Why the Steel Mace could be the Missing Link in your Handstand
If you’re trying to learn a handstand, like I am, you’ve probably spent a lot of time practising handstands, which makes sense.
But what if one of the things holding you back from a handstand has nothing to do with how much time you spend upside down?
I’ve been working on my own handstand for a while now, and one thing I’ve realised is that shoulder mobility and control matter far more than most beginners realise.
You can have strong shoulders. You can have a strong core. You can be confident kicking up. But if you can't comfortably get your arms overhead and create a strong, stacked position, you're making the handstand much harder than it needs to be.
And strangely, one of the tools I've found most useful for working on this isn't a traditional piece of handstand equipment.
It's the steel mace.
Why are your shoulders so important in a handstand?
A good handstand isn't just about balancing on your hands. You're trying to create a stacked position where your wrists, shoulders, hips and feet are roughly aligned.
The closer you can get to that position, the less muscular effort you need to stop yourself falling.
The problem is that a lot of us spend most of our lives with our arms in front of us – driving, typing, using our phones, bench pressing, working at a desk.
Then we suddenly expect our shoulders to move freely overhead while supporting our entire bodyweight.
For a lot of people, they simply don't.
The strength vs mobility problem
This is where people often make the mistake of thinking they need stronger shoulders. Sometimes they do.
But you can have incredibly strong shoulders and still struggle with a handstand because strength and mobility aren't the same thing.
I can do 20+ pull-ups, 50 plus push unbroken, and bench press over 140kg for reps, I've trained consistently for most of my adult life. None of that has helped me to achieve a good handstand.
Handstands demand strength in a position that most traditional gym exercises rarely train.
You need to be comfortable with your arms fully overhead. You need your shoulder blades to move properly. You need to be able to elevate through your shoulders and actively push the floor away. Most importantly, you need to be able to control that position rather than simply force yourself into it. That's where the mace gets interesting.
Why the steel mace works so well
A steel mace is basically a weighted ball attached to a long handle. That deliberately uneven weight distribution is what makes it so useful.
Unlike a dumbbell, the weight isn't sitting neatly in your hand. The further the weight moves away from you, the more leverage it creates.
That means even a relatively light mace can challenge your shoulders, upper back and core.
But for handstands, I think the real benefit is the way it allows you to explore large ranges of shoulder movement under controlled load.
You're not just stretching. You're moving. You're stabilising. You're controlling the weight. And you're building strength through positions that you might normally avoid.
Mace 360s and shoulder movement
The movement I've found particularly useful is the mace 360. The mace travels around your head and behind your body before returning to the starting position.
Done properly, you're taking the shoulders through a large, controlled range of motion while the upper back, shoulder blades, arms and core all have to work together.
Start light. This isn't an exercise where you need to prove how strong you are.
The goal is smooth, controlled movement and gradually improving the positions you can comfortably access. Over time, I've found this kind of training has made my shoulders feel considerably more comfortable overhead. And that has carried directly into my handstand practice.
The missing link: scapular control
There's another reason I think mace training works so well alongside handstands. Your shoulder isn't just your shoulder joint. Your scapula, or shoulder blade, needs to move with it.
When you're standing normally, your shoulder blades sit on your ribcage. When you take your arms overhead, they need to rotate and move to allow that position.
In a handstand, you then need to actively elevate through the shoulders. Think about pushing the floor away from you rather than sinking down between your arms.
This is one of the biggest differences between someone who simply manages to get upside down and someone who looks genuinely comfortable in a handstand.
Mace movements demand constant control around the shoulder blade as the load changes position. That's a very different challenge from sitting on a shoulder press machine and moving a weight from A to B.
Mobility you can actually use
This is an important distinction. I don't just want to be more flexible. I want usable mobility.
There's little benefit in being able to force your arms into a position for 30 seconds if you don't have the strength and control to use that position.
Handstands are a perfect example. You don't just need the range of motion to get your arms overhead. You need to be strong enough to control your entire bodyweight there.
That's why I like combining traditional mobility work with loaded movements like the steel mace. You're not choosing between mobility and strength. You're developing both.
A simple mace routine for handstands
You don't need to turn mace training into another hour-long workout.
I've been using it as supplementary work around my normal training and handstand practice. A simple starting point could be:
Mace 360s
2-3 sets of 5-10 controlled reps in each direction.
Mace uppercuts
2-3 sets of 8-10 reps each side, focusing on rotation and control rather than speed.
Mace overhead holds
Take a light mace overhead and concentrate on reaching tall through the shoulders while keeping your ribs under control.
20-30 seconds for 2-3 sets.
Then put the mace down and spend some time on your actual handstand work.
The difference in how freely your shoulders move might surprise you.
Don't make the mace too heavy
This is probably the biggest mistake I'd avoid.
Because of the leverage involved, mace training gets difficult very quickly as you increase the weight. For handstand mobility work, more weight isn't necessarily better.
If the mace is so heavy that you're compensating, shortening the movement or fighting to control it, you're defeating the point.
Start lighter than you think you need. Earn the heavier mace by making the movement better.
That's a principle that applies to calisthenics generally.
The mace won't teach you to handstand
I should make this clear. I should also say, I am not a handstand expert. I am still learning the skill myself.
Doing hundreds of mace 360s isn't magically going to give you a handstand. You still need to practise handstands, and if you're anything like me, over and over again.
You need time upside down. You need to learn how to kick up, how to use your fingers to balance, how to control your pelvis and ribs, and importantly how to fall safely. This was a blocker for me for a long time.
A pair of parallettes can also be very useful when you're learning because they give you another way to practise hand balancing and build support strength.
But sometimes the thing stopping you progressing isn't the skill itself. It's your body's ability to get into the positions the skill demands.
For me, shoulder mobility and control have been a big part of that puzzle. And the steel mace has become one of my favourite tools for working on it.
Train the weakness, not just the skill
This is something I've started to appreciate more about Calisthenics in recent years. If you can't do a movement, endlessly attempting the movement isn't always the answer.
Find out why you can't do it. If you can't do a pull up, perhaps your pulling strength or grip needs work.
If you can't hold an L-sit, perhaps your compression strength needs work.
And if you're constantly fighting to find a straight handstand, take a look at your shoulder mobility and overhead position.
Sometimes improving the thing underneath the skill is what finally unlocks the skill itself.
For me, the steel mace has been a surprisingly useful part of that process.
And if you're learning to handstand, it might be worth adding one to yours.
