Most Useful Exercises For Press To Hs?

[Martin de Jesus Ponce Robaldino]

Well, i'be been working in my press to HS, actually i'm working 5x3 eccentric/concentric presses wall assisted.

 

And have been working a lot in straddle compression and for pancakes.

 

But i dunno, i feel the progress very slow. I've been preparing my wrist with wrist pushups. And sometimes work Reverse leg lifts..

 

In you opinion, which could be the best exercises for the foundation of a press to hs?

Thanks in advice

[Brendan Coad]

Beyond the strength exercises and flexibility development, negatives have been very helpful for me.  Negatives to straddle - L and just straddling down to a stand.  I still bail often but the goal is to make each attempt complete, from entry to hold to exit.

[Redwan Haque]

From Coach's essay on HS Wall Runs:

 

The athlete in question was smart, hardworking and quite disciplined. I had however gotten him rather late (14 yrs old) and his shoulder girdle development was lagging behind the other competitive boys of his age. Press handstands were especially difficult for him. When I have jokingly told him not to come down for the duration of their approximately 10 minute running drills, he in fact took me very seriously. He stayed in that handstand, running in place, for the entire 10 minutes.

This became a habit; for two to three times a week when the other athletes performed their pre-warmup running drills, he performed 10 minutes of HS Wall Runs. This went on for several weeks. Sometime thereafter, during conditioning one night, he called me over to check something out. And there in front of me, this athlete who formerly could not correctly execute a single press to handstand, showed me several very nice repetitions in a row. What is especially interesting about this, is that the only adjustment to his training had been the addition of the HS Wall Runs

 

[Cody Ward]

I got standing straddle presses within a week using this method...

 

1. Wall HS holds / One-arm wall HS holds / Wall Runs (Do whichever you're capable of, they're all helpful, I only did normal HS holds)

2. Ball Press

3. Wall Press (Do pike press if you can, and do it slowly, small hold at the bottom before raising up again)

4. Attempting freestanding presses

 

 

The first step is to create more strength in your shoulders/traps, step two and three are mostly for technique and a bit of strength, the last is self-explanitory.

 

Ball Press is basically going from a push-up position to a pike position with your feet on a stability ball. It's best if you can use push-up handles, and at the top of the movement, try your hardest to get your hips in line with your shoulders, but don't fall over. Chances are, you have enough strength for a standing straddle press, but your techinque is bad, this will really help.

 

Start working on pike press and stalder press after you master normal straddle press.

[Martin de Jesus Ponce Robaldino]

thanks again Cody, i think that my main issue is to place my hips over my shoulders, i just don't feel it "natural"

 

Wall holds are easy, and ball presses, so, what you mention about pike presses with the little pause at the bottom sounds really good.

 

 

i'll try them =)

Thanks for the answers

[Cody Ward]

Oh, I forgot to mention, do wall holds stomach to wall and make sure your shoulders are in the proper position and elevated. Ball presses will definitely help with the hip issue.

[yuri marmerstein]

my advice:

 

work from the bottom up and the top down.  Isometric holds at the bottom with the feet off the floor and the shoulders as open as possible,  This is the hardest part of the press so if you can hold this easily the rest is mostly balance. 

 

In my press video that i put up a while ago I talk about wall negatives pushing your butt back to the wall, keeping your shoulders open and bringing only the legs down.  This can also be performed for partial ROM, bring the legs down as low as possible and bringing them back up.  This combined with holds/lifts in the bottom position should work pretty well. 
Also. definitely balance is an important element as many try presses without really having a handstand.  

 

As assistance exercises, pancake stretch and seated leg lifts are very useful.   

[Mats Trane]

For me Box Press to Handstand helped alot.

 

 

[u3er]

I just recently got my first stalder press.  For me, the magic bullet was a combination of flexibility work (head to floor in pancake was my breakthrough turning point) and planche training.  

 

I also find that jump tuck HS (with slow negatives or lowering to tuck planche) in volume is very useful.  Like wise, I did lots of jump straddle HS in order to learn the movement of the legs.  I personally did not find press HS against the wall to be helpful as I tended to want to lean into the wall instead of pulling my hips up.

 

Yuri's advice on holding the bottom position is also very good. Make sure to focus on pulling your toes towards your frontal plane as you lean forwards (compression) and pulling your butt vertically (stacking).  You can also make this a more dynamic movement by starting in plank position and then pulling your toes in until you are in the HS press position (first start in straddle, then try pike to make it more difficult).

 

Hopefully these ideas will help you out!  Good luck in your training