---

---

How to Handstand: Why Understanding the System Matters More Than Drilling Harder

When most people search “how to handstand,” they’re looking for a quick answer…a single drill, a magic cue, or a step-by-step tutorial that unlocks the skill immediately.

I get it. I was the same way when I started.

I’d watch YouTube videos, try to copy what I saw, and hurl myself at the wall over and over. Kick up, crash into the wall, hold for 30 seconds with terrible form, come down, repeat. I did this for months, convinced that if I just kept practicing, it would eventually click.

It didn’t.

I was stuck doing sloppy wall handstands with a banana back and no real understanding of what I was actually trying to achieve. I was working hard, but I wasn’t making progress because I was essentially training blind, wildly attempting a skill I knew nothing about.

Everything changed when I got a professional coach.

Suddenly, someone was teaching me how to move. How to stack my body properly. What each part of my body should be doing and why. The theory behind handstands. The concepts and framework that made all the individual pieces make sense.

For the first time, my training had meaning. I wasn’t just throwing myself upside down and hoping for the best. I was systematically installing a skill, piece by piece, in the right order.

That’s what this article is really about: not just “how to handstand” in terms of what drills to do, but how to approach handstand learning as a systematic process that actually builds skill instead of just burning time.

The Problem With “Just Practice More”

The internet is full of handstand tutorials that give you drills without context.

“Do this exercise 10 times.” “Hold this position for 30 seconds.” “Practice this entry every day.”

And sure, if you do those things, you’re technically practicing. But are you building skill? Or are you just getting really good at doing drills?

Here’s what I learned the hard way: drilling without understanding doesn’t create skill. It creates patterns (good or bad) depending on what you’re actually practicing.

When I was hurling myself at the wall with no coaching, I was drilling a pattern. That pattern included:

• Kicking with way too much momentum
• Overshooting the balance point every single time
• Arching my back to compensate for poor shoulder position
• Relying on the wall to catch me instead of controlling my entry

I got really good at that pattern. And that pattern had almost nothing to do with a freestanding handstand.

This is the trap most people fall into. They practice consistently, work hard, and still don’t progress because they’re practicing the wrong thing.

What Changed When I Got Proper Coaching

My coach didn’t just give me different drills. He gave me a framework for understanding what a handstand actually is and how all the pieces fit together.

Suddenly, I understood:

Why shoulder position matters. It’s not just an aesthetic detail. It’s the difference between actively supporting your bodyweight through skeletal stacking versus muscling through it with your deltoids. One is sustainable; the other fatigues in seconds.

Why the kick-up needs to be controlled. A wild kick-up teaches your nervous system to overshoot vertical. A controlled entry teaches you where vertical actually lives, which is exactly what you need to learn for freestanding balance.

Why alignment from day one is non-negotiable. Bad habits compound. The banana back I was practicing for months became the default pattern my nervous system expected. Fixing it later required completely retraining my proprioceptive awareness…months of work to undo what I’d incorrectly reinforced.

Why the wall should be used as a training tool, not a crutch. The wall isn’t where you “do handstands” until you’re ready to go freestanding. It’s where you build specific strength, develop body awareness, and practice proper alignment without the fear of falling.

With this understanding, every drill I did had a clear purpose. I wasn’t just checking boxes. I was systematically building the components that create a handstand.

The Framework: How to Actually Learn Handstands

Based on that coaching experience and now having coached thousands of students myself, here’s the framework that actually works for learning how to handstand.

Step 1: Understand What You’re Building

Before a single kick-up, you need to know what a proper handstand looks like and why it looks that way.

A handstand isn’t just “being upside down.” It’s:

• Shoulders fully elevated (pushed up toward your ears, creating space and stability)
• Straight body line (from wrists through hips to ankles, no arching)
• Active core engagement (ribs pulled down, preventing the lower back from dumping into extension)
• Weight distributed through the entire hand (not just heels of palms)
• Active balance corrections through finger pressure and micro-movements

Understanding this gives you a target. Without it, you’re shooting arrows in the dark.

Step 2: Assess Your Starting Point

You can’t build a skill on top of limitations you haven’t addressed.

The framework requires you to honestly assess:

Mobility: Can your shoulders flex overhead without forcing your back to arch? Can your wrists extend comfortably to 90+ degrees? Does your thoracic spine have the extension needed for proper alignment?

Strength: Can you hold a hollow body position? Do you have the shoulder stability to maintain a plank with proper scapular position? Can your wrists handle progressive loading?

Motor control: Do you have any experience with inverted positions? Can you control your entries and exits with intention?

If any of these are significantly limited, that’s where you start. Not with kick-ups and balance attempts, but with building the prerequisites that make quality practice possible.

Step 3: Build in Layers, Not All at Once

This is where most “how to handstand” tutorials fail. They try to teach everything simultaneously instead of recognizing that handstands are built in progressive layers.

Layer 1: Mobility and Conditioning
Open up the ranges of motion you need. Build wrist capacity. Develop shoulder and core stability through foundational exercises.

Layer 2: Wall Work with Proper Alignment
Learn to stop at the wall instead of crashing into it. Build time under tension in the correct position. Develop comfort being inverted without the fear of falling.

Layer 3: Controlled Entries
Practice kick-ups that are repeatable and controlled. Learn to arrive at vertical consistently, not randomly. This is its own skill separate from holding the position.

Layer 4: Brief Freestanding Attempts
Short, intentional balance attempts where you’re feeling for the balance point. Quality over quantity: 5 focused attempts beat 50 panicked ones.

Layer 5: Integration and Refinement
As the pieces come together, your practice becomes about integrating everything: clean entry, proper alignment, active balance corrections, extended hold time.

Each layer builds on the previous one. Skip a layer, and you’re building on shaky ground.

Step 4: Practice With Intention, Not Just Volume

Here’s something my coach drilled into me: how you practice matters more than how much you practice.

When I was throwing myself at the wall mindlessly, I was getting high volume but zero quality. Every rep was reinforcing poor patterns.

When I started practicing with intention, focusing on specific technical elements, filming myself to check form, being present with what each rep was teaching me, my progress accelerated dramatically despite actually practicing less total volume.

Intentional practice means:

• Knowing what you’re working on in each session
• Filming yourself regularly to see what you’re actually doing (not what you think you’re doing)
• Making technical corrections between attempts, not just repeating the same mistakes
• Resting adequately so each attempt is quality, not fatigued slop

Ten quality, intentional kick-ups will build more skill than fifty mindless ones.

Step 5: Track Process, Not Just Outcomes

When I was coaching myself, I only tracked hold times. Can I hold longer today than yesterday? If not, the session was a failure.

This outcome-focused approach made practice frustrating and progress feel random.

My coach taught me to track process metrics instead:

• Did I train today? (Consistency)
• Did I maintain proper shoulder position throughout my holds? (Technical quality)
• Were my entries controlled? (Skill execution)
• Did I practice with intention? (Mindset)

These are things I could accomplish every single session, regardless of whether my hold time went up. And paradoxically, focusing on process metrics accelerated my outcome metrics faster than obsessing over outcomes ever did.

The Theory Makes the Practice Make Sense

This is the key insight that changed everything for me: theory and framework aren’t separate from practice. They’re what make practice effective.

Without understanding the concepts behind handstands, I was just going through motions. With that understanding, every drill had meaning. Every cue connected to a larger framework. Every correction made sense in the context of what I was building.

When my coach told me to “push the ground away,” I understood that this cue created scapular upward rotation and shoulder elevation, the structural stacking that allows my bones to support weight instead of my muscles doing all the work.

When he told me to “pull my ribs down,” I understood this prevented my lower back from arching and kept my core engaged in the hollow body position that defines proper alignment.

The theory didn’t slow me down. It accelerated me because I stopped wasting time on practices that didn’t serve the actual skill.

You Don’t Have to Learn the Hard Way

I spent months spinning my wheels because I approached handstands as something to “just practice” without understanding what I was actually building.

You don’t have to make the same mistakes.

The fastest path to a solid handstand isn’t throwing yourself at the wall over and over. It’s understanding the system, assessing your starting point, building in progressive layers, and practicing with intention.

It’s learning the theory and framework that makes your training meaningful instead of just random attempts at a skill you don’t fully understand.

Ready to Learn With a Framework?

If you want to learn how to handstand the right way, with systematic progression, clear frameworks, and coaching from someone who’s been down this exact road, I’ve built a resource specifically for this.

[My 4 Essential Elements course] provides the complete framework: the theory, the progressions, the technical understanding that makes everything click. It’s the system I wish I’d had when I was throwing myself at the wall with no direction.

Stop drilling blindly. Start building systematically.

The difference is understanding, and understanding changes everything.

PS: Follow me on socials: Instagram, Facebook, TikTok