So, you’ve reached the stage in your handstands where you are balancing intentionally and building consistency. That’s fantastic, and it’s a great place to be in your journey.
From here, I think that one worthwhile goal to go after is long handstand holds. This will help to solidify your foundation of balance and technique, plus measuring how long you can stay up is a really easy way to track one kind of progress.
So, how do you train to hold your hand stand longer?
One way is to just keep doing it and fight for the balance. However, there are a few specific techniques and concepts that I found to be very helpful in this regard.
-Handstand Alignment
Alignment is an important concept when it comes to extended holds. The way that you hold yourself can either increase your fatigue or help to manage it. When it comes to handstand alignment, you want to think about a vertical line of force going through the body. You also want to make sure that you’re comfortable holding the position.
That doesn’t necessarily mean that you need to be completely straight and rigid, but at the very least you do want your arms to be completely vertical to the floor.
If you are practicing handstand with a skill focus, one of the goals of your alignment and position should be to minimize the amount of physical strain when performing the skill. If you do this right, it helps a lot with your focus and endurance.
When first learning handstands, many people have a tendency to bend the arms or lean in the shoulders to lower the center of gravity. It’s not necessarily wrong and can help with finding the balance, but when you do something like this it requires a lot of power to stay up, and you’ll find you will tire out very quickly.
-Refinement of Balance
The act of balancing itself should also be as efficient as possible. The overall goal should be to keep the body fairly still, with majority of balance being made through micro corrections in the wrists and fingers. This does take a lot of focus, precision, and practice to get it right. However it’s a very energetically efficient form of balance which will allow you to stay up longer without wasting unnecessary energy.
It’s common when people first learn to balance that they use additional joints like shoulders, elbows, and hips to help control the balance. This results in a wobbly style handstand. While I do think it’s an important skill, and definitely part of the progression you will follow, Your goal should be to find the still balance because it will allow you to hold it much longer.
-Precise Entry to Handstand
Another element that people often overlook is the precision of how they get into their handstand. You should be able to enter a balanced handstand in one try with minimal corrective movement.
If it takes you multiple tries, it means you’re not as precise as you should be and you are wasting both physical and mental energy in your attempts.
If you don’t use the right amount of force, you may also have to use your shoulders or bend your arms to catch yourself. While this may help you to salvage your entry and find your balance, it’s also using unnecessary energy that could have been used towards holding it longer.
What I recommend is to specifically train your handstand entries in isolation. Rather than trying to hold a balance every time, make sure you understand how to clean up the movement and consistently hit the Handstand position every time you go up. This way it will be much easier when you do actually try to balance.
-Spotted Handstand
Having a good spotter can also be helpful in training those longer holds. It’s not necessary, and I personally learned without a spotter, but there is benefit if someone knows what they’re doing.
The keep to spotting an endurance handstand hold with balance is to help in a minimalistic way. I want to prioritize my partner’s independent balance, but I still want to be there in case they lost balance so they can still stay up and get those longer holds.
If this is done correctly, you can progress much faster than only training on your own.
-Wall Assist
If you don’t have a spotter, you can also use the wall to help with your endurance.
Again, the point is to only use the wall in moments that you would have lost your balance. This way it will help progress towards longer holds. Perform your handstand next to the wall and hold for as long as you can. If you start to lose your balance or position, you can briefly tap the wall and reset without having to come down to the floor.
-Floor is Lava Method
When doing your longer freestanding handstand holds, if you lose your balance you can simply just tap the floor briefly and get right back up. This is a way to squeeze out more time instead of just giving up at the first sign of loss of balance. The way to do this is to maintain all of the weight in your hands as you come down, this will make your reentry more accurate but also keeps the tension in the handstand position. This way, if you’re holding for time and you come down, just try to get back up and recover as quickly as possible so you can still work those longer holds.
-Balance/Endurance Dropset
Typically when you are doing a long handstand hold, you are going to fall out of it because of either physical or technical failure. Technical failure means you foul because you were unable to balance yourself, but did not max out your physical capacity to hold yourself up. Physical failure is when your muscles give out and you are no longer able to hold yourself. This style of dropset incorporates both of these failures, which is great for working endurance.
Start by performing a Handstand near the wall but with free standing balance. Hold it as long as you can, and when your grift starts to give out and you can no longer balance freestanding, take your feet to the wall without coming out of the handstand. From here, you can then perform an extended wall handstand hold for as long as you want to so that you can challenge your endurance. Simple, brutal, and effective.
-Pure Endurance
At a certain point it’s also useful to max out your endurance and capacity in the Handstand. My personal favorite way to do this is in a chest to wall handstand, shifting back-and-forth from one hand to the other. It may seem counterintuitive, but this actually allows you stay up longer than if you were to only stand on two arms. As long as you have a good shoulder push and lockout, staying on one arm is not so physically draining as you may think. While you are on one arm, the other arm gets to rest.
In order to survive longer holds both physically and mentally, it’s good to set up a rhythm. Great way to do that is to have some music playing, so you can switch hands every one or 2 8-counts. This is a great way to build and test your physical and mental fortitude, and see how long you can really stay up in your handstand.
So, just a few techniques and concepts that can be helpful in your quest towards longer handstand holds. I hope it’s helpful!