Coaching the Handstand Walk: Scaling Options for Every CrossFit Athlete

When handstand walking shows up in a workout, a few athletes get excited, and the rest feel like it's not for them. Your job as a coach is to change that. In this video, Coach Pamela Gagnon breaks the handstand walk into its two components — balance and weight shifting — and gives you a clear progression system so every athlete in your class can train toward the skill safely and effectively. What you'll learn: - Why separating the balance component from the walking component is the key to making this skill accessible at every level - How to use box inversion walking for beginners to build shoulder stacking and weight-shifting mechanics without going fully inverted - Why wall walks are the right intermediate bridge — and how they build on what beginners are already developing - How to use shoulder shrugs and penguin walks with advanced athletes to reinforce the press-into-the-ground cue and keep elbows locked out - The two most common technique faults, scorpioning the spine and lifting at the hand, the simple cues that fix both - Why the bear crawl falls short as a scaling option, and which drills actually develop both components of the skill Subscribe to the CrossFit YouTube channel for coaching education, methodology, and professional development content every week. ⬇️ Earn your CrossFit credentials: https://www.crossfit.com/certificate-courses #CrossFit #CrossFitCoach #HandstandWalk #CrossFitCoaching #GymnasticsCoaching — CrossFit is the world’s leading platform for improving health and performance. In the 20 years since its founding, CrossFit has grown from a garage gym in Santa Cruz, California, into the world’s most effective program for improving health and performance through nutrition and exercise. CrossFit is the world’s leading provider of accredited performance-based training courses and certifications and has more than 125,000 credentialed coaches across the world. The program can be modified to welcome people of all ages and abilities and millions of people have already experienced CrossFit’s transformational benefits in more than 13,000 affiliated gyms across 158 countries. CrossFit also directs the CrossFit Games season, beginning with the annual CrossFit Open, through which athletes at every level compete worldwide, and culminating in the CrossFit Games, where top athletes compete for the title of Fittest on Earth®. Learn more about CrossFit → https://www.crossfit.com/what-is-crossfit/?utm_source=social&utm_medium=youtube&utm_campaign=crossfit Find a CrossFit gym near you → https://www.crossfit.com/map?utm_source=social&utm_medium=youtube&utm_campaign=crossfit Find CrossFit Courses near you → https://www.crossfit.com/courses-near-you?utm_source=social&utm_medium=youtube&utm_campaign=crossfit View CrossFit workouts → https://www.crossfit.com/workout?utm_source=social&utm_medium=youtube&utm_campaign=crossfit Subscribe to CrossFit email newsletters → https://www.crossfit.com/newsletters/?utm_source=social&utm_medium=youtube&utm_campaign=crossfit Learn more about the CrossFit Games → https://cf.games/games-learn-more