Hand Stand Press/Walk

[Patrick McIntosh]

One of my goals is to hand stand press/walk and I'm wondering what sort of lifts/exercises I can do to help. As of now I can't come close to doing 1 press. At the moment, the only bar I have is one of those bicep curl deals and I can only fit 60lbs on it. The only real push exercises I'm doing are dips, thrusters, and turkish get-ups. Thanks.

[Steven Low]

What kind of press handstand? Straight arm straight leg straddle/pike press is MUCH different than any bent arm press.

Do you want to develop a perfect handstand or do you not care if you arch at all?

Same with walking... arch or not?

[Patrick McIntosh]

By pike press you mean like an upside down L?

I'm not too concerned about the form/arch as much as I am having the strength necessary to stand/press/walk a bit.

[Steven Low]

Not upside down L. There's more hips control and flexibility than that.

For example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liUz4k7m_mc

Uhhh... if you don't care about form you can probably learn it from beastskills tutorials:

http://www.beastskills.com/tutorials.htm

If you do care about form.. and caring about form will help you if you ever decide to do some basic gymnastics or take it to the next level like one arm handstand.. then we'll talk later. Just know now that if you want to do this and you learn the "crappy" way then you're going to have problems later.

[Grissim Connery]

Originally Posted by Steven Low

If you do care about form.. and caring about form will help you if you ever decide to do some basic gymnastics or take it to the next level like one arm handstand.. then we'll talk later. Just know now that if you want to do this and you learn the "crappy" way then you're going to have problems later.

this reminds me of how i talk to people when they say that they just wanna learn enough jiu jitsu to not get submitted. i kinda sigh, and can't quite explain my frustration.

[Blair Lowe]

Grissim, which is also a problem with most Self-Defense courses.

[Chris Salvato]

We need to know the goal first. I would highly suggest you learn it the "right" way. I have seen tons of people get it the crappy way and then never care enough to fix it so they are perpetually stuck with horrible form.

[Brendan Dudley]

Chris, developing correct handstand form is something I am also interested in. If would have some time this weekend, I would like to discuss it with you.

[Patrick McIntosh]

This is kind of a sad story but I got drunk with buddies and brought up how difficult I considered HSPUs and they looked at me like I was crazy. They were defiantly not implementing proper form but they started in a handstand position, lowered themselves, and then pressed - making it look easy. I gave it a shot (utilizing terrible form) and was able to do 10-15 or so. Prior to this evening and my initial post, I had just tried pressing from a headstand to handstand, which wasn't happening for me.

After this experience I started doing handstands after warm-up/before my workout for a few weeks focusing solely on form (to the best of my knowledge since I don't have a mirror or gym partner). I used the chapter on pressing from SS as a model. I would do something simple like a 5x20sec kind of deal.

Yesterday I did 5x6 HSPU and today 5x5. Both times the extension was limited, but i feel as though I maintained a solid controlled form. Tomorrow I want to lay off the HSPU but step up the handstand isometric. Should I do something like a 5x30sec hand stand or something like 3xFailure?

[Patrick McIntosh]

Originally Posted by Steven Low

Just know now that if you want to do this and you learn the "crappy" way then you're going to have problems later.

Initially, I thought the the exercise was so difficult that if there actually was a way to do it with ease, despite crappy form, then it would make sense to start there and then focus on form.

I'm not interested in shortcuts. Progression is half the fun.