handstandwalk

How to start your handstand walking journey

By Anna WishnowskyBodyweight Training, Exercise Tutorials, Gymnastics Training

If you’re starting to feel proficient with handstand holds and want to turn that skill into walking, here are some drills you can try to help you understand the lateral shift required to get from one hand to the other, and build strength on your hands so you can successfully learn to walk.

Exercise Quick Navigation

Pike on Box Shift

What You’ll Need

A 20″ x 24″ x 30″ box.

Technique

In a nicely stacked pike with your feet on the box (hips over hands), shift sideways so your weight is in one hand. Then, shift the other way. At this stage, you don’t need to pick the hand up off the floor, but that will be where this drill heads next as you progress it.

Common Mistakes

Not getting the hips over the hands! Make sure your hips are directly over the middle of your hands – you can take a photo or video of yourself if it helps. It has to be the middle of the hands or the knuckles, not the heel of the hand.

Single Arm Pike on Box

What is it?

Exactly the same as the shift, but you’re holding the single arm position on one side for time. Hang on for as long as you can to build strength here!

What You’ll Need

A 20″ x 24″ x 30″ box.

Single Arm HS Shifts

What is it?

In a handstand position, shifting your body weight from one hand to the other.

What You’ll Need

A wall.

Technique

Kick up to a handstand against the wall, as tall as you can with your eyes on the wall opposite you, and shift your body weight into one hand. If you’re feeling adventurous, you can lift the hand off the floor completely and tap the hip, or just lift it slightly off the floor.

Common Mistakes

Bending the elbows or relaxing into the handstand – make sure you are pushing HARD into the floor!

Single Arm HS Shifts (wall facing/chest to wall)

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Learning to walk on your hands requires a decent amount of shoulder strength, good handstand foundations, and the ability to shift your body weight from one side to another while maintaining the position of your core and body. These drills focus on learning to shift your body weight without losing shape.

Exercise Quick Navigation

Single Arm Lifts in Plank

What is it?

The friendliest and easiest first exposure to bringing some of your body weight into one hand. This is a good place to start since it’s less heavy than a pike position and is usually more familiar than a pike.

Technique

From a high plank, shift your body slightly to the side so you can lift one hand off the floor.

Common Mistakes

Letting your lower bag sag, or upper back drop down between the shoulder blades. Push tall into the floor with locked elbows!

Plank up downs

What You’ll Need

A box and a bumper plate

Technique

Starting in a high plank with your feet on the box and your hands either side of a bumper plate, step one hand up onto the plate, then the other. Then, step the first hand back down off the plate, and the second. Repeat for as many reps as is prescribed. Push into the floor to make space and let your shoulder blades glide forward instead of being pinned back

Common Mistakes

Make sure you stay tight in abs so your body is a straight line from shoulders to toes – don’t let your lower back sag! Also avoid the upper back sagging down into the shoulder blades – they shouldn’t be sticking up or squeezed back. Keep your elbows nearly locked the whole time and use this push from the sholuder blades to move the hands.

Plank walk over plate

What is it?

This is an entry-level drill to help you understand how to push into the ground to make space for the other hand to sweep through like you would in a handstand walk.

What You’ll Need

A bumper plate and a low box.

Technique

Setting up with your feet on the box and hands on one side of the bumper plate, walk both hands over the bumper plate. Repeat in the other direction and accumulate time on your hands like this.

Common Mistakes

Sagging through the low back, bending the elbows, or sinking into the shoulder blades.

Single arm alternating pike shift

What is it?

This shifting movement is a nice bridge from shifting hands in a plank movement to doing it in a more handstand-like pike movement.

Technique

Make a pike position on the floor. Shift your body weight enough to clear one hand from the floor, and tap your hip. Then switch sides.

Common Mistakes

Theres’ no need to extend the back heaps here – you can just stay long with the spine.

Lateral pike walk over plate

What is it?

Very much like the plank walk over the plate, but shifting into a more handstand-like position.

What You’ll Need

A 20″ x 24″ x 30″ and a bumper plate.

Technique

Walking into a pike (knees can be bent) with your hands on one side of the bumper plate, walk your hands over the plate until you’re on the other side. Count this as one rep, then walk back the other way.

Common Mistakes

Not getting hips stacked over hands – make sure your hips are directly over the middle of the hands when you do this.

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Float to handstand drills are some of the most important for your progression in handstand holds, and therefore also handstand walks. Floats teach us to slowly and gently shift into the balance point in a handstand. They are a gentle movement and require you to engage the hands as you float off a box, wall, band or other object into your handstand hold or walk.

This is where most people go wrong – they are in a hurry to be in a handstand, so they rush the shift in position from the moment their weight is on another surface to the moment they are fully supporting their own weight in a handstand. Kicking, shoving, or otherwise using momentum to get off a secondary base of support fails to build the understanding of where the body weight needs to be centred in the hand for a successful handstand.

As you watch through the float drills below, think about how you could slow it down, be gentle, and let your brain focus on what your hands and body weight are doing, instead of thinking about being “off” or “on” the secondary base of support.

Exercise Quick Navigation

Box float to handstand

What is it?

A float to handstand drill that leaves more weight on the box and requires a more substantial and obvious weight shift than when you float from a wall.

What You’ll Need

A 20″ x 24″ x 30″ box, and maybe some extra bumper plates if you need a higher box.

Technique

From a pike on the box (you can bend your legs if you need to), lift one leg up toward the sky and feel the weight shift into your hands from your feet. Keep shifting until the leg remaining on the box gets so light that it feels like less than a gram of your body weight is left in the box. Grip your fingers into the floor and allow the foot to lift off the box.

Common Mistakes

Pushing or kicking off the box. No float drills involve kicking.

Band in rack float to handstand

What You’ll Need

A couple of thick resistance bands, a squat rack or rig with uprights that you can set the resistance bands in at roughly the height of your neck or chin.

Technique

Climb your legs up the squat rack so that you can hook your feet into the band. Stretch your legs up so that you can now rest your shins into the band. If the band is on your thighs, raise the band up higher. Get into a tall handstand position and separate your legs. Bring the leading leg over your body until you feel the weight of the leg still in the band start to feel light. Continue shifting until there is hardly any weight remaining in the band and the band is no longer wobbling. See if you can lift the leg off the band. If you can’t lift it off, you need to keep shifting further forward into your hands.

Common Mistakes

Leaving way too much body weight in the band and trying to kick out of it.

Float to handstand from wall

What is it?

The smallest movement out of all the float to handstand drills. This makes it both the easiest because it doesn’t take much shift to get into the float, and also the hardest because you have to be more conscious of a less obvious shift in weight from the heels of the hands to the middle of the hands.

What You’ll Need

A wall.

Technique

From a wall-facing handstand, separate your legs and allow the leading leg to gently pull you off the wall. Move as slowly as you can. At some point, you will feel almost no weight left on the wall in the second leg, and your second foot will leave the wall when your weight has fully shifted into your hands. Do not rush the legs together at this point, just hold that position by gripping the ground.

Common Mistakes

Pushing or kicking off the wall, or rushing to close the legs.

Another mistake is not gripping the ground or pushing the fingers into the floor, so when the weight shifts there’s nowhere to go but to fall over the top.

Box straddle press

What is it?

A double-leg float (which is how we regress the press to handstand!)

What You’ll Need

A box.

Technique

From a pike on the box, shift your legs wide then aggressively (but slowly) shift your weight over your hands until your feet lift off the box. You will need to push harder into the floor with your legs than with the single leg variations of this.

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Learning to bail from a handstand is particularly important, and it all starts with remembering a movement you probably did at school: the cartwheel! The cartwheel helps us understand how to fall from a handstand because you shift onto one hand and rotate around that planted hand. This is the same movement we do when we overbalance from a handstand.

We can learn cartwheels to intentionally mimic overbalanced positions and learn to manage them, while still progressing them slowly enough that you feel safe.

Exercise Quick Navigation

Cartwheel

Technique

The important part of a cartwheel is the sequencing – one limb at a time lands on the floor. We don’t want both feet landing on the floor at once. It’s okay if your cartwheel is small at first, but as you gain confidence try to make it bigger and bigger until your feet pass directly over your head and you are perfectly vertical upside down.

Common Mistakes

Beginners will be tempted to go around the side of a cartwheel instead of over the top. The more you can get yourself to go fully upside down, the more helpful it will be when you bail from a handstand.

Cartwheel off box

What is it?

When you’re competent with a cartwheel, or if you need to try a different version, you can start the cartwheel with your feet on a box. This will help force your weight further over the top, so make sure you’re not just hopping off to the side of the box.

What You’ll Need

A 20″ x 24″ x 30″ box.

Technique

Walk your hands in so your hips are over your hands in a pike, then shift your weight over your hands so far that you have to lift one hand with the other still planted, then twist to catch yourself with one foot at a time.

Common Mistakes

Landing both feet at once, or falling sideways next to the box instead of rotating over one planted hand.

Cartwheel off wall

What is it?

Much like the box, the wall leaves you with almost no escape from the shift required to go over the top. Get adventurous and force yourself to shift close to the wall so you can really feel what it’s like to overbalance over the top of your hands.

What You’ll Need

A wall!

Technique

Wall walk your way to a wall-facing handstand, then shift your weight forward in your hands until you start to fall over the top. Shift one hand out of the way, rotate in that direction, and catch one foot on the floor at once.

Common Mistakes

Not shifting far enough over the top of the hands.

Overbalance from wall

What is it?

This is much like the cartwheel from wall, but you’re going to generate some momentum pushing off the wall so that you have to catch in your cartwheel quickly.

What You’ll Need

A wall.

Technique

Wall walk your way to a wall-facing handstand, then use your foot to push off the wall into an overbalance. Shift one hand out of the way, rotate in that direction, and catch one foot on the floor at once.

Single arm cartwheel

What is it?

A more advanced cartwheel that can help you understand how to rotate over one hand a bit faster than the two-handed cartwheel.

Technique

Enter the cartwheel as usual, but do not place the second hand on the ground. Twist over the top, landing your feet in the same order as usual.

Common Mistakes

The one handed cartwheel is very hard unless you can do a good cartwheel with a full rotation over the top. Make sure your cartwheel is good before you try this!

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Pike on Box Shift

What You’ll Need

Technique

Common Mistakes

Single Arm Pike on Box

What is it?

What You’ll Need

Single Arm HS Shifts

What is it?

What You’ll Need

Technique

Common Mistakes

Single Arm HS Shifts (wall facing/chest to wall)

Ready to workout?

Related Posts

Single Arm Lifts in Plank

What is it?

Technique

Common Mistakes

Plank up downs

What You’ll Need

Technique

Common Mistakes

Plank walk over plate

What is it?

What You’ll Need

Technique

Common Mistakes

Single arm alternating pike shift

What is it?

Technique

Common Mistakes

Lateral pike walk over plate

What is it?

What You’ll Need

Technique

Common Mistakes

Ready to workout?

Related Posts

Box float to handstand

What is it?

What You’ll Need

Technique

Common Mistakes

Band in rack float to handstand

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Technique

Common Mistakes

Float to handstand from wall

What is it?

What You’ll Need

Technique

Common Mistakes

Box straddle press

What is it?

What You’ll Need

Technique

Ready to workout?

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Cartwheel

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Cartwheel off box

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Cartwheel off wall

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Overbalance from wall

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What You’ll Need

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Single arm cartwheel

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