- What's up, guys? It's Chris Heria.
Welcome to another video.
You guys have been requesting for me
to do another handstand video,
so today, I'm going to be showing you guys
how to handstand in five easy steps.
Let's head to the back of my balcony.
There's gonna be no equipment at all involved,
so you guys can get started with me.
I'm gonna show you from the very beginning
how to start training properly for your handstand.
Once you've unlocked the handstand,
you're gonna be unlocking insane upper body strength,
body control, and balance.
And it will unlock more exercises
and advanced movements as well, with the handstand push-up,
one-armed handstand, and 90 degree handstand push-ups.
You can't do any of those exercises
until you've mastered the handstand hold.
Now, there's three components
when it comes to mastering your handstand hold.
That's upper body strength, form, and balance.
You're gonna need enough upper body strength
to be able to hold your entire body weight upside down
on your arms, as well as enough endurance
to hold it for an extended amount of time.
And this time-honored tension
is what's special about the handstand hold,
that really develops crazy shoulder strength.
But if you haven't developed the proper shoulder strength
to be able to start learning how to handstand,
you're going to be struggling just to hold the position.
So that's why it's important that when you're starting
to learn how to handstand hold,
that you've already developed
the required upper body strength needed
to hold a handstand hold against the wall comfortably,
without struggling.
To really excel and learn fast as possible,
you wanna be focusing on your form,
not focusing on trying not to fall.
That's why the very first step to mastering your handstand
is building the correct upper body strength,
and the way you can start doing that from scratch,
from the very beginning, is to hold a Pike Hold position.
Let me show you really quick what that looks like.
Starting from the push-up position,
walk all the way up 'til you're in a complete pike.
(atmospheric music)
Alright, now you can see I was in a straight line
from my hips to my heels,
as well as from my hips to my hands.
Being in this position is going to distribute
a good amount of my upper body weight onto my shoulders,
getting comfortable with being upside down
and developing strength and more endurance
in my shoulders for the handstand hold.
Now, after holding the Pike Hold for awhile,
you're gonna hold this position longer
and it's going to get more comfortable,
meaning that you've strengthened your shoulders
and you're ready to move on.
The next step would be to elevate the Pike Hold.
Put your feet onto something higher.
When you've elevated this position
and your feet are on a higher surface,
you're putting even more body weight onto your shoulders,
making this exercise a lot more difficult,
but also getting you closer to holding
your entire body weight more comfortably.
Now, once you've been training the Elevated Pike Hold
for some time, you have developed a significant increase
in your shoulder strength and endurance.
So now you would be ready to start training holding
your entire body weight upside down,
and one of the first moves to get you started with that,
you can develop strictly strength and endurance,
that exercise is gonna be Wall Walking.
Let me show you what that looks like.
Come down from a push-up position, walk up the wall.
Small steps.
(atmospheric music)
Come as close to the wall as you can.
Hold.
Make sure to press down in your shoulders.
(atmospheric music)
Small steps.
You notice that I start in a push-up position,
with my feet close to the wall.
From here, I'm going to take one step onto the wall
and then I'm going to put my other foot on as well.
In small steps, while maintaining a straight line in my body
by engaging my core, and I'm going to walk up all the way
until I reach the top of the wall,
having my body as close to the wall as I can
and having my hands as close to the wall as possible.
If you're pressing into your fingertips
while your hands are on the floor, you're gonna find
that it's easier to stay stuck onto the wall
and you won't find yourself coming back forward.
When you're first getting started, of course,
you want to go up as high as you can.
If you can't go up all the way, the more you train this,
you'll be able to walk up higher and higher,
with better form.
And once you're all the way at the top against the wall,
this is actually one of the best forms to hold a handstand.
Your body is completely stacked on top of itself,
from your hands to your shoulders,
from your hips to your feet,
and this is exactly how you want to be stacked
when holding a real handstand.
If you've been able to master the Wall Walk
at least three consecutive in a row
and hold it all the way to the top with perfect form,
be able to hold this position for at least 20 seconds,
then you've completed the first step,
which is developing the proper upper body strength
and now you're ready to move on
to learning the correct form.
So the progression we'll be using
is gonna be Handstand Kick Up.
Let me show you what that looks like.
(atmospheric music)
Now, to break down this movement,
let's start from the beginning.
We're going to start in a push-up position.
Bring one leg up and now we're in a runner start position.
Now, that one leg that you brought up will be kicking off
and the opposing leg will stay straight
and will be swinging up.
Remember, your body needs to be stacked
when holding a handstand.
You also want to make sure that your fingertips
are spread wide apart with a firm, secure grip on the floor.
You also want to make sure that your head
is slightly in front of your hands
and your shoulders as well,
because if your head is too far back, again,
you're not going to be aligned.
You're gonna kick up and you're gonna come right back down.
So while doing this exercise,
you should actually be looking down at the floor,
and never look away from that one spot.
So the placement of your hands
and where you're looking should actually make a triangle.
So you want to be as controlled and still as possible
while you're going up, as well as when you're actually up.
And probably the most important rule
is that once you're up into that handstand hold,
you need to keep your arms straight.
If your arms bend at any time
and you didn't already immediately fall down,
then it's only a matter of time
until your arms start bending even more,
even more, and your body caves in.
Lastly, when you kick up into this exercise,
you want to make sure that you're leading with your hips.
Your feet and your legs follow right after,
making you fall into a straight line,
because when you're doing a handstand,
you actually wanna fall in place into that handstand.
You don't want to be kicking and slamming into the wall.
You wanna use the exact effort every single time
so that you kick up into the handstand
and you fall into place onto that handstand.
So once you're able to master this handstand kick up,
you can do it with perfect form
and you're giving the perfect amount of effort
to fall into that handstand.
Then you're ready to move on to the third step
and that's going to be really practicing our balance
for the first time.
So this next progression is called Handstand Finger Press
and this is going to first teach you
how to start steering in your handstand.
When you're in a handstand hold,
you're either going forward or you're going backwards.
Doing this handstand press is going to show you
how to push your body backwards,
so if you're falling forward,
you'll know how to control your body
and bring your body back to a balanced position.
Let me show you what that looks like.
(atmospheric music)
Now for the first time, we're actually trying to steer
and control our body being upside down.
And now we're starting to slowly get away from the wall,
so what you want to do in this exercise
is to start pressing on your fingertips hard enough
so that your feet eventually pry off the wall
and you bring your body all the way back down to the floor.
Make sure to keep your arms straight the whole entire time,
as well as your legs, because once you've left the wall
and you're beginning to come down,
you want to bring one leg down straight
and then the other one
and you'll be able to come down safely.
You need to have your core engaged,
your glutes, your calves,
and you need to be pointing your body
and extending your body as hard as you can.
The straighter you are,
the more engaged and contracted your body is.
Your body's going to work as a unit.
It's going to be a lot easier
to manipulate your body's direction and weight.
The whole point is to pry off the wall
strictly just with your fingertips
and maintain a perfect handstand position.
When pressing with your fingertips,
it should feel like you're pressing on a keyboard
as well as you're trying to grab a ball.
So like this, you see we're gonna grab
and we're gonna push and press with our fingertips.
Now, a good indicator to know if you're doing this correct
or not is to get on the floor and from this position,
leaning forward with our arms completely straight
and be pressed in our shoulders,
we're gonna press with our fingertips and press hard, hard,
hard enough that our body starts to come back.
This is one of the main movements
when it comes to handstand balance, so master this movement.
You want to be able to do
at least 15 consecutive repetitions
against the wall in a row.
If you can successfully complete this
with perfect form comfortably,
then you're ready to move on to the next step.
That's going to be the Handstand Finger Press and Release,
and this exercise is going to show you
how to move forward in a handstand hold,
the opposite of what we just learned.
So last time, we pressed our fingertips down into the ground
to bring our bodies back.
This time, we're going to continue
to press into our fingertips
until our feet pry off the wall,
but once we feel that our body is in a stacked,
perfect handstand position,
we're then going to stop pressing in our fingertips
and actually release the pressure from our fingertips.
And now you should feel the majority of your body weight
in the palm of your hand.
Once you do that,
your body is going to actually go back
towards the wall again.
Once you feel your body go back towards the wall,
everything's going to click in your mind,
and now you're going to realize that to hold the handstand,
it's a constant battle of pressing in your fingertips
and releasing, your body actually constantly falling forward
and falling backwards, and you constantly contracting
and engaging, pressing and releasing with your fingertips
to maintain this handstand position.
I want you to try to hold a handstand position
with your feet about this wide away from the wall.
If you feel like your feet are getting closer to the wall,
you're gonna press in your fingertips.
If you feel like they're getting too far back,
you're gonna release that pressure.
You basically wanna teeter-totter
to find yourself holding right in the middle
for as long as you can.
If you've been practicing the handstand kick ups
simultaneously with this exercise,
you should be able to kick up into the handstand
and probably not even touch the wall,
or at least get super close, slightly touch it,
and then immediately get into holding your handstand.
If you happen to touch the wall, that's perfect,
just come back off and try again.
(atmospheric music)
If you touch, come back off, try again.
(exhales)
Alright, so I really need you guys
to master this move right here,
because this is when you're really gonna start mastering
your handstand hold.
You wanna be able to hold a handstand
without even touching the wall,
lined up right next to the wall,
for at least 20 to 30 seconds.
This is probably the toughest progression to master,
but once you've mastered this,
you've really mastered your handstand hold.
You'll literally be holding a handstand
once you've been able to master this successfully.
The last thing that you will just need to learn how to do
to take it off the wall is to learn how to dismount.
This is also gonna release the fear
of you falling forward and you're gonna be able
to eventually do handstands everywhere.
Like when you see my bro Zay
doing it on the balcony railing,
that's because he's really mastered his dismount.
So before I move onto the last,
fifth and final step on how to dismount from your handstand,
I want to give you guys one last tip
in combination with the Handstand Finger Press and Release
to make sure that you're using proper form
when doing this exercise and when holding a handstand
so that you can make sure that you're actually
in a perfectly straight line
versus holding it in super arched with bad form.
So I'm going to show you guys really quick against the wall.
When we're in a handstand, and a lot of times
when we're practicing handstands against the wall,
just being in this position
is going to automatically force our bodies
to be a little bit arched,
because where we place our hands on the ground
is before where our feet goes,
so it's important to have a mental awareness
of where your hips are when you're upside down.
That's what's gonna really determine
if you're in a straight line or not.
And the way to feel that while still standing on your feet
is to go up against the wall,
pretend like you're in a handstand position just like this.
Long and stretched as you can,
you're gonna push your hips to the wall, just like that.
Now when you go like this,
you're gonna feel that you're kind of at an angle.
You're not in a completely straight line,
but that is actually the perfect form
that you want to be in, and that slight bend in your hips
is really what you want to look for when you're upside down
in your handstand, because when you do it upside down,
you're gonna be inverted,
so your body's actually gonna wanna do the opposite.
You might do that upside down.
So really get used to this movement right here.
Okay, so from an arched position,
if you bring your hips back,
you can see how you immediately get back into alignment.
Arched. Hips back.
So keep that in mind
when you're practicing your handstand holds.
Once you've mastered the handstand hold against the wall,
I'm gonna show you guys the last step, dismount.
Let's go into the house.
Alright guys, we're back inside.
I'm gonna show you the last progression
to mastering the handstand hold.
That's gonna be the Dismount.
Now first, let me show you what it looks like.
(atmospheric music)
And that is the dismount right there.
That's the last piece to the puzzle
for mastering the handstand hold.
If you can do this,
then you can virtually do a handstand anywhere on anything
and be comfortable and secure while doing your handstand,
knowing that you can come down safely at any moment.
When you're doing this exercise,
we're actually gonna go up into a handstand hold
and hold that handstand before we dismount.
Even if we're going to hold it for a second
or even if you feel like you're falling really, really slow,
that's actually gonna be perfect for just getting started.
Basically what you're doing in a dismount
is you're going forward into your handstand hold,
trying to come to that perfect balance point
and holding that position by constantly pressing
and releasing with your fingertips,
moving slightly back and forth.
When you're ready to come down, you must first pass
that invisible straight line balance point,
meaning that your body weight needs to be more
in the front side than the back side
and you should feel gravity actually starting
to pull your body forward.
You can slow down how fast gravity actually pulls
your body down forward by pressing in your fingertips.
That will slow it down and if you press hard enough,
you may even be able to bring your body back.
We're actually trying to pass straight as slow
and controlled as we can
and once you feel like you've significantly passed
that straight line, you're then gonna turn your hips
to the side that's most comfortable to you,
and with the same leg on the same side,
you're then going to separate that leg from the other one.
As you're turning your hips,
you're gonna go ahead and put that leg down first.
Once that leg reaches the floor,
you can go ahead and put the other one down as well,
and that is exactly how you dismount.
Just find what side is gonna be more comfortable to you.
You can easily do that by practicing your handstand.
If you can't hold a solid handstand
before dismounting at the very beginning,
keep doing this exercise
and you're definitely going to work your way up,
falling slower, more controlled,
until one day you're able to really control it
and just bring it back and keep it balanced.
And that's basically how you dismount
and that's how you handstand in five easy steps.
So I'm going to go ahead and break it down for you guys.
I'm going to show you the Handstand Kick Up,
the Finger Press, Finger Press and Release,
holding that perfect handstand,
and then finally dismounting.
If you guys follow these five steps perfectly,
then you should be able to do
what I'm right about to show you.
(atmospheric music)
There you go.
Handstand hold with a dismount.
Congratulations, guys, on mastering your handstand.
If you guys are still having trouble on the handstand hold
or you want a complete step-by-step, easy to follow guide,
you can go ahead and get it on Thenx.com,
along with other technique guides that we have,
like the Muscle Up Human Flag,
where you can learn step by step.
And I'll actually be posting a handstand workout
on my Heria Pro app for all of you
that want to continue training your handstand
and need a good workout routine
to take your handstands to the next level.
The Heria Pro app is where I post
all my personal workout routines and workout programs,
so if you want to do what I'm personally working out
every day, every week, every month,
download the Heria Pro app
and get full access to all my personal workout routines.
And comment down below.
Let me know what move you want me to break down next.
Remember, I post every Thursday, 2 p.m., U.S.A Eastern time,
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Mad love. Peace out.
(hip hop music, "Patient" by Chris Heria)
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