Brand new to handstands? Afraid of falling over?
For total beginners, it’s important to focus on making your body stronger and more mobile. You will also need to understand how to fall and practice safely. As well, we will spend a lot of time stretching and training flexibility.
You must constantly practice these elements if you want to ensure a strong handstand practice. These are the foundations for holding 1-minute freestanding handstands and beyond. What’s more, you will require the outcomes from the stresses being applied to reach more advanced skills like the press-to-handstand.
This is the introductory phase. No prior handstand experience is required. We’re going to train your body and ease you into the upside down world! Once you are more comfortable with these workouts, and okay with being upside down, you can move onto the beginner phase.
Novice Phase Details
Perform the workouts below. How you structure your schedule is up to you. You could do Monday / Wednesday / Friday, doing each workout on those days. Since alignment is going to take some time, it’s good to add in the workout twice per week. For example,
- Day 1 – First Steps
- Day 2 – Alignment
- Day 3 – Mobility & Core
- Day 4 – Alignment
(See workout instructions and weekly training template below)
If you are pretty inflexible, you could add in an extra Mobility & Core workout, too. Ultimately, familiarize yourself with the workouts and determine what you need to work on. Just make sure you are doing each workout at least once per week.
Workout Sheets
I have included workout sheets to track your efforts. If you need them, click on the link below. Make a copy of the worksheet and you are all set. The levels are tabbed at the bottom. You can track your details in the sheet, or print them off and write them in manually.
Click Here to Access Workout Sheets
See below for weekly training schedule template and example training routines.
Novice Workouts
Workout Programming
Your workout programming is dependent upon how you want to structure your practice.
It is recommended that you perform each workout at least once per week.
Because alignment is really important early on, doubling up on Workout 3: Alignment is a good idea. For example, you could structure your 7-day week:
- Day 1 – First Steps
- Day 3 – Alignment
- Day 4 – Mobility & Core
- Day 5 – Alignment
The more you work on alignment in the beginning, the easier it will be to hold that shape while stacked over the wrists.
Choose the days you want to train. Maybe you dedicate Monday / Wednesday / Friday to do the workouts. Or you’re hardcore and structure workouts across all 7-days.
How much you practice is entirely up to you.
Just remember to listen to your body. Take rests if you need them. No sense pushing through things like pain in the wrists. Or exhausted shoulders. Just take a day off. I give you permission lol 😉
Finally, here is a workout calendar template you can print off and use to keep track of your workouts.
Here’s an example scenario starting with a 3-day per week training schedule.
So let’s say I start my training schedule at 3x per week. Increasing to 4x per week after a couple of weeks.
The black ink illustrates my planned workouts. The blue ink demonstrates additional workouts that I felt like doing, or wanted to make up for days I had missed previously.
Which brings us to the check marks and x’s. These are simply whether I did the workouts or not.
And with goals, they illustrate what I could have been hoping to achieve in this frame. I could carry the remaining ones forward, and/or add new ones based on the results from the last frame.
Remember, handstands are an ongoing practice that take plenty of work. Setting goals and working towards them will advance you in your practice and keep you motivated in the process.
Good luck!