Flexibility for press handstands

[Hayden.M.]

Hi,

Is it necessary to be very flexible to be able to do press handstands, and if so, how much?

i keep trying to do them, but i cant for the life in me.. im currently stretching 3 times a week, is this good enough? (2 days of PNF, 1 day of passive)

thanks

[Nic Scheelings]

Hayden in my experience greater flexibilty makes press hs much easier, the less flexible you are the stronger you're going to have to be. Therefore it's better to get more flexible and stronger at the same time and the press will come, the good thing about press hs is they work your active flexibilty and strength together so your most bang for buck is on working press hs progressions. I reccomend working L-press to stand on p-bars, wall press hs, and negatives as what worked best for me. That being said active pike and straddle flexibilty will help a lot, heaps of drills have been posted for these if you search the forum.

Press hs has been one of the harder elements for me to get, i think especially if u don't have a gymnastic background you can expect to have to work pretty hard and seemingly not improve a lot but after awhile it will click.

Good luck!