How To Handstand and Balance a Handstand for Longer

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Balancing a handstand depends heavily on two main factors, which are your weight and strength, more specifically talking, the strength of your arm muscles, and your abdominals. If your strength and endurance are not up to the task, you might find yourself suffering from muscle cramps as well as problems with balance while you try to do a handstand, which may lead to accidents.

Your weight is also important because the more you weight, the harder it’ll be for you to lift your own body and maintain balance. If you are not used to doing exercises, lifting weights, or training your body, and your body weight is high, you may want to reconsider the adventure. I’m not saying is impossible, but the risks are far higher and the chances of success are much lower.

Ideally, you should aim to become at least physically capable of such a feat. Most people with a healthy weight and non-sedentary lifestyles are able to do it with some practice. Being involved in the fitness world makes things much easier, of course, since your body is more likely to be capable of dealing with the effort required for it, but if you are not used to doing exercises or warming-up before training, you might want to start from there.

But before we go into more detail, let’s talk about one important thing: why would someone put some much effort into learning how to handstand?

The Reason Behind the Sweat

There’s probably one common reason among those who want to learn how to handstand and is probably the one that drives people into learning how to do it at first, but becomes pretty much secondary after they understand the greatness of handstands, and how much they can benefit from them.

That reason is, in short, to show off. A lot of people are likely to learn how to handstand just because they want to impress other people. And let’s be honest, being able to stand on your hands without losing your balance is pretty cool, but is it actually worth it considering how difficult it is?

Well, surprisingly, it seems to be the case. But being able to show off, most of the time fades in comparison to the actual reason why people keep trying: the process of learning how to handstand is actually very fun.

Lots of people have a lot of fun while challenging themselves, and improving their physical capabilities. While you are learning how to handstand, you might end up doing exercises that prepare you for the whole deal. These exercises not only improve your balance but also put many areas of your body to work, ultimately increasing your muscle mass, while toning up your body.

How to Start

There are websites like howtohandstand.com that can teach the basics of doing handstands, but as a personal recommendation, I’d say you should try doing calisthenic exercises first.

Calisthenics is exercises that mainly use your own body weight for training your muscles and toning up your body. Many of these exercises require handstands and involve several muscles of your body. By getting involved in these exercises, you’ll make sure your body is more than ready for handstand.

This will definitely shorten the learning time, since learning how to perfectly master a handstand can take some time. It’s a matter of balance and strength, after all, but also, a matter of experience.

While learning how to do some of these exercises, you might want to try them out on a smooth surface. Most of these exercises are pretty safe, but the moment you start rising your body using your hands without relying on a wall to maintain your balance, the risks accidents rise greatly, so take that in mind for when you start practicing.

If you are a beginner, maybe you can start by doing a plain plank pose. This will let you see your limits when it comes to safely hold your own weight, and you should aim to do it for 4 to 5 minutes.

 Then, try to do the same plank pose while raising one of your legs upwards. You can add some variations, like pulling your knee towards your arms, or raising your body while holding your balance using your arms and tiptoes. After that, try to handstand using a wall for balance support, until you feel ready to try doing it by yourself.

Remember, it might take some time to get comfortable with handstands, and having a body capable of doing it might be even harder, but if you keep doing your best, you’ll eventually manage it, so don’t give up, and embrace the fitness!

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