How many of you would be interested in developing tremendous upper body strength, injury-proof shoulder stability, superior balance and coordination, and sculpted shoulder muscles… all without any exercise equipment? Count me in! That’s why I decided to train myself to be able to perform handstand push ups. When I first started training for this movement a few weeks ago I could barely even hold myself in a handstand position against the wall, so I’m going to need to start with the basics… which is good for you, my readers, because I’ll be videotaping my progress and sharing it as a series of training tutorials!

The handstand push up is similar to performing an overhead shoulder press using your own body-weight, while upside down. I currently have no ambitions to perform this exercise in a “free standing” balance position, so I’ll be resting my feet against the wall for added balance. We’ll see … once I get strong at it I may look at progressing to the next level of insanity.

Why the handstand push up? For the same reason pullups are superior to pull-downs, and dips are superior to decline presses, and weighted strap pushups are superior to bench pressing (depending on your strength level)… exercises that involve movement and stability of your entire body cause greater NMA (neural muscular activation) and lead to faster strength gains. These “body-weight” type exercises also tend to develop more ‘balanced’ strength, and force you to engage your core and small joint stabilizer muscles. Plus, as I’ve said before, they just look really cool! Very few people who exercise regularly can perform handstand push ups or muscle ups, so you’ll get bragging rights for sure! Check out the first video in my new tutorial series:

The handstand push up will develop tremendous upper body strength, injury-proof shoulder stability, superior balance and coordination, and sculpted shoulder muscles. It will help to include other supportive exercises in your training program to build your pressing strength. This video will demonstrate some basic overhead press variations:
 

Another important consideration is to work on your upper back, scapular stability. You will need to ensure that you have a strong, stable shoulder girdle before progressing with the handstand push up, in order to avoid injury and break through your training plateaus. Include some of these upper body warm up exercises as part of your pre-workout routine:

 

Some people might argue that the handstand push up is too difficult to perform, or too dangerous, or not useful because you can’t increase the resistance once you can perform lots of reps (like that will happen anytime soon!). Trust me, not only is this a fantastic exercise, once you can perform it, but I will be showing you plenty of progressions to work up to it, as well as a few ways to make it more challenging once you get there! As long as you progress slowly it is perfectly safe, and in the process you will be forced to develop better balance and much more stable shoulders, which will help prevent other injuries from occurring.

UPDATE: I’ve successfully complete the entire tutorial series for Handstand Pushups… you can watch it here;

=>Handstand Pushups Video Tutorial Series

I have more videos coming soon, and I’m working on the followups to some of my other tutorials as well. I have a lot on the go so look forward to more great content soon!

Josh