Why Handstands Feel So Much Harder As An Adult

When I first did a handstand as an adult, I genuinely couldn’t remember the last time I did one, but I’m betting you it was when I was a kid, and high chances are that’s the same for you too. I also couldn’t believe how much harder it felt as an adult. I’m not even talking about the physical aspect here, the mental barrier of getting myself to actually do the handstand was a challenge in itself. Why did I now care about falling flat on my face when I just threw myself at it as a kid? I used to be able to do this so easily!? Why was that?

I thought about it for a while and have put it down to a few things…

Firstly, if you watch a child try to do a handstand, it’s rarely perfect. There’s legs flailing everywhere and it’s slightly all over the place. The thing I realised is, they don’t seem to mind because they’re not overthinking it.

A kid will kick up again, fall over and try something different. They’ll adjust without really knowing they’re adjusting and there’s a lot of trial and error. As many of us know all too well, children tend to learn movement through exploration. There will be lots of variation, lots of repetition and lots of slightly different attempts because they’re not trying to get it right, they’re simply just trying.

Want an even more relatable example? Watch a child learning to walk for the first time, they try, fail and try again but never get dissuaded. We aren’t overthinking it at that age, it’s simply a matter of sheer determination and repetition. Learning to handstand as an adult is exactly the same.

As an adult, it’s different. We want to understand it before we do it. You want to know where your hands go, what your core should be doing and how to balance. Ideally most of us want to know it all before you’ve even kicked up.

Kids fall all the time, it’s part of how they learn. As we grow older, we innately become more cautious and unfortunately in some cases, this leads us to hesitate and second-guess in fear of something going wrong. In a way this isn’t a bad thing, of course we want to be aware of risk and injury (hello my recurring back injury 👀). However, this can sometimes slow things down since handstands aren’t something you figure out in your head, they’re something you feel your way into.

Sadly in this day and age, as you grow older, it seems inevitable that you’ll quite possibly lead a fairly sedentary lifestyle. A lot of us are sitting at desks all day and the way we move becomes predictable and repetitive.

Handstands ask for something quite specific:

• Open shoulders

• Wrist strength

• A certain level of coordination and control

All of which are completely buildable, but they’re not always things you’ve been using regularly. So it’s not that your body can’t do it, it’s just that it needs a bit more preparation than it used to.

I think this is probably the biggest one. Remember all the time in the world you used to have as a kid?

You had so much time to play, to repeat things without thinking about whether it’s working. You were able to come back to something again and again without pressure because you had the time.

As an adult, you want progress to feel efficient and you want to know it’s going somewhere. When it doesn’t feel like that, it’s much easier to step away from it and simply give up.

While I think we all feel a little squeezed for time, I think if we’re all brutally honest, we could carve out that time for ourselves if we really wanted to. I for one have noticed the sheer amount of time I spend on my phone. If I put a little effort in, I could gain so much time back to spend on learning something new.

Another bonus we have as adults is our tendency to be more consistent once we decide to stick with something, and we all know consistency is key around here.

All that to say, handstands definitely aren’t just for kids. You’re probably just doing one of the below or all three combined:

• Thinking a bit too much

• Holding back slightly

• Not giving yourself quite enough time to figure it out

If you’re somewhere in that mix and it feels slightly frustrating, you’re not doing anything wrong, you may just need a bit of guidance around what to actually focus on and that’s exactly why I’ve been putting together my handstand series. You can see the first video here:

If you’re looking for a handstand program to follow you can also check out the handstand program on my app and even get your first week for free!

If there’s anything handstand related you’re stuck with specifically, reply and tell me what part you struggle with, and I’ll do my best to point you in the right direction.

Lucy x