Handstand Progression

At the very beginning of my fitness journey I was very dedicated to body weight manipulation and control. After hours of practice and hard work I was able to achieve several feats I would have considered impossible such as; One arm push-ups, triple-clap push-ups, tornado push-ups, Aztec push-ups, muscle ups, one arm pull-ups and more! However; one movement that has always avoided my mastery is a handstand. This is my journey into the world of calisthenics in pursuit of the perfect handstand.

Starting point:

As you can see from the video above I cannot do a handstand. At this point I was still not comfortable taking off from a standing position and I do not have the strength to maintain straight arms. Due to this my right arm bends further to try and compensate for the left, and I begin to tilt. I did not have the core strength nor the balance to keep myself upright and fell.

2 weeks:

After two weeks of practicing a handstand for around 5-10 minutes every other day or so, I feel confident in taking off from a standing position. I am now able to bring my hips above my shoulders in a more controlled manner, adding to the stability of my stance. I still have a long way to go but I am able to start from a standing position and maintain proper posture for a couple of seconds and that I am proud of. I am still having problems with keeping my arms straight, causing me to be thrown off balance easier. I am becoming more comfortable with trying to "catch" myself and trying to retain the handstand despite feeling off balance, however; this is resulting a lot of movement, which is not good but allows me to get a better feel for my center of mass and what feels stable and what does not.

4 weeks:

I personally believe I have seen great improvements. I am able to consistently hold the stand now, the time held varies but at least 10 seconds each attempt, record is 35s! I still bend my arms which is not causing me to rotate (as seen in the video below) because I am trying to correct the imbalance. I believe I was able to become much more consistent and stable through repetition and the training advice of a friend. After my second week I was advised to do a handstand against a wall and hold it for as long as possible. once I was able to hold it for a minute consistently I could progress to the next stage. This is the stage I am currently on and am hoping it will correct my "bent arm" issue. While against a wall in a handstand position I need to learn to maintain balance and shift my weight from left to right. I need to develop this skill until I am able to hold or partially hold the stance on one arm.

6 weeks:

I am extremely happy with the progress I have made! while I still need to work on my core strength to help stabilize my body I have learned two awesome tricks/progression to the basic handstand! One being a handstand into kip-up, and the other being a backwards roll into handstand! both were discovered kind of by accident. I was just screwing around after my regular practice and thought it would be cool to try increasing the difficulty! I definitely still have a long way to go in regards to my handstand, but it is extremely encouraging to see these large jumps in skill development.

Looking forward to see where I can progress from here!