Welcome! I get it, your tired of walking on feet, or just standing still on hands. Look no further, you’ve come to the right place. This tutorial will take you step by step on what you need to do in order to walk on hands. Enjoy!

Walk On Hands Tutorial

A 4 step beginner guide.

First of I’ll start with some terms I’ll use throughout this guide.

• Transition:
  Is the term on the technique between your normal stand and into a handstand
• Handstand Hold:
  The term of standing still in a handstand. I sometimes also refer to this as the Basic.
• Core:
  When I talk about core, i mean the core muscles. These are your abdomen and lower back in this article.

Preparations:

I strongly recommend that you learn a Handstand Hold before you attempt walking on hands. This is not because it’s harder to walk on hands, rather opposite. But since walking on hands isn’t a basic foundation of handstands we need to learn the Handstand Hold first. You got to learn how to stand up before you can walk? Practice the basics, and when you feel comfortable and know you can choose to move your hand – rather than moving it cause of the loss of balance – then your ready to practice walks on hands. I can’t stress this enough, your first prior should always be Handstand Holds.

Step 1: Basics, Hold and Walk

To walk on hands you first need to be able to control your handstand hold long enough so you – by wish, and not by unbalance – can move your arm forward, regain balance if lost and then move the next.
That’s why I stress the factor of the handstand hold. It’s the basic everybody should turn to when things start to fail. From novice to dedicated expert. Another factor that applies during on hands walking is your strength to hold your body firm while moving your shoulder joints. We do this when we walk on feet – with our hip joints respectively – but to do this with our upper extremity is a bit worse. Again the handstand hold will help us.

Start by doing a handstand hold. Feel that you have balance, then – with your shoulder – lift one arm and place it in front of you. If you managed to hold the body position like you do in a handstand hold, while you moved your arm you’ve done well. Proceed to next step. But If you didn’t, here´s some tips you can try.

Elbows:
Unlike walking on feet – where you bend knees – you don’t have to bend your elbows here. In fact it makes the on hand walking less tiring than if you should have bent your elbows.

Shoulders:
Keep your shoulders locked. It’s like the hold where you try to push yourself up against the sky. When shoulders are properly locked lift your arm with your shoulder – perhaps slightly bend your elbows a little – and place the hand before you. Basically this is how you walk on hands, your shoulders are the moving joint.

Core:
As always try to keep a straight abdomen and lower back. The balance lies on how you control your abdomen, when moving shoulder joints you change the balance point slightly, making it harder for the abdomen muscles.

Feet:
Having these straight to maintain balance is hard. Therefor some of you will either bend your knees putting your feet closer to head or tilt your legs slightly forward. There’s much discussion around how you should hold your feet but my suggestion do what feels naturally for you. As long as you don’t get any pains in lower back or elsewhere. My personal experience is that bending your feet will create an nasty arch on your lower back who may cause you pain or injures over a long time period, if you aren’t strong enough that is. However the positive side is that you can gain more speed when your balance point is “ahead” of you. With feet straights it’s safer and you’ll have more control over your handstand. I recommend that you learn both methods and apply them wherever they fit.

Basically what I’m trying to say is that you should move your arm with your shoulder. It’s not necessary to bend your elbows. It may also help if you slightly tilt your legs forward.

Step 2: Walk On Hands

Next step is far more delicate than the last one. Walking on hands is much like loose and regain control in a matter of seconds, or that’s how it feels the first times anyways. However it’s a complete different story if we break it down, you’ll see that it is all about control.

To move your arm you need to balance more weight on the opposite arm for a split second. This changes your balance point throughout the body, forces your core, feet, lower and upper back to recruit muscles more differently than if you were on two hands. That’s one of the first things you should get used to is feeling when the weight balance change – note that this feeling will will decrease over time; when you get used to it.

Next step is to be able to create an movement with your shoulder joint.

Step 3: Move Your Hands Properly

A big part of walking on hands is the point of constantly having control. To do this I got a few tips on how to always ensure that you move your hands by will, and not by the fact that you loose balance.

Always feel control and hold your handstand for a few seconds before attempting to walk
Move your hand with will, not with force as an result of your balance lacking.
Take one or two steps then stop – creating a hold – before you try to move again.
Walk – Stop – Walk – Stop; is the key point here

The main reason for this is two important factors. One you gain control over your on hand walking because you force yourself to think about moving, not moving as an action cause the lack of balance. The second factor is when you’re stopping you still need to practice how to keep your handstand hold, before you can attempt a new set of steps.

Step 4: The Importance of variation

Don’t forget to variate where you attempt your on hands walking – and holds too. If you’re used to training inside try outside. Used to big flat areas, try smaller ones and so on. This is mainly for giving your technique and strength much needed variation but also for you not to get bored. Variate every time you feel to comfortable and pass the line of your safe zone now and then to experience, learn and develop.

Especially alternate between using different surfaces. Such as hard, soft, wet, slippery, cold, slopes, stony etc. A big part of walking on hands is knowing which surface needs what. For me wooden floor and concrete floor is two different things to walk on, yet alone surfaces that seems like madrases and grass; those I find a  bit harder to walk on, much because of the unbalance the uneven surface gives. 

Happy Handstand
Tor