Headstand benefits

I'm wondering if there's any point in practicing head stands if I can hold a reasonably solid 1 min handstand? Apparently according to yoga tradition headstand and shoulder stand confer some distinct benefits which couldn't be gained by practicing handstands alone even though it's a more advanced inversion. Any thoughts?

Headstand is necessary to feel the balance and the support on 3 points. if you cannot barely hold you how you can suppose to hold the balance on 2. Also headstand improve neck strength pregressively , do not forget that during handstand all the bodyweigth stays on neck muscles.

I believe athleticandrey is saying he's already achieved a freestanding handstand, so this is a pretty interesting question.  It took me a while to build up to several minutes of headstand or elbow headstands, so there was clearly some muscle strength and endurance that needed to be built up.  I think that's worth maintaining in case you ever land on your head, and it seems like it doesn't take much time to maintain that.

On the balance side, it certainly seems useful to achieve a solid headstand.  But once you can hold a headstand for a minute or more, there doesn't seem to be that much carryover to a freestanding handstand.  I'm keeping headstands and elbow headstands in my routine for a year now, mostly because I enjoy them, but I'm always curious if they're really helping all that much with the handstands at this point.

I would say focus on the IM part of the headstand since you already have the balance part down. The balance is pretty incredible, When I started with PE 1 I was like this is stupid so I tried messing around with PE 2 and felt really unstable. After going through PE 1 correctly I get into PE 2 with ease and I am pretty comfortable and relaxed being upside down now.

athleticandrey said:

I'm wondering if there's any point in practicing head stands if I can hold a reasonably solid 1 min handstand? Apparently according to yoga tradition headstand and shoulder stand confer some distinct benefits which couldn't be gained by practicing handstands alone even though it's a more advanced inversion. Any thoughts?

Interesting question.

Additional health benefits?  Probably.  

However for our defined purpose of building strength/stability while inverted, the headstand is simply a beginning step which we then move on from and leave behind.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

Thank you for your reply coach .