Building Handstand Strength Programs

First of, I recommend that you read this article: Weight Training Guide. and Basic strength training guide. These two guides will provide you with sufficient knowledge of basic weight and strength training, which is needed to build a more specific Handstands strength program.

The thing about making strength programs is really about crafting exercises together, for your own body and your own goals. Other things like proper nutrition and rest also need to be addressed. Here I’ll show you how to build a proper handstand strength program. But first, lets address some universal rues.

Compound Strength Exercises

Every program should be build on basic strength-building compound exercises that work multiple muscle groups. These are the following:

• Benchpress – chest
• Pullups – upper back
• Squats – legs
• Deadlift – Lower back
• Seated rows – Upper back
• Overhead press (military press) – Shoulders

Repetitions defines your goal

Repetitions defines everything, it’s wise to use them as guidelines to ensure proper progress. If your set is five repetitions, make sure that you only manage to do five. The same goes with eight and so on.

• 1 – 5 reps, 5 – 6 sets builds strength
• 6 – 8 reps, 4 – 6 sets builds volume
• 10 – 12 reps , 3 – 4 sets gives endurance training or “toning”
• Rest between sets variates from what goal, but are all from 20 sec to minute

Selecting Exercises for you Handstand Strength

Obviously this isn't what we are training for.. or is it?

Let’s begin with the exercises. What exercises you choose f or your training should always support your goal or purpose of training. For us it’s handstands; As such I will always be using the basic compound strength exercise for shoulder, Overhead press or as popular called: Military Press.

First off, you need to lay out the basic of your program. I suggest that you always keep the compound strength exercises, but prioritize the shoulder and upper back area. Remember that this is a handstand strength workout you are making. Are you going to use one or two day prior to this handstand strength training? does it fit with the rest of your training? Does the muscles get proper rest? These are important questions to ask when building the basic of your program.

Take this as an example
Let’s split it in two days, one day for shoulders and core, the other day for upper back and arms.

Shoulder Day
- Seated Military Press – Compound strength exercises for shoulder
- External Rotation – Prevent and heal injure for Rotator Cuff
- Abdomen/lower Back Core

Upper back
- Pull Up/Chin Up – Compound strength exercise for upper back
- Seated Rows -
F- ront Pulldown/Lat pulldown

This is a ground pillar of any handstand strength training. Although you could use different variations from time to time – like overhead press with dumbbell or external rotation with pulleys instead of dumbbells – the base of the exercises is still there. Note that these exercises are the ones I see fitted best for me – I’m using much of my own experience, and the experience of training others – however the compund strength exercise never change. I like to do Seated Overhead Press instead of standing – mostly because I feel that I have better contact with my shoulder muscle. You could also implement core or lower back training on shoudler days.

Shoulder Strength

With my basic formed I can alternate my training from each session, knowing that I always train according to my handstand strength. I alternate with support exercises. I’ll use my shoulder day as an example:

Shoulder Day Alternate 1
- Seated Military Press
- Arnold Press
- Kettlebell Press
- External Rotation
- Abdomen/lower Back Core

Or

Shoulder Day alternate 2
- Seated Military Press
- Handstand Pushup
- Lateral Raises
- Shoulder Press in Machine
- External Rotation
- Abdomen/lower Back Core

Both days are valid shoulder training sessions, the point I’m trying to tell is that you can alternate as much as you wish with support exercises as long as the compound strength exercises are at top. Note that these are just two examples.

Upper Back Strength

The same applies when training upper back, although you here have a lot more of exercises to choose between do not waste time on too many exercise, instead alternate as much as you feel for

Upper Back Alternate
- Pull Up/Chin Up
- Seated Row / Barbell Row
- Lat Pulldown
- One Armed Dumbell Row
- Reverse Row High
- Reverse Row Low
- Arms if Needed

or

Upper Back Alternate 2
- Pullup/Chin Up
- T-Bar Row
– Front Pulldown
- Standing Row
- One Armed Reverse Fly
- Arms

The same principle as before is used, and therefor giving me the opportunity to alternate without loosing the core of the training. This also makes it easier to schedule each exercise but still give you the opportunity to variate.

I don’t have weights What should I do?

This fellow can't complain, he got tons of weight. Litterally

This doesn’t have to be a problem, it only depends how you look on it. It can even be better. Look at Calisthenics, commonly called body-weight exercises, is a great way of gaining strength without ever touching a dumbbell or a barbell again. If you haven’t done anything like this before I suggest you try, It’ll give your training a bit of a shock. I’ll list a few pros and cons about it regarding handstands and regular training. And note that this is based on my personal experience from my own training, or when training others.

Pros:

• Strengthen of all three core areas
• Better support musculature
• Improved overall strength versus your total weight
• Handstand Specific exercises easier added
• Natural range of motion
• Less chances of injures
• Improved anterior and posterior shoulder strength
• Abdomen core and latissimuss dorsi more frequently used and therefore strengthened by far.

Cons:

• Requires more dedication
• Requires more knowledge about your body and it’s capabilities
• Tougher Trainings
• Harder to make full strength programs
• Lower Maximal strength (as in lifting the hevyest weight)

There is a big but though, there isn’t any Cons when thinking about handstands and calisthenics. Non at all.

Calisthenics + Compound Exercises?

Believe it or not, but half of the compound strength exercises listed are already pure bodyweight (Pullups and Chestpress) which makes it quite easy adding the pike press/handstand pushup for a complete set.  I’ll only list upper body exercises here as I’m not familiar with other parts.

When it comes to Basic Compound Exercises and Calisthenics you’ve got:

• Pushups (for Chest)
• Pull Up (upper Back)
• Pike Press/Handstand Pushup (shoulders)

And from these you use variations of them to use the muscles in different ways, even sometimes activating other muscles a long the way. It’s all about angles and width. Here’s a list of the different exercises and the most known/used variations.

Pull Up
– Normal Pull Up
– Wide Pullup
– Narrow Pullup

Chin Up (Chins)
– Regular Chin Up
– Wide Chin Up

Pushup
– Regular Pushup
– Wide Pushup
– Tricep Pushup (Narrow)
– Tiger Bend Pushup
– Planche Pushup
– Revert Wrist Pushup

Pike Press
– Regular Pike Press
– Wde Pike Press
– Elevated Pike Press
– Narrow Pike Press
– Deep Pike Press

Handstand Push Up (HSPU or Handstand Pressup)
– Regular HSPU
– Wide HSPU
– Deep HSPU

Difficulty Variates
– Regular: Your normal approach on the exercise
– Wide: The more wider you go, the harder it usually gets.
– Narrow: Worste than wide, the more narrow, the harder
– Deep: Level of how deep, full ROM is at it’s deepest.
- Angle: Pike press and Pushups will be tougher when angling them differently.

By changing the placement of your arms or the angle (pushup especially) you can give your muscles a hard workout. The good thing about this is the variety environment the muscles get to evolve them self in, giving better training for the small support muscles throughout your body.

The Benefits

Sure wasn't any Dumbbells helping this guy!

This benefits the handstands in many ways, one of them is the fact that handstands in general never seem to just use a defined muscle at a time. Understand me wrong here, what I’m implying is the fact that when using different techniques in handstand we’ll have to use several muscles groups together, like the l-seat pressup, we involve all the muscles in the upper body, as well as the core and some of the hip. If you train them individually how would your muscles now how to corporate? In the given technique your posterior deltoid has to work harder and harder the further forward you lean, until the middle deltoid and upper back takes over and you are vertically. Not even to mention your upper back, which starts with recruiting a lot from Trapezius middle section and end up on the upper section and latisimus. And in the middle of all of this, your chest and triceps works as support muscles!

Now I’ll dare you to find an exercise/technique with traditional weightlifting that can copy the way these muscles recruit, or work together for that mater? The great thing about body weight exercises is that you actually have to use techniques like this in order to train properly. Now If I were to train myself to achieve this technique, I would have started with Tucked Leg Planches until I could do chest presses there, and handstand pressups with different width on the hands as strength training. And use my technique trainings to craft them together. That’s the great thing here, almost each and every handstand technique that is dynamic, is each two or several independent strength exercises.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying you should totally abandon traditional weightlifting because it will benefit you in many ways. All I’m saying is that by incorporating body weights exercises that are crafted for your goal will by far be a smarter way to go if you really want to achieve it. But then the question comes, how de we make a Handstand STRENGTH program using only body weight?

Another Program

Faceplant, he's doing it wrong.. He needs another program

Upon making an strength program for your handstand using ONLY bodyweight exercises there is one thing you should know. There is going to be a lot of pullups, chins, handstand presses, pike presses. When I say a lot, I mean many sets, more than you probably are used too. Which means that your support muscles (forearm, part of your shoulders, even arms and lats) are going be exhausted before you are able to stress the main muscles enough. But believe or not, this is what we want. Because it is these muscles that frequently are used in handstands, and which are harder to train and to make corporate with other muscles when using traditional. The negative part is that you would not get any “stronger” at first. At least not with the bigger muscles. Give or take I presume a two weeks to a month before your body is used to this type of training, and you can fully release the potential of bodyweight workouts.

Since handstands is our goal we will focus on this, but it also depends on what regarding the handstands we want to be better at. There’s is no point using a lot of time on pushups when yoru goal is handstand pushup, or a lot of time on pike presses when planche is your goal. But there is no reason to leave it out either, just don’t use all your energy an time on it.

When writing this guide I was training strength for the Reverse Lower-Down, since the technique got a very deep range of motion for triceps I had to evolve it that way too in the training. So here is what I did:

Example
- Pullups regular grip ( to maintain upper back strength)
– Handstand Pushup Negatives (deep, usually from chest on a bench, just as a reverse LD)
– Pike Press Narrow
– Tiger Bend Pushup (was also getting used to the tiger bend technique)
– Triceps-Pushup

This was a “basic” set up and I would add other exercises too (Like chins and pullups variations), but the ones addressed above was always present. I could also add more shoulders or back if I felt in good shape that day. Notice that I prioritize the shoulders way of training triceps before I choose chest. This is mainly because I wouldn’t want risking tiring out the triceps before I got the my main goal/purpose for the training, and since Reverse LD was my goal it’s reasonable to prioritize it first if you look at the Specificity Principle.

As a another example is used this model when training a friend for his HSPU’s. In other to not only learn it, but also to use it frequently in his training. This was his basic set up.

Example
- Pullups Wide Grip
- Assisted Handstand Press (usually into a wall)
– Pike Press

There’s not many exercises so naturally he would add the ones he felt for needed, however with this basic he could reach his goal. As he progressed and got stronger we would increase the difficulty on the exercises, leading to the free HSPU. He eventually got it, but don’t forget training your handstands too.

Final Words

I’m reaching towards the end here, hoping you understood or learned something useful. Don’t hesitate to ask if you should have any questions. And remember that this guide is specified for handstands strength programs, and for that only. Looking for building maximum strength, hypertrophy, power or loosing/gaining weight; I suggest that you’ll read somewhere else as those question will not be answered above or below what I’ve written here.