Developing the press handstand

Hey, I have some strong and talented guys, but all of them are weak on press handstands. I'm about to start up a boys preteam program to feed into the team, and I'd like to have these guys doing good presses by the time they need them for competition, and I'd also like to get my current team members pressing cleanly and consistently.

Chris (and anybody else who wants to respond), I'd like to know how you go about developing good presses, starting from the very beginning. How would you introduce the skill? How would you build the strength for it?

I have a few drills that I've been using, but as far as training goes, presses aren't my forte.

http://www.drillsandskills.com/article/16

Your number one guide to starting a finishing the press.

I started off and have a pretty good straddle to press handstand by doing, L press to stand on parallettes, press to headstand along with ankle weights. Every gymnast needs a solid press, it carries along with many movements in gymnastics just like a handstand.

I would guess for the little guys I encourage the ability to a straddled press headstand cleanly.

Really my prerequisites for a good press handstand are something of a decent handstand. Really flexible and good control of the hip flexors will really make it easier on them.

I do a lot of handstand to straddle stand, pancake or straddle L either on their own, with a spot or parallettes.

We also do straddle L to straddle stand and the reverse. I'll have them do straddle press handstand with their back against the wall as soon as they are ready to ( think L3 ).

I was shown a neat version of straddle press handstand with the stomach to the wall by Roger Harrell. Personally, I found it very difficult but it is very useful.

While the ability to hold a nice tight handstand stomach to wall, shoulders pressed out, tight middle, squeazed checks, toe point for 60-100 secs is fine and dandy; I've seen a lot of young kids press to handstand with barely any semblance of them being able to hold a static handstand or it on the wall for a decent duration. Obviously, focusing on form versus time is crucial but we are talking about little kids and worse, little boys.

For general strength we do forward tuck roll to handstand and forward roll straddle to handstand ( with a jump ) and pike. I'm not too fond of jumping off the ground straddle to handstand but I'm sure we do a lot of that and donkey kick to handstand.

We also do a bit of jump press to handstand from kneeling on their ankles in tuck, straddle or pike.

I was wondering what you guys thought of this idea I had. I bought an inversion table, and it is low to the ground where you can touch it. On it, you can do inverted squats to raise yourself off the ground.

What I thought is, by doing that, and pushing with your arms to assist your legs, and gradually doing more with the arms until you are fully pressing yourself with your arms, is this one option of learning it?

Much like doing it against a wall, you don't have to worry about balancing this way, so it is a way to work the strength and endurance aspect so that when we finally do a free handstand press, we can just worry about balancing and not our arms giving out.

One other thing I thought, is I could put a weight scale underneath the inversion table, and by reading what it says, I would know how much weight I am putting on my palms.

This is also an option for training 1-hand stand and/or pushups.

This can be done with gravity boots too I just happen to have a table.

Tyciol, do you imply that you will be using the inversion table to help the press by bending the arms? This sounds like a handstand pushup drill rather than the typical straight arm press handstand in gymnastics. I'm just sort of unclear on what you are describing.

for clean press I recomend "locking elbows"! In that position you can't bent your elbows. But they'll need some time to be strong enough to hold "lock".

I found interesting press to handstand starting with your butt against a wall with or without spotter. And you can combine all presses on floor and small p.bars (are these maybe parallets???).