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Started by katlinchen, October 2, 2014 · 30 Replies · 15,356 Views
Hey guys! I have one question: What would you say how long does it take to increase the number of sitting straddle presses in a row? I can do 1 but would like to do 5 in a row...
Could I manage going from just 1 to 5 in 6 months?
I would train them everyday besided Foundation and some other strength stuff every other day!
Thank you!
Being able to do five press handstands in a row, in six months, shouldn't be that hard. Use the five rep mastery template and go for it.
Coach Sommer knows a Japanese Coach who worked on straddle press handstands every day. If I recall, correctly, the Japanese Coach got up to at least 160 press handstands in a row.
Almost. That particular record was for HSPU in a row.
Someone who saw it did tell me about Mako doing something like 50(?) pike presses in a row.
The most one of my athletes has ever done in a row (from a straddle L) was 30.
Yours in Fitness,
Coach Sommer
Coach Sommer said:Almost. That particular record was for HSPU in a row.
Someone who saw it did tell me about Mako doing something like 50(?) pike presses in a row.
The most one of my athletes has ever done in a row (from a straddle L) was 30.
Yours in Fitness,
Coach Sommer
Oh my god! everything beyond 5 is crazy! And even crazier if it is done by grown-ups! Great...this is my favourite skill!!!
Coach - what do you think about 5 presses in 6 months. Is it doable?
Thank!
In six months I would expect you to be closer to 10 than 5. 
At your current strength level I would assign you 10 total presses. Only good reps count. And at least one of your turns must be two presses in a row. If you fail to achieve your goal of at least one turn of two presses in a row by the time you reach 10 total presses, then you must double your assignment and continue with singles until you reach 20 reps. If you are at rep 9 and still have not completed a turn of two presses, you must still fight to complete two presses in a row; even though this will put your total over 10 reps to 11 total reps.
Once your assignment has doubled, anytime during the extra 10 reps that you make two presses in a row you may stop the assignment for the day.
I would give you approx 15 minutes to complete the entire press handstand assignment. 
My own athletes did the following press handstand assignment as a part of their daily warmup. They did 5 planche presses, 5 manna pike presses, and 5 hollowback presses before moving on to their stalder press work (presses beginning and ending from a straddle L). The stalder press assignments for my three top athletes were as follows; one did 30 reps, one did 18 reps and then another did 16/17 reps in a row respectively. If they failed to reach their target number of reps in a single set; then their day's assignment for press handstands was doubled.
You have chosen an excellent goal! The benefits of focused press handstand training for gymnastics work cannot be overstated.
Yours in Fitness,
Coach Sommer
Excellent info coach. This high volume approach seems very effective. Especially in building the mental fortitude to do the skill.
Would you apply this style volume training to other movements or would you consider it too taxing for some? I assume that it wouldn't be appropriate for something like iron cross.
Awesome!! I will add this to my training.
Very inspiring words Coach! I know that everyones recovery ablility differs but how many days a week would you recomend an average person to do this?
Coach Sommer said:In six months I would expect you to be closer to 10 than 5.
At your current strength level I would assign you 10 total presses. Only good reps count. And at least one of your turns must be two presses in a row. If you fail to achieve your goal of at least one turn of two presses in a row by the time you reach 10 total presses, then you must double your assignment and continue with singles until you reach 20 reps. If you are at rep 9 and still have not completed a turn of two presses, you must still fight to complete two presses in a row; even though this will put your total over 10 reps to 11 total reps.
Once your assignment has doubled, anytime during the extra 10 reps that you make two presses in a row you may stop the assignment for the day.
I would give you approx 15 minutes to complete the entire press handstand assignment.
My own athletes did the following press handstand assignment as a part of their daily warmup. They did 5 planche presses, 5 manna pike presses, and 5 hollowback presses before moving on to their stalder press work (presses beginning and ending from a straddle L). During stalder presses my three top athletes did 30reps, 18 reps and then 16/17 reps in a row respectively. If they failed to reach their target number of reps in a single set; then their day's assignment for press handstands was doubled.
You have chosen an excellent goal! The benefits of focused press handstand training for gymnastics work cannot be overstated.
Yours in Fitness,
Coach Sommer
Thank you very very much for your input. 10 straddle presses, that would be amazing! I will work my butt off and maybe I will get there...it's my favourite skill! 30 presses in a row... thats unbelievable - really great!
Thanks again and I hope in a year I can upload a video doing 5 presses 
Mats Trane said:Very inspiring words Coach! I know that everyones recovery ablility differs but how many days a week would you recomend an average person to do this?
I think everyday with one day break, because that's what I said; I train them almost everyday! 10 everyday doesn't make me super tired, but still works the muscles pretty good.
What helped me A LOT was shoulder tappers! I started doing them after Foundation (which I do every other day), 3 sets of 50 per hand, stomach really close to the wall, body as tight as possible and really touching the shoulder every time...3 weeks later, I did my first press! ))))
Mats Trane said:Very inspiring words Coach! I know that everyones recovery ablility differs but how many days a week would you recomend an average person to do this?
My own athletes did this 3-4 days per week.
Yours in Fitness,
Coach Sommer
katlinchen said:I think everyday with one day break, because that's what I said; I train them almost everyday! 10 everyday doesn't make me super tired, but still works the muscles pretty good.
What helped me A LOT was shoulder tappers! I started doing them after Foundation (which I do every other day), 3 sets of 50 per hand, stomach really close to the wall, body as tight as possible and really touching the shoulder every time...3 weeks later, I did my first press!
The same thing happened with another of my athletes.
Yours in Fitness,
Coach Sommer
katlinchen said:... I hope in a year I can upload a video doing 5 presses
Nope. Six months to post a video showing 8-10.
Yours in Fitness,
Coach Sommer
Coach Sommer,
How would you progress/increase the reps after someone can consistently perform 2 reps?
The same situation (10 total reps) requiring a set of 3 reps or total reps increase to 20?
Ed
P.S Another way to arrive at 2+ repetitions (was a real challenge for me) could be to increase repetition in increments. Seeing as Stalder Presses contain a VERY large ROM, each increase in repetitions is a significant increase in work done (compared o say a push up).
So, kick into HS, negative down to Straddle L, press up, negative down. Next step, standing Straddle Press to HS, negative to Straddle L , press back up.
ed x said:... How would you progress/increase the reps after someone can consistently perform 2 reps?
The same situation (10 total reps) requiring a set of 3 reps or total reps increase to 20? ...
- Yes. With me supervising every single rep and inspiring them when they failed to give less than their best effort.
- In regards to the partial reps for increasing overall volume, I found that the overall volume of the assignment tended to already address that for me.
Yours in Fitness,
Coach Sommer
Haha yes I can imagine the inspiration you provide 
The partial reps was just an idea I used somewhat to increase reps on Stalders. Increasing total volume was the biggest help. Funny that I was able to perform 7+ Stalders in a session before being able to start consistently performing 2 rep sets. It seems the jump from one rep to two is quite large, as previously mentioned compared to something like push ups. The partial reps may be a helpul stepping stone or just a mental exercise (to show the athlete more work can be done). Either way, there is NO way around the fact that hard work and plenty of reps (blood, sweat and tears anyone?) will have to be put into it to get stronger. Though I do like the idea of playing around with this template.
Ed
I tried this method today for HSPU on paralettes and i must say it worked very well.
Feels perfect to use on skills that not only require strenght but technical aspect.
My focus was turned on to a 100% Also, when you have a block of time that you have to be finished with the reps, you don't fart ass around.
Perfect for when you train alone and don't have someone that pushes you.
Mats Trane said:I tried this method today for HSPU on paralettes and i must say it worked very well.
Feels perfect to use on skills that not only require strenght but technical aspect.
My focus was turned on to a 100% Also, when you have a block of time that you have to be finished with the reps, you don't fart ass around.
Perfect for when you train alone and don't have someone that pushes you.
Hey Mats,
could you elaborate slightly on what you did? I'm very interested in optimizing my strength-skill work, as I'm currently on the HeSPU negatives, and progress seems pretty slow. Strength skills are difficult to deal with, since you need a high frequency to develop the skill, but also adequate rest to recover from the strain.
Ravn said:Hey Mats,
could you elaborate slightly on what you did? I'm very interested in optimizing my strength-skill work, as I'm currently on the HeSPU negatives, and progress seems pretty slow. Strength skills are difficult to deal with, since you need a high frequency to develop the skill, but also adequate rest to recover from the strain.
This was the first time I tried this method and like I said I just stayed more focused when I had a block of time when I had to get the reps done. Because of the mental aspect of a strenght-skill movement, I have before, gotten very frustraded when I missed a rep. This has led to me walking around and the session has just taken me to long and I have lost focus.
I did 10 (good) reps in 15 minutes but I also missed a couple.
Mats Trane said:This was the first time I tried this method and like I said I just stayed more focused when I had a block of time when I had to get the reps done. Because of the mental aspect of a strenght-skill movement, I have before, gotten very frustraded when I missed a rep. This has led to me walking around and the session has just taken me to long and I have lost focus.
I did 10 (good) reps in 15 minutes but I also missed a couple.
That actually sounds somewhat like what I am doing. I start the timer at the beginning of HBP16, and aim to finish my goal as quickly as possible. I have a target time, and when I hit it consistently (which is difficult) I add more reps and set a new time target.
Sorry to post in here again but I have another question that somehow relates to that topic!
As I said above, I can do a straddle press handstand from sitting and a pike press from standing, both pretty easily.
I can also hold straddled V-Sit with my knees almost hitting my shoulders for some seconds and working on that with a V-Sit!
What I always found amazing (more amazing than any other strength move!!!) was doing a V-Sit to Handstand, but not only on p-bars or parallettes, but on floor or on beam as a mount before the beam routine.
Ok...I have pretty long legs, but my arms are also pretty long. Do you think this is possible?
I think in about 3-4 months my V-Sit will be pretty good and hopefully I am also able to press from V-Sit to pike Handstand on p-bars. But what about getting that on floor? Is it anatomically possible for everyone or just for really small people or people with short legs?
And which muscles are use for that "pressing through" part? The same as for the straddles press just more of them?
Shoulders? Core? Back? A Combination of all?
Really hope you an help me, I don't want to open another topic!
Presses require everything.
V press HS is about maintaining hip compression (pike) and not letting your toes drop away as they lower from V.
For V and Manna:
https://www.gymnasticbodies.com/forum/topic/281-manna-an-advanced-static-strength-element/
Blairbob said:Presses require everything.
V press HS is about maintaining hip compression (pike) and not letting your toes drop away as they lower from V.
For V and Manna:
https://www.gymnasticbodies.com/forum/topic/281-manna-an-advanced-static-strength-element/
Thank you! I think the V-Sit won't be the problem. But the piking through part. I hope I will have it on p-bars or just and some raised surface on the side to put my hands on to pike through. But I don't know if it is even possible to pike through on floor...
Can Handbalancer to this? Is there anyone I could ask?
Lucas Abner (the guy you posted a video of in the other thread) also has an account here:
https://www.gymnasticbodies.com/forum/user/3111-lucas-abner/
katlinchen said:Thank you! I think the V-Sit won't be the problem. But the piking through part. I hope I will have it on p-bars or just and some raised surface on the side to put my hands on to pike through. But I don't know if it is even possible to pike through on floor...
Can Handbalancer to this? Is there anyone I could ask?
It is very possible to pike through on floor to press handstand as almost every advanced gymnast is capable of this. I'm pretty sure it is nothing for handbalancer.