The golden rule of handstand training

In theory, balancing a handstand is quite simple. You need to place your center of mass over your base of support, and be strong enough in the fingers to correct yourself to avoid falling down.

That's basically it. In essence the handstand is mostly about strength, although technique can make everything MUCH easier for you.

But if you are strong enough in the shoulders to support your body, and strong enough in the fingers to correct yourself as you are constantly falling, you can balance a handstand.

There are many other aspects such as alignment that can be placed in the equation, but understand that perfect alignment is in no way a necessity.

Fig 1. Centre of mass over the base of support

Fig 2. COM over BOS in aligned and arched position

Why are you not able to balance?

In the spirit of minimalism I will keep this short and sweet, It's more complicated than this, but simple makes it easier to understand and remember. There are x major reasons why you are not able to balance your handstand:

1. You have weak fingers and forearms.
2. You lack upper back strength.
3. You don't train 'balance' correctly.

The reason why you are not able to balance could be either of those, or all of them. It really doesn't matter, you can easily get started and work on all those components by simply choosing the correct exercises, and training with the correct technique.

1. Weak Fingers & Forearms

A common misconception when it comes to balancing the handstand, is that once you have learned the balance you effortlessly floating in the handstand, with no movement, like a statue...

That is not the case. In the context of handstands, there is no official definition of balance, but roughly it can be put like this:

Balance is a constant state of falling with micro-corrections keeping us in balance.

As opposed to what you might think or believe, when you perform a handstand, no matter how good you are, you are constantly 'falling'. However, the better you become, the less you have to fight to keep yourself from falling, and the handstand does become more and more effortless. 

Fig 3. What keeps you in balance is 'micro-corrections'' from the fingers acting as breaks to keep you fram falling over and out of balance.

Test your balance on your feet

Stand up with your chest tall and the feet together. Lean forwards back backwards with the hips open and see what happens.

You most likely noticed that when you lean back the body eventually needs to move the upper body forward, or stick out with the bum to keep your balance. When you lean forward you will notice the toes are starting to press down into the floor to keep you from falling on your face.

Flip yourself upside down and the exact same thing happens, instead of your toes pressing into the floor, you have your fingers. The fingers will need to press down hard into the floor to maintain your center of mass over the base of support, if you are not strong enough or get tired you will eventually fall. 

What muscles engage to keep you in balance?

Try holding your hand up, bend the fingers and imagine you are trying to crush a tennis ball without the fingers touching. Which muscle do you feel engages? If you have a function arm, you will most likely feel the muscles of the forearm engage.

These are your wrist extensors and wrist flexors. 

Fig 4. The fingers press down into the floor which engages the muscles of the forearm, which are responsible for keeping you in balance.

The wrist extensors engage to lift the hand towards the forearm into extension and the wrist flexors are engaged by the gripping of the hand. Your ability to correct your balance in the handstand will be dependent on the strength of your forearms, and the ability to contract the forearm while pressing the fingers into the floor. 

Balancing the handstand is the easiest when there is the least amount of movement in and around the joints. Thus we avoid falling back towards the heel in our handstand, and we instead focus on keeping a small amount of weight in the finger tips to keep ourselves in a more balanced position.

2. You Lack Upper Back Strength

When you perform a handstand, it's done with the arms overhead in what we call shoulder flexion. Lifting the arms up overhead is a joint action that is completed by several joints and muscles working together: Including the Thoracic Spine, Scapula and Glenohumeral Joint (shoulder joint).

Fig 5. A straight line handstand requires full shoulder flexion range of motion (which translates to roughly 180 degrees).

Once you have lifted the arm up overhead, your upper trapezius (UT) will assist in the elevation of the scapula. Which is the action of lifting the shoulder up towards the ears in a shrugging motion. This elevation of the scapula is essential to build a strong base in the shoulders for the rest of the body to be resting on. 

Fig 6. The scapula is able to move in multiple directions, making it prone to instability. Actively elevating the scapula is key to make the balance stable.

Thus, if your strength in the Upper trapezius or Serratus Anterior (responsible for pulling the scapula forward into protraction), is lacking, then your ability to perform the handstand will be compromised. You will also have to work much harder to maintain the position and balance, then if you have a strong and stable platform (elevated shoulders). 

This leads us to the concept of 'stacking'. Like building a tower of blocks, the more we are able to stack the block straight over each other, the more stable the tower will be. In the handstand, we don't have blocks, but we have JOINTS. We want to stack each joint above each other, to create a straight line from the hands to the feet. 

Fig 7. Shows the difference between the arched, stacked and to open handstand stereotype, most people are prone to one of these.

With regards to the upper back, the most important blocks are the three first:

1. Hands
2. Elbows
3. Shoulders

We want to have the elbows above the hands, and the shoulders above the elbows. By keeping the shoulders stacked above the hands you will increase the engagement of the upper traps and this will move the center of mass over the base of support and place more weight in the fingers for better control and balance.

Fig 8. The hands, elbows and shoulders are all stacked above each other.

A common mistake here is working on the handstand with the shoulders behind the hands, and the feet over the hands, to compensate for the shoulder position. While this might be an easy of balancing the handstand, it does not strengthen the upper back, and might put unnecessary stress on the shoulder joint.

Thus to effectively develop strength in the upper trapezius, you want to focus on easier handstand progressions, where you are able to fully elevate, get some slight protraction and the shoulders are stacked above the hands. Such as box handstands, wall handstands etc. Slowly increase the difficulty, but prioritize technique.

3. You Don't Train Balance Correctly

The last and most common, is not training the balance correctly. When it comes to the handstand, it's common sense and common knowledge that it's best to first learn it on the wall. The wall allows you to train the handstand safely, get more comfortable upside down and will act as your spotter, no matter what. 

The problem that often occurs on the wall, is that people become too reliant on the wall, and they forget that our goal is to actually get off the wall. If you are the person who performs the wall handstand by lying on the wall with open shoulders, then you will never learn the handstand beyond the wall...

Like we mentioned before, we need to apply the golden rule of handstands. Which is... Center of mass over base of support. You need to move the hips and the shoulders above the hands, this is not possible if your stomach is resting on the wall. This also works together with point two, to strengthen the upper back.

Fig 9. Shows how the COM travels outside the body during an 'improper' wall handstand, and how stacking moves the COM forward over the BOS (hands).

When you are training the handstand, wither that is freestanding or against the wall. Remember what you are training for, which most likely is to balance freely, without the assistance off the wall. This means that we need to train for this specific goal in mind, and not just spending time on the wall and never moving forward. 

Test your ability to find balance

Take your smartphone, set it up by sideways from the wall, and record yourself doing a wall handstand. Take a screenshot, and then imagine that the wall is not there, what does your position look like? Will you be able to balance (COM over BOS), or will you fall down?

If your feet are behind the hands, or the stomach is resting on the wall you not be able to balance without the wall, and thus need to change the position. When you find the right position, you will find that the feet will start to 'float' off the wall automatically, this is the beauty of the golden rule. 

Conclusion:

We arrive at the conclusion of this article. You now know the most common reasons for not being able to balance the handstand (weak fingers/forearms, lack of strength in the upper back/positioning and poor balance training). 

To improve your ability to balance you need to focus on increasing the strength of your fingers and forearms, you need to train the handstand with stacked and elevated shoulder for upper back engagement, and you need to practice balance correctly.