3 Ways To Overcome Fear Of Handstands

What’s holding you back in your handstand practise? Are you afraid of being upside down on your hands? Or afraid of kicking up too hard and falling over? Or afraid that once you’re in a handstand you might lose balance and fall or not be able to hold yourself safely?

If you’re thinking “yes, that’s me”, you are definitely not alone. Fear is such a real emotion that we can experience when it comes to something like handstands, especially if you’re learning them for the first time as an adult. 

Over the past decade I’ve taught handstands to hundreds of people, and fear is a constantly recurring theme. And my students comment on it like it’s something to be ashamed of or embarrassed by. Why should they feel scared, that’s just silly… But it’s not at all, it’s a very real and valid feeling. 

…Of course our brains will instinctively feel unsafe if we put our bodies into positions that are as far from familiar as possible…

…Of course we’ll experience fear if we have absolutely no sense of where our body is and what it’s doing…

Why is it that when we are kids we’re fearless? A big part of it is simply our size. As children if we fall over, we’re much closer to the floor than we are as adults - we don’t have far to fall. Children are also more bouncy (yup technical term right there). If an adult falls and lands badly there’s a higher chance of an injury. As adults we don’t usually practise throwing ourselves around and we don’t learn how to fall. If we don’t know how to fall or trust that we’ll be ok, then any situation where that could happen will feel unsafe.

If fear is taking over every time you try and practise handstands it sucks the joy right out. That feeling of panic, of being unsafe, and of not trusting yourself doesn’t really create motivation or a fun experience. In this post I want to provide some tools that anyone can use no matter where they are on their handstand journey, to help overcome fear of handstands, and build more connection and trust with their bodies. 

So how do you start to overcome your fear of handstands (even if you’re training on your own)?

1. Focus On The Foundation

It’s so important to build up a good base of strength, endurance and control. Like honestly, laying the foundation for eventually training freestanding handstands helps to build a more resilient and capable body which is therefore less likely to get injured, and more likely to achieve what you actually want. Don’t make the focus on attempting and failing to balance - that is definitely part of the process, but it needs to be secondary in the beginning to building your foundation. 

When I talk about “foundation” in this context I mean strength and control that is specific to handstands. So how do we achieve that? Here are a few of my top tips:

Build Up Your Wrists

Get comfortable loading weight through your wrists. You can start this with a simple wrist warm up where you’re on all fours and you lean some of your bodyweight through your arms and wrists, and then move in different ways. Strong wrists and hands are crucial for handstands, and by specifically working on this you can build a lot more confidence and familiarity with supporting all of your bodyweight through your wrists and hands.

Locomotion

Using locomotive movements such as a bear walk, allows you to get used to supporting your body weight overhead, build strength, and train parts of the handstand position without worrying about balance. You can develop exceptional body control with these simple movements, so that when you eventually go upside down it feels more familiar.

Line Drills

Train the handstand position on the floor and standing up right. Again, for building strength and body awareness, working on the position of the handstand is super useful. But it doesn’t have to be upside down. I spent hours training drills on the floor and standing up right, because this can teach you the position your body needs to be in without the stress of being upside down. It does take time, but eventually you will be able to connect this information when you’re in a handstand.

2. Learn how to bail 

This is so so important, and it’s also quite simple to do! Trusting that you’ll be fine if you over balance is key. I will prioritise the bail out with clients who are new to handstands and teach it as it’s own skill. It shouldn’t be an afterthought, it should be a focus. And the more reps you can get in learning to bail and developing that movement pattern, the less fear you’ll have when you get to freestanding handstands. 

I teach the cartwheel bail out where you step one hand forwards turning your hand inwards, then you bring the leg on the same side down to the ground and stand up. If you don’t have a coach or someone to spot your through the movement, there are several ways to modify this so that you can practise it on your own.

Make The Movement Smaller

You can try this without kicking up to a full handstand. You’ll have less time to move your hand so you have to react more quickly, but it will feel less scary because you’re not deliberately making yourself over balance. You can build up how big you make this over time.

Use A Wall

You can do a chest to wall hold as close to the wall as you feel comfortable with and then step on hand and leg down to come off. It requires a bit more strength because there’s no momentum with this version, and you have to actively lean all of your weight into one arm. But it’s a great way to have a go at the bail out being fully upright without having to balance at all. 

Try It In A Pike Position

If you raise your feet on a chair or a box or something that’s about hip height, you can still get your upper body upside down, but without all of your bodyweight loaded through your arms. So this is a great option if bailing from a wall feels like it requires too much strength. You step one hand forwards and then bring the same side leg down off your box and stand up. 

3. Use The Wall

As you continue building more confidence and a solid foundation you can utilise the wall to start building strength upside down. I feel like there’s a lot of judgement around using a wall to train handstands, like it makes it not legit, but that just isn’t true. I still use the wall for my own practise, because it’s so beneficial for building strength and learning different skills whatever level you’re at. I also find that on days where I’m tired and it’s taking too much effort and energy to balance, I can “chill” with the wall and just focus on conditioning, and still get excellent training done. 

Knowing that every time you train with the wall you’re building more and more confidence for when you start working without it can help you to stay motivated. Plus you’re doing legit handstands even if you’re not balancing. There is so much value in using a wall and I’m a huge advocate for it!

So there you have it, I’ve shared some of my best tips on how to safely and progressively work towards overcoming fear of handstands. wanted to talk about how to do this if you’re training on your own and don’t have access to a coach. I do think that working with a coach whether it’s in person or online can make a big difference to overcoming fear, but it’s not the only option. It’s completely possible to work on this yourself if you have the right tools to do so.

If you are at the stage where you’re thinking that getting some outside help is going to be right for you, I recommend reaching out to enquire about one on one coaching. I offer both in person and online coaching. Just send me a message with your goals and what you’d like help with and we can chat about next steps!