How important is handstand work for gymnastic strength?

Hey guys,

I have seen a lot of people stress how important handstand work is for gymnastics conditioning, however I find it dificult to motivate myself to practice my handstand. Without wanting to offend, when I think of handstands I think of kids doing them at school for fun, not as a way of building strength. Dont get me wrong, I understand they do require a lot of strength and are by no means easy, however I still find it hard to make them a priority in my training.

From what I have read in the forums, I have understood that the L-sit and hanstand work are two of the most fundamental skills needed for gymnastic work. Would this be a correct statement?

I see the importance of the L-sit because I see the carry over value it has with other skills. However with handstand work it is less obvious to me. Could someone explain to me why handstand work is so important? I understand it will help develop the shoulders which is the most important area in gymnastics, but I gather there is a lot more to it than just that.

I think if I understand better the value of the handstand, I will be able to make it a priority in my training a lot easier.

Patto said:

Could someone explain to me why handstand work is so important? I understand it will help develop the shoulders which is the most important area in gymnastics, but I gather there is a lot more to it than just that.

I think that is the most important part of why you should do handstands, since it seems to really work the entire shoulder girdle. Except for when injury has completely prevented handstand training for me, just doing handstands has always somehow made my shoulders feel better, too.

Anyway, I'm quoting a tiny tiny portion of Coach's BTGB book, because it seems relevant:

BTGB said:

It is difficult to make an accurate analogy; however for the gymnastics- training enthusiast, press handstands, in all of their incredibly difficult variations, are the upperbody snatch of bodyweight movements. There is no other single bodyweight exercise that demands more strength, focus, tension, stability, coordination, balance and active flexibility over a greater range of motion. Truly handstand and press handstand training yields amazing results, especially when trained in combination.

He speaks of both handstands and press handstands (the achievement of which I think is an excellent reason by itself to do handstand work ) here, but hopefully that helps.

Sorry, I don't know mmcuh about the actual mechanics of it, though, if that's what you were after.

Thanners,

Great quote from Coach's book! I had read it before but was good to see it again, especially now I am trying to work handstands into my training. Should give me more motivation to practice them! Maybe others have some stories relating to how handstand work has helped their overall performance? Personal experience stories are always great for motivation, so maybe some people are willing to share their own....

Also, I am interested in the biomechanics of it, but I understand that can be hard to explain sometimes

Handstand are the most important movement in gymnastics IMO, it's like running for.... runners . They are present in every exercise and apparatus, rings, parallels bar, floor, tumbling, pommel horse. Think in gymnastics as moving the body across the space with just your arms, and the handstand is the most basic way to do so. And is basic but it's also hard to master. Handstand on rings from a swing is no joke, and also all the variations of handstand you can see on the parallel bar are impressive.

Just youtube an olympic parallel bar exercise and count how many handstand you can see.

For a gymnast (someone who trains the events) the handstand is a must, it is literally a part of every event not to mention it teaches proper body positions. The gymnasts with the shortest learning curves are usually ones with awesome handstand lines.

As a strength enthusiast it highly depends on your goals. Lots of stronger people do no handstand work (very pulling dominant) and I am sure there is at least one person that can do a planche but can't hold a solid handstand. But on the other hand doing 5-10 minutes of handstand work once to two times per week isn't exactly a lot of time and there is just no reason to not do something that does carry over quite a bit to pressing moves as well as serves as a prerequisites for skills like handstand presses and inverted cross.