Gymnastics, Handstand Walking
Intro
The next step in handstand evolution is to walk, you have leant your positions and movements for handstand pushups, now its time to put the strength and coordination to work and learn to walk
Hand Placement In The Setup
For handstand walking we would recommend starting with your hands already on the floor and kicking up into it, similar to handstand pushups.
For this you want to place your hands at shoulder width apart and your fingers pointing out (fingers pointing forwards or outwards can somewhat be a preference but we fins pointing out helps remove wrist pain and make it easier to walk).
Kicking Up
To get into the starting position is a little more complicated than with handstand pushups as there is no wall to catch you, but dont let this worry you.
When you are first starting you might want to try kicking up and balancing in a handstand hold just so you can practice your balance point and dismounting (see below for more info on dismounting).
When you are ready to kick up to walk, you should kick up just as you would for a hold but with 5% more power and instead of stopping at your balance point you should let yourself go a second further before attempting any steps.
Stepping With Your Hands
For a controlled and efficient walk you should try to keep your core and glutes engaged, keeping you tight and in line (dont let your legs flop forward like a scorpion) and take small steps to keep balance.
When making a step, think of shifting your weight to your standing hand before taking your walking hand off the floor, for example,
shift your weight to the left - lift the right hand - move it forwards - shift weight to the right - lift left hand - move it forwards - repeat
Dismounting
Dismounting can be one of the more daunting parts of handstand walking. There are 2 types of dismounting, intentional and unintentional (otherwise known as falling)
The bast way to dismount is overbalance away from the direction you are walking, then you can just put your feet down, the other way is to fall the way you are walking and land flat on your back… we will now tell you how to avoid this.
To avoid landing on your back (ouch) when you overbalance forwards you should lift one hand completely and rotate your body that way, this enables you to have chance to get your feet to the ground as you are falling, often meaning you have a fairly soft landing where you are more falling sideways rather than flat onto your back.
Common Mistakes
Not letting yourself overbalance before starting to walk
This is easy to spot as when you/someone else kicks up, they immediately start stepping with their hands and take 2 steps before their feet fall back to the floor. This is very common where people are scared of overbalancing and falling onto their back, as soon as you can master dismounting well you will gain confidence to overbalance.
To actually fix the lack of over balancing try consciously counting an extra second when you are kicking up, you will quickly get the feeling for overbalancing.
Making large steps
This a really common issue a lot of people face, when you are overballanced it is common to subconsciously take a big step to get back in control of the balance, while on your feet this is easy to do but on your hands it switches your ballance point too far and causes you to drop back down onto your feet. What you want to do is quick small steps, this way you can easy make small adjustments and keep in control
Workout
5 rounds for quality - max distance walk
Good luck and let us know how you get on!
