How to Do a Handstand

Series Summary

Gymnastics is a sport that involves a sequence of movements and exercises that require strength and flexibility. Typical gymnastic moves include handsprings, handstands, forward rolls, tucks, somersaults, vaults and other acrobatic maneuvers. Competitive gymnastics, like those in the Olympics, take a lot of dedication and practice. There are many types of gymnastics, including artistic, rhythmic, sports aerobics, sports acrobatics, trampoline, and power tumbling. These are all regulated by the Federation Internationale de Gymnastique. The two most popular types of gymnastics are artistic and rhythmic gymnastics; these are the types seen in the Summer Olympic Games. In this free video series, a gymnastics coach provides advice on performing a number of gymnastics techniques. Learn how to do a handstand, how to do a handstand forward roll and how to do a round off. Get help on doing back handstands, doing the splits and teaching yourself gymnastics. Increase strength, flexibility and coordination with these tumbling tips.

Video Transcript

"Hi, my name is Caroline, and I'm here at Encore Gymnastics with Katie, and today we're going to show you how to do a handstand. Before you do any activity in gymnastics, you always want to warm up your muscles and your wrists. Katie is going to show you how to warm up your wrists. Bend it back, then forward, and sideways. And, then you can just roll them around. Very good. Another stretch that's good for this skill, is if you sit in a pike, with your feet in front of you, reach up, breath all the way in and breath out, and hold. You want to hold each stretch for about thirty seconds. Alright, that's good. When you start a handstand, you always start in lunge. So your arms are up by your ears, right between, your heads right between your arms. Open fingers, pushing through your shoulders. What you want to be doing is push forward. So if you have somebody to test you, you want to push like that, and make sure there's no arch in your back. If Katie were to loosen up, her back would arch, and that wouldn't be a good hand stand. So you want to be pushing forward, this is how you're going to push on the ground. For starters what you'll do, is you'll just do one leg up in the air. So lunge, one leg up, and back down. Then you can do a little bit of a kick, and lift your other foot just a little off the ground. Kick. That's a three-quarter handstand. An important position in a handstand is the lunge, the second position here is a lever. And a lunge again to finish. So, once you get comfortable with that, you can kick all the way up and tap your feet. So lunge, lever, tap. And back down. Lunge, finish. Once you have that comfortably, you can go all the way to the handstand. So lunge, lever, handstand, hold. In this position, you want to push through your shoulders, you want your back to be real straight. You're squeezing your bottom, your heels are touching. Then you put one leg down, lever, lunge, finish. When you're comfortable with that, you can do it on your own. And finish. And that's how to do a handstand."