30-second freestanding handstand as fast as possible, check out one of my best selling courses here.
I often receive questions on basic handstand moves and drills from people who are just starting out with their hand balancing training. The following video contains three quick and effective drills for those looking to achieve their first freestanding handstand gradually.
And you can practice them anywhere!
Already able to perform basic hand-balancing moves? Click here to learn how to walk and jump on your hands.
Another lead-up drill for Straddle Press Handstand is One Leg Press Handstand, a drill #7.
As you can see, in this drill you’ll kick-up into a freestanding handstand while lowering only one leg and keeping the other one in the air. By staying in that balanced position, you’ll increase your dynamic flexibility. Initially, you’ll only be able to lower one of your legs just a bit before coming back up. After a certain amount of practice you’ll succeed in touching the ground with that leg and come back up without the kick-up.
As you can see in the video, that bottom range of motion is still a bit difficult for me and I had to use little momentum in order to come back up. Even though I only started practicing this drill recently, it’s a great one. By using only one leg, you’re basically learning to control your entire bodyweight in that dynamic manner, which is essential for performing the straddle press handstand.
The handstand on the ground is fairly tough but easily doable with a little practice. The handstand on rings is much, much tougher.
Here we have Jim Bathurst on the rings working on his handstands.
What makes ring handstands harder to do? You can’t use your wrists at all in order to balance like you can on the floor or parallel bars. Instead all the balance must be done from the shoulders and by bending the arms as you can see Jim do quite a bit.
The truth is ideally you don’t want to bend your arms just like in a normal handstand, but when you’re first starting out it may happen. Try to avoid it though as it can set in bad habits.
The easy way to do a handstand on the rings is to wrap your legs around the straps. This is comparable to doing a handstand against the wall. Of course the freestanding ring handstand and that against the straps is like a freestanding handstand versus one against the wall, just the rings both are a jump in difficulty.
Still if you work on handstands on the rings your balance will grow that much stronger.
Some other lead up stunts to it would include shoulder stands on the rings and many other skills.
To buy gymnastic rings for training go here.
For a great course on strength training on the rings go here.
When it comes to handstand endurance there are probably two different things you want to shoot for.
The first is to hold a handstand against the wall for as long as you can.
Without having to balance you can just focus on building your body’s ability to sustain that position. By doing this you’re building endurance that certainly can transfer over to doing freestanding handstands.
Another aspect of this is that you’ll be able to practice more, because each move won’t be as fatiguing as before when you build up your endurance.
The second way is to work on holding a handstand for longer and longer periods of time out in the open. Here’s a rather boring video showing this in action.
Now a handstand of about a minute and twenty seconds is no world record, though it is far better then most people can manage.
I would also caution you if you’re trying to build up your skill and endurance that it is far better to stand in one place. I also came across this video of a handstand endurance competition, but these people are walking all over the place on their hands.
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