Handstand Training for Martial Arts

Don't do handstand training for martial arts.

There, I saved you tons of time and energy!

I regularly see advice given to martial artists along the lines of, "you should train in gymnastics," "you should do Olympic lifting," "you should jog several miles a day," and so on. Not all of these are bad ideas, but it's important to understand something about exactly how much these practices will help your martial arts.

A handstand is a highly unlikely position for you to be in while doing martial arts. I have never seen anybody hold a handstand in a fight of any kind - free sparring, UFC, kickboxing, or boxing. Which doesn't mean it could never happen, but it's so unlikely that it's not worth training for. Strength is position specific (as well as speed specific) and there's nothing in karate that's very much like holding a handstand.

Handstand training will not carry over well to your karate, so any time and energy you spend on handstand training is unlikely to improve your karate. And since time and energy are finite resources, it will possibly detract from your karate (by keeping you from doing more karate practice).

Please notice that I'm not saying you shouldn't train handstands. I'm saying you shouldn't train handstands for martial arts.  BUT you may WANT to do handstand training. Maybe you think doing handstands is cool. Maybe you're bored with martial arts and want to spend some training time on non-martial arts activities to give yourself a mental break. Maybe some person you're attracted to thinks people who can do handstands are super hot.

These are all great reasons to do handstand training. There's nothing wrong with mastering a skill (assuming it isn't inherently dangerous, which handstands aren't).

Handstand training will develop your overhead pressing strength, which is good and useful. But it would be more efficient (unless you can already do handstands) to just do some dumbbell or kettlebell overhead pressing than to take up a handstand training routine if that's your only goal.

Whenever you add supplemental training to your martial arts practice, you should be clear on WHY you're doing it, so you can figure out whether or not it's a good idea. If you are doing curls at the end of your workout because you want bigger arms, great. If you're doing it to improve your punching power... that's not going to work. If you like to run triathlons, great. If you think training for them will make you tireless in sparring, that's not going to work (unless your aerobic base is really bad).

Knowing WHY you're doing any of the parts of your workout will ultimately make you better at reaching your goals, whatever those goals are.

Osu.