Handstand presses

I am having a lot of difficulty improving my sitting presses. I can press from tuck, straddle and a pike position from the floor easily, but when it comes to L-sit or even sitting straddle I barely see any improvement!!

Does anyone have any exercises that will help with any sitting presses?

Thanks

Can you post a video?  There are a few common problems.  One is lack of compressions.  The other is the inability to get the shoulders over the hands correctly.  Yuri will probably say more, but a video can show where your weakness is in the press.  

Also doing the presses in two stages has helped me.  I press from a straddle sit to a straddle stand then focus on getting my shoulders correct and without picking up my hands press the rest of the way up.  Similar separation of movements can be done for l-sit press.

I remember your last video of pressing and you were letting your back arch a bit to get you up. This compensation for lacking upper back strength does not transfer as well to the bottom part of a press. You really need to keep your shoulders in more or less the exact same place through your press to build strength towards the bottom unless you can or want to planche it at the bottom to compensate. The rounding of the back gets more and more important the lower down in the press you are.

What Daniel mentioned above here is nice. Press to 90 degrees from L sit is a great exercise. It works especially well on P bars where you can stand on them, lower down and use a bit of swing to press back up to standing on your feet again on them.

Insanely super slow negatives are also your friend, and they help to build compression. I know you are flexible so focus on squeezing your legs towards you as hard as you can on the way down. In any press, if you feel your abs working hard, you are doing it right. They should be compressing you heavily to shorten the lever. Once you have this very very slowly down to L/straddle L, you can try doing the same with some light ankle weights.

You will also need to work on doing your max ROM press at the moment. Start from handstand, lower as far as you can while keeping your shoulder position and press back up. Since you can press from the floor, try to pass your the level of your palms both for L and straddle L.

Handbalancer said:

I remember your last video of pressing and you were letting your back arch a bit to get you up. This compensation for lacking upper back strength does not transfer as well to the bottom part of a press. You really need to keep your shoulders in more or less the exact same place through your press to build strength towards the bottom unless you can or want to planche it at the bottom to compensate. The rounding of the back gets more and more important the lower down in the press you are.

 

What Daniel mentioned above here is nice. Press to 90 degrees from L sit is a great exercise. It works especially well on P bars where you can stand on them, lower down and use a bit of swing to press back up to standing on your feet again on them.

 

Insanely super slow negatives are also your friend, and they help to build compression. I know you are flexible so focus on squeezing your legs towards you as hard as you can on the way down. In any press, if you feel your abs working hard, you are doing it right. They should be compressing you heavily to shorten the lever. Once you have this very very slowly down to L/straddle L, you can try doing the same with some light ankle weights.

 

You will also need to work on doing your max ROM press at the moment. Start from handstand, lower as far as you can while keeping your shoulder position and press back up. Since you can press from the floor, try to pass your the level of your palms both for L and straddle L.

See, no matter how many times I try I find I can never use my upper back! I hope these exercises will help with that a lot... Another thing I was doing to help form In a pike and tuck position, was that I use my couch with my shoulders and upper back pressed against the front of it with my head through. I found it rounded my back MUCH more, so I've been working on that.

And what you said abou the max ROM makes TOTAL sense! You're saying keep the shoulders open as long as possible? I don't know why that didn't click before hahaha. Thank you

You are always using your upper back, but you have a habit of arching at one specific place. This isnt the biggest mistake in the world either so dont worry about it too much. Be aware of it and work towards more rounding, but you do already have press hs from standing.

Like I said last time, work negatives to try to figure out the differences in the movement as it might be easier to keep better shape then.

Yes, shoulders open as long as possible. You are trying to stay stacked on your shoulders as long as you can so that when you pass 90 degrees on the way down, it feels more like you are liftin/pulling your legs towards you than "going down". This goes especially for straddle L. In fact, the shoulders shouldnt feel too different even at the bottom. It sounds stupid, but imagine that you should feel that you are still in handstand in the L/straddle L. When you are strong enough it just feels like a very small adjustment to go from L to handstand.

Holds and pushing as high as you can  in L/straddle L might also be good to build strength down at the bottom.

Handbalancer said:

You are always using your upper back, but you have a habit of arching at one specific place. This isnt the biggest mistake in the world either so dont worry about it too much. Be aware of it and work towards more rounding, but you do already have press hs from standing.

Like I said last time, work negatives to try to figure out the differences in the movement as it might be easier to keep better shape then.

Yes, shoulders open as long as possible. You are trying to stay stacked on your shoulders as long as you can so that when you pass 90 degrees on the way down, it feels more like you are liftin/pulling your legs towards you than "going down". This goes especially for straddle L. In fact, the shoulders shouldnt feel too different even at the bottom. It sounds stupid, but imagine that you should feel that you are still in handstand in the L/straddle L. When you are strong enough it just feels like a very small adjustment to go from L to handstand.

Holds and pushing as high as you can in L/straddle L might also be good to build strength down at the bottom.

Awesome! Thanks a lot!