image credit: perfectoinsecto
Lately when I am using the weight machines at the gym, I have noticed a man there who does handstand push ups against the wall. I think it is really cool and shows a tremendous amount of upper body strength. He pushes out several reps before returning to the upright position. The entire time he’s doing them, you can tell how hard they are just by the look on his face.
Handstand push ups are not for everyone! In fact, you shouldn’t even attempt them without proper training and supervision. You will need to build up your strength to perform these and the best way to do it is by kicking into the handstand position against a wall and just holding the position for as long as you can. This will help build up your strength and eventually, you’ll be able to complete one rep.
Handstand push ups are a major workout for your shoulders. Once you perfect them using a wall for support, you can use variations such as bars to extend your range of motion. This exercise is one of the many impressive body weight exercises around and is an awesome way to build your upper body strength.
Check out a very cool demonstration of handstand push ups below:
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I never really thought much about being self sufficient with weight training.
I also use the weights in the gym in the usual fashion, which is challenging – but not “WOW”.
To be quite truthful, while watching the demo I was kinda worried that the demonstrator would land on her face…
good for her though – cause she didn’t!
I do 3 sets of 5 handstand push ups. Probably the hardest push up of all. I’ve seen people with arms THREE times my size who can’t do them. For some reason I can
My arms are smaller than the woman’s arms in the video, stupid ectomorphic body types, like seriously its really hard for me to gain muscle mass. At least I’ll be a skinny strong person.
Try some pseudo planche push-ups to build the front of the shoulders more, then you can start to do frogs into handstands (it’s a fluid motion from a kneeling or crouching position to a handstand that does not use your legs at all) and you’ll be able to hold them solidly without a wall, then do the push-ups – this will vastly improve core strength as opposed to relying on the wall as a balance. Balance is strength, really.
The reverse of a frog is coming slowly from a handstand position into a controlled frog, it’s called an anti and builds the same muscles. Core strength is extremely important to optimize the effectiveness of extremity muscle.