Handstands

Body weight training is regaining in popularity among certain circles; particularly boot camps and dinosaur enthusiasts. And that’s a good thing. Body weight training gives the practitioner a greater kinaesthetic awareness and athleticism.

One of the more obvious body weight exercises to choose would have to be the handstand. The handstand allows the trainee to practice a variety of conditioning principals singularly and jointly.

You can practice isometric contractions, max strength, strength endurance, repetitive strength, muscular isolation principal , explosive strength. It also enhances athleticism and balance.

I believe that when you’re learning the handstand the best and first thing to do is fall down. I find that most people cant do the handstand because they’re too busy being scared of falling down and getting hurt. If you fall down a couple of times you will realize that you’re not going to get hurt so you can then get on with learning the exercise.

Now when I begin with these I usually start off with some ugly cartwheels just to warm up and get the feeling of being upside down.

Practicing the hand stand (which often becomes walking on the hands due to trying to keep your balance) increases your bodies skills at spatial awareness ( where you are in space) and athleticism. It also strengthens the rotator cuffs spinal erectors and core.

We usually start practicing the exercise by walking up a wall. We begin in a pushup position with our feet by the wall and then walk backwards up the wall until we are in the handstand.

Walking up and down the wall is a routine in itself. Here we are integrating the core and pushing muscles of the body.

From the up position we can lock and hold it for isometrics, great total body conditioning.

As we get stronger we can start doing handstand pushups. For those seeking size this is a great shoulder builder. My favourite pushup technique from this position is a J push up. Essentially, from an arms extended position lower your body down until your nose just about touches the floor, then, pretend you’re pushing an orange with your nose (away from you) and extend back up. This movement really gets the lats firing as well.

After we get stronger in this position we start doing handstands where we bend down, face away from the wall and swing our feet overhead so the come into contact with the wall. We end up in the handstand position facing away from the wall.

Once again I like to practice holding the locked out position. I believe this is great for strengthening the posterior and small muscles. After you get to the stage when you can hold it for a minute then its time to start doing handstand pushups from this position. Now just because you’re doing pushups doesn’t mean you ‘have ‘ to drop the iso holds. I generally do both. I promise, those holds will make you strong. When you can do 10 handstand pushups, its time to start increasing the range of motion by placing your hands upon some blocks. I’ve used blocks as well as bars to get my head to dip lower.

When you’re capable of doing 3 sets of 10 or more like this its time to start playing with tiger press handstands, one arm handstands, I’ve even done plyometric handstands.

Handstands should be taken seriously and integrated properly into your training regime, but they should also add a fun element to your workouts. They’re great for total body mastery as well as developing awesome strength in the shoulders and shoulder girdle.