PRESS PREP

Welcome to Press Prep, Handstand Factory’s free press to handstand physical preparation session. We’ve had many people come to us throughout the years frustrated that they can’t press, despite sometimes spending years doing yoga, calisthenics, or weightlifting. They’re often told myths about what it takes to get the press:
“You need a 2 minute wall handstand.”
“You must have a flat pancake.”
“You have to have a perfectly straight handstand first.”
“You need a 30s tuck planche.”

And there is a grain of truth within all of these, as they will help make a press easier. But none of these are required, as there’s a multitude of people (even professionals) who can’t achieve any/all of those things, but can easily press to handstand.

From teaching thousands of people, this training session consists of the exercises that build the physical abilities we have found necessary to achieve the press: 
1. The specific shoulder strength to shift the weight onto your hands.
2. The compression strength that will help you shorten the trajectory of the press, making it easier.
3. The coordination of hips, shoulders and spinal articulation in a press.

These are integral to the press. And by training them with our targeted exercises, they’ll help you break through the limitations have kept you from achieving the press.

Training Information

We designed this quick Press Prep session to be added-on to the latter half of your regular training. That way you can come into it warmed up and get the most out of the exercises.

Say you have a weightlifting routine, it’s a great fit right after your main lifts but before your accessory work.

Or if you’re following a handbalancing routine, add it in after your main skill work but before your conditioning (it could replace your conditioning if you’re short on time).

You have lifetime access to this session, and we encourage you to train it multiple times, ideally 2-3x a week for 6 weeks.  

And here’s what you’ll need:

  • An empty wall with space on either side.
  • Socks.
  • Flat, level, firm ground. Thick carpet is no good.
  • Space to cartwheel and roll.
  • A light-weight.  Either a kettlebell, dumbbell, or even a backpack filled with books will work.
  • 2 knee-height stools or a long bench.

Lastly, in the HSF programming we often pair and superset exercises. When looking at the exercise order, follow it alphabetically. For exercises with letters followed by a number, you do one set per number – going sequentially through the subset. But you will complete all assigned sets before moving to the next letter.
For example, a program might list:

A – 1 Set | B1 – 2 Sets | B2 – 2 Sets | C – 1 Set

So if you look at your training day in terms of sets, it would look like:

Set 1 = A | Set 2 = B1 | Set 3 = B2 | Set 4 = B1 | Set 5 = B2 | Set 6 = C