We’re not talking about this enough: your hands in a handstand

I find it so weird that often when we learn to handstand, no one spends significant time talking about what to do with and feel in your hands. It leads most beginners to focus their efforts and intentions elsewhere, when the biggest cues are coming from the hands since they’re the base of support when you’re upside down.

Here’s what you need to know:

• The pressure in your hands needs to shift forward from the heel and outside of the hand to the middle of the hand. That means there will be weight in your fingertips and possibly the base of your knuckles as well. It’s further forward than most people think when they start handstanding.
• The muscles of the forearm should be working hard. You know how when you stand on one foot, the foot wobbles around and the muscles around your shin and calf have to adjust to create that balance? The hands have to do the same when you’re upside down

This article covers what you need to know about your hands in various handstand movements.

Handstand holds and walks

What should you feel?

• A shift in pressure from the heel of the hand into the knuckles and fingertips as you kick up into the handstand
• A maintenance of pressure in the middle of the hand as you hold
• The fingertips digging into the floor whenever your body threatens to tip over the top and overbalance
• The distal knuckles popping up off the floor if you are gripping the floor hard enough
• The shoulders shifting forward whenever your body threatens to fall back down and underbalance

Common Mistakes

• Leaving the weight too far back in the heels of the hands
• Flat, lifeless hands with no intention of the fingertips into the floor
• No action when encountered with a slight over or underbalance

Handstand Wall Pull Aways – Plate to Wrist

Kick up to overbalance

Technique

Deliberately kick up with more force than is required for a handstand so that you start to overbalance. Delay the fall for as long as you can by digging your hands into the ground. When it can’t be rescued, twist to bail safely and catch yourself.

Play around with the intensity of the kick up and see if you can actually find the right amount of force to stop a kick up in its tracks.

Wrist Push Up

Technique

Kneeling on all fours, shift your body weight forward so that your shoulders are over your knuckles. Keeping the shoulders there, lift the thumb off the floor, then lift the heel of the hand off the ground by pressing the knuckles down into the floor. Don’t let yourself shift back while you do this – you should feel the undersides of your forearms contracting as you do so.

General Wrist Warm Up

What to do with it

Follow along with the video, and do this warmup or the pieces of it you think are relevant to you before you handstand.

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