Handstand pushups

[Adam]

WOHOO! I found a new way to inflict joint and muscular pain upon myself! Handstand pushups! Does anyone do these as part of their training regime? Is it a good bodyweight exercise? Currently I can only do about 3, then my shoulders scream bloody murder at me. Any tips for improving the number?

[Doug]

Good value
I am also working on doing sets of HSPU.
What I find helps is push out your reps then do a hold for 30 40 second before coming down.
Next set push put rep and hold 3/4 way down for 30/40 secs.
Repeat go half way down and do the hold.
I find this aids the stablisers in the range of positions,the time is up to you,I usually warm up with 3x 1min Handstand Hold followed by Crow(posture when you rock forward onto hands and up into Handstand) into handstand x5,then go for the Push Up reps.If working on balance do your Handstand into a corner as you can splay your legs.
Hope that usefull

[Adam]

Okay, thanks. how many reps should I ideally make? How many can YOU make?

[Mo Lung]

Get two chairs and put your hands on them and then do the hand stand pushup so that your head goes below your hands. Then you will know the meaning of pain! MAKE SURE THE CHAIRS WON'T MOVE FIRST!

Do sets of 8 or 10 if you want strength and some muscle growth. Mind you, if you can do one set of 8, I'd be impressed! ;)

Better to do sets of two or three until you get good. These are excellent exercises but you gotta be careful!

[Doug]

I am in the process of using pyramids to increase my no. of reps.
Currently I pyramid up to 5 and back with 30 sec rest between sets.

Warm up with Hindu PU pyramids,or normal or whatever is your routine.Go through your holds as I said in last post.
Then go for 1 PU rest 30seconds 2 PU rest 30secs etc up to 5 back down to one.You can apply the same pyramid to your max rep,so if its 3 then 1-3-1.if this is to easy but your reps arn't improving a friend swears by 3-1-3-1 style of pyramids but I found this style too time consuming to fit into my overall routine.

Once every 2-3 weeks after a rest day do your max rep test to see how you are going, if thats one of your goals.

How many?? Well I have pushed out 12 straight up after a week off but rarely go for max amount as its not a big goal,I am after the slow controled core strenght movement that a few gymnast friends have down pat.PS my bodyweight is only 70kg

Hope that works for you.