312.566.7201

Handstand push-ups are on the agenda today: 5 sets of 5 reps as challenging as possible.

Some athletes kip, others do strict deficit sets, but the great majority choose a “progression” to get through their sets—be it pike push-ups, push-ups or DB shoulder press.

You’re trying to decide what progression you should use. You know you can’t yet do a handstand push-up—let alone a deficit one—but you’re able to do a couple reps with 3 ab mats underneath your head.

Got Handstand?

Got Handstand?

“Damnit, I’m an athlete!” you think, “scaling the movement is for the weak, right?”

With this thought in the back of your head, you grab your three ab mats and stack them on top of each other and proceed. The first time you kick to handstand, you manage to get three reps with a huge arch in your back before falling off the wall while trying to press out your fourth.  By the third set, your head and neck start to hurt from the impact, and you’re barely able to crank out a rep. And during your last set attempt, your arms give out as you crash into the wall during your kick up to handstand.

The Struggle is Real

Sigh… as coaches, we have all seen stubborn athletes like the above: Athletes with an ego, who would rather do unsafe, ugly reps of a seemingly sexier-looking movement than select a more appropriate movement that will better help them move forward with their strength and fitness.

Why? Because there’s a misconception among many that the best course of action is to choose a progression that closely resembles whatever movement they see as the “harder” movement they ultimately want to achieve.

They see handstand push-ups with an incredibly reduced range of motion as somehow more valuable than working on their pushing strength via push-ups. They see doing pull-ups with four bands as somehow cooler than strict, challenging ring rows. And the thought of doing single-leg Bulgarian split squats instead pistols doesn’t seem useful to them.

These are misconceptions!

I blame social media (at least to a certain degree) for spreading these rumors! Multiple times a day, I stumble across a post that promotes a ridiculous training progression or a “savage workout,” and without a doubt, the post says, “Try this out!”

Truth is, though, there is no better prerequisite for a handstand push-up than getting stronger. None. Period. If you can press your bodyweight, or even 75 percent of your body weight, you can most likely do a strict handstand push-up.

I can hear the objections already:

“Bodyweight press! Are you kidding me?!”

I never said letting go of your beloved bands and ab-mats would be easy. BUT hear me out: Simpler “progressions” are only going to help you get what you ultimately want more effectively. For example, building strength through five sets of five perfectly strict push-ups or pike push ups will help you eventually acquire the strength to do easy, pretty, safe handstand push-ups. And you’ll probably get there faster than if you spend months doing lousy, ugly reduced-range-of-motion handstand push-ups that never seem to get any easier.

The Road to Progress

It’s a two-step process:

  1. Lose your ego: Ask your coach what progression is best for you given the lesson plan of the day. What will help you get what you ultimately want faster?
  2. Learn to be patient: This might mean snatching with an empty bar for an entire year. It might mean doing ring rows for six months before you hop back on the pull-up bar. But fast-forward two to three years, and you’ll find yourself injury-free, strong and able to do bust out strict muscle-ups and snatch 185-lb. with good form.

So the next time you’re tempted by sexy movements—in that moment when you think to yourself, ‘I’m 30 years old. I want a pull-up. I don’t have time to be patient,’—try saying this to yourself: “I want to be 60 and still at the gym injury-free and strong. I can’t afford NOT to be patient.”