....So far.... I have realized that the one arm handstand pushup is noooo joke. Far harder than I thought it would be and even harder than the one arm pullup. A humbling test of strength this beast has proven to be. I think this exercise could take my overall training to the next level, much like one arm pullups did. Obviously, I knew this would be a task, but the fact that no one has done it, and provided proof, made me want to do them even more. What makes this feat even more difficult is my complete lack of balance. The majority of my training for this has been spent twisting and leaning in different positions to find the best place to start. I'm still having a bit of trouble with this part, but watching a ton of videos and falling on my head A LOT has helped.
The next step was to determine if I even had the strength to begin attempting. I gave myself a set of requirements to accomplish before beginning to seriously put more time into training. As of now I am still working to meet all of these requirements, and a few may be added or changed down the road.
1. Knockout 25 handstand pushups in one set, no break
2. Knockout 15-25 diamond handstand pushups in one set, no break
3. Push my body weight ONCE with one arm on an overhead shoulder press machine... preferably the ones that let you alternate between the left and right freely.
4. Perform a negative one arm handstand pushup on each arm...staying in control throughout the rep
5. Dumbbell press my body weight on each arm (optional as of now due to safety)
6. Find a decent angle that will allow me to keep my balance on the wall as I attempt the pushup
7. Complete 3-10 super elevated one arm pushups with feet against the wall
As of now I have met 1,2,4,and 6. I am close to 3 and 7 but have yet to attempt 6. Training for this falls on chest or tricep day usually. But no matter what, I train for this once a week to prevent injury and allow myself to heal properly. I may end up doing them using the perfect pushup or some kind of pushup bar since my wrists have begun to hurt.
One thing I have noticed is that people train using the free arm for assistance. When I say assistance, I mean using the free hand on an elevated surface, or using the free hand to help by planting a few fingers on the ground. The idea is to slowly ween yourself off of the help the arm provides until you are able to do them with only one arm. Sounds really good.... But I refuse to train this way and believe it instills a false sense of progress. I will even go as far as saying that this tool works against you! If this technique works so well.... why has no one done a one arm handstand pushup yet????? Yup. I could probably knock out a thousand one arm pullups if I used my index finger on the other arm. I think people forget how much weight is relieved when the opposite arm is used. But to each their own. If it works for them... awesome.
So far I haven't seen anyone training negatives, which kind of shocked me at first. I figured negatives would be one of the first places to start. I also found that holding my thigh with my free hand helps more than having it off to the side for balance. Since I am using the wall for the majority of my balance I dont need to worry about it as much. Speaking of the wall.... It seems to make things a bit harder in exchange for the gift of stability. Its going to take more strength to push myself up from the starting position due to the traction created by my feet as I push at an angle.
So to sum it all up... after two months I am still unable to do it.lol But I am much closer. My latest attempt ended with my head slightly leaving the ground. By slightly I mean... my hair was still touching... but my head was definitely off the ground! lol Frustrating, but I'll get it.
Let me know what you think! Agree? Disagree? Advice? Thanks for reading!
Hi Matthew! I'm glad to see you started writing about your experience training the OAHSPU. We talked briefly on Youtube.
ReplyDeleteFirst, I want to say, you're strong as hell. One of the strongest people I ever talked to.
But I'll defend a little bit the finger assistance technique. It's by no mean precise, but nevertheless, it's not as deceptive as you think it is. You can't measure properly the amount of assistance, unless you do it on two scales, and the amount of assistance would variate throughout the rep according to the strength curve of the move. I can say it's not that deceiving because I think I'll be able to start practicing with just my pinky fairly soon. The day before yesterday, I did a set of 8 reps with the index finger. A few months ago, 1 single rep with the index finger was a 1 RM, and less than a year ago, I had a hard time doing 6 with two fingers assistance. Now, if I used two fingers to help myself, I'd laugh because it would feel easy. I think that the proof that it works will be when I can do regular sets with the pinky. If there's one of my fingers I never trained, it's my pinkies. My pinkies are wimps. They're skinny weak fingers, and I never used them to assist myself on anything, so there's no way they could already have gotten stronger through OAHSPU practice.
For negatives... I've tried them, a long time ago. Didn't work for me. It might be because I was waay too far to have enough strength to do it. I think that you're starting out with more raw strength than I did, so if you're closer to it, doing negatives might work. It's probably all about the timing. Do the right exercise at the right time. Maybe at some point I'll feel that the only thing that could help me will be negatives.
Now for your argument that a training technique doesn't work because nobody showed a video of them successfully doing the movement after training with that technique... couldn't the same be said about your ways? :) You haven't posted a video of you doing it either! (All that said in a respectful way.) I believe that we don't have a video of someone doing OAHSPU is because... everybody who wanted to work on it, or worked on it, were too far off in terms of strength, and probably didn't take the time to achieve a very high level of overhead pushing strength prior to starting training for the OAHSPU. The other reason is that the other strong guys probably got strong using weights, and a few of these guys trying to work the OAHSPU had an impressive absolute strength, but might lack in relative strength or in body control. You have a very good relative strength, and I believe you probably also have a fair bit of body control. Because of that... I'm of course worried you might get it before me. :D
Keep training hard, man!
Oh, and also, most people probably aren't patient enough to stick training that one movement for months or years, especially if they have no proof they'll ever get it.
ReplyDeleteAnd the 25 handstand push-ups done in #1, are they done on the floor, or done off of something higher so you hit the full range? My estimated requirement is 20, but all the way to the chest.
Thanks for your feedback! And I didn't take offense to your comments so no worries! I see where you are coming from about the training. But you would be surprised how much strength is actually used, even with the pinky (impressive by the way). Have you ever been spotted on the bench press and a person uses just one finger? It helps a great deal, but!!!! You are right, this method does build strength and if it works then it shouldn't be discarded. I saw quite a few people promising others that they could achieve the one arm handstand pushup by training a certain way and meeting certain prerequisites, and it didnt make sense to me. Its like giving people instructions on how to walk on water but you cant do it, or even have proof it can be done by taking their advise. I feel like if you create a tutorial and give advice on how to do something, you should be able to do it yourself. I'm not really giving advise yet, I am sort of documenting my progress, giving myself requirements to meet, and if it works I feel I will be able to give people a bit of advise. You sound like you have made pretty good progress so far! This is probably the hardest feat of strength I have attempted so far. I've bent steel bars, done one arm pullups, planches, front levers, etc but this is taking the longest! This is probably due to the fact that I have never really trained heavy overhead press movements before this. If you have any other tips feel free to share, and Ill do the same. And I have been doing them from the floor. But I also do them with pushup bars.
ReplyDeleteQuestion! Have you tried them from the floor up with no assistance? If so, how do you position your body? I'm not an acrobat or gymnast so this is a really tough part for me. Thanks again for the feedback and best of luck with your training! You'll probably get it before me to be honest. lol But Ill be going for it!
Man, I have no idea who will get it first, but I must say, you scare me! I think that the idea of building a super strong base using weights is very good, and I also like the idea of using negatives, not for building the strength (as I feel the gap would be too big for anybody to use negatives only) but to feel the movement and to learn the control.
ReplyDeleteFor teaching people how to do it... I have the same opinion as you. Similarly, I experiment, and share with others how it works for me.
For starting the OAHSPU with no assistance and from the bottom position... It's a hard one. I think you need your hand to be placed under your shoulder, and have your body tilted sideways like for a one arm handstand. The rest would be balance. But I think that it would be fair to assist yourself using your feet on the wall. Even with legs slightly bent to help yourself a little bit, it would still be a great achievement, and the form could be improved over time.
I was thinking about it today... I got the rep with the pinky using a concrete wall. I tried to do it again today using an inside wall with socks (not sure how you call it in English, but it's the plaster type of walls, inside apartments), but couldn't get back up, although I felt like I wasn't too far off. Maybe I should practice with the pinky using a concrete wall, and once I can do a few reps (up to 8) like that, switch back to a plaster wall and do the same until I can do many reps the same way, but without using the traction from the feet to help myself. Maybe once I can do that, I could go back to the concrete wall and try without any finger assistance, but using the adherence from my feet to help a little. Breaking it down in more steps might help me a lot, since I don't have access to weights.
Talking about weights... I like that you're using them. I'm using only my own bodyweight for the upper body, and other people as loads for lower body, because I really like the idea of training ghetto. But I'm glad you're using weights because it diversifies the approaches to the OAHSPU. I know that weighted pull-ups are definitely very useful for learning OACU and OAPU, and I think that weighted exercises can also be very useful for the OAHSPU.
For your balance, you say it's not good, but I think I've seen you tryiing planche push-ups before. With your excellent relative strength, you should be able to learn a handstand pretty fast. The one arm handstand takes a lot more time, but at least, if you can practice transferring your weight on one arm, it would help you to feel the balance better for the OAHSPU.
Here, that video should help you. If you want, try to look at videos of people training very clean one arm handstands, it will help to understand the weight transfer. Even with the arm bent and the head pretty far from the hand, there still is a line above your hand, and your center of mass should be on that line.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytjIgIe5CVQ
One of the guys I find is the most interesting to watch is Yuval Ayalon. He's very clean, and shows his posture very well in his videos. He helped me understanding the OAHS a lot better.
http://www.youtube.com/user/jube73/videos
Hey check out my youtube channel! I got halfway up a few minutes ago. Let me know if this looks legit please. I was so excited, those heavy presses have paid off because I couldnt do that a few weeks ago. If I would have kipped a little I would have gotten it... but I reuse to kip! To me it seems like the concrete wall would give you more resistance on the way up and be easier on the way down, while the smoother wall would have the opposite effect. I try to keep my feet out of the equation as much as possible. I dont want any assistance besides balance, because I cant even hold a standard handstand for over a few seconds. lol The fact that you can do them with a pinky is impressive. Thanks for the videos. The control on those handstands are insane. I dont understand why they cant do these. I like working out without weights as well, especially if I am unable to get to a gym, but I wont neglect the gains I can make by lifting. Keep training!
ReplyDeleteOf course! Lifting weights has proven to be an incredibly effective method of gaining strength. It shows in you. I think you're really, really close to get it. Honest, I think you'll get it before me if you keep going like that. Build the strength with weights, and build the movement with negatives and attempts. Pretty direct approach.
ReplyDeleteThe reason those people in the videos can't do it is... they're not working on it. They're not as strong as you. I'm not as strong as you either.
As for the move being legit... It is very close to be. The side bend helps you breaking the ice, but I think that you will end up being able to do it without that side bend. Very, very impressive. Mind if I post your video on my blog?
Thanks! Ill look up that side bend and see where I'm going wrong. I thought me leaning was for balance but Ill work on it. Yes, you can post it if you like, I dont mind. Ill attempt again tomorrow but that will be it for about a week because my next workout is chest and Ill be in recovery lol
ReplyDeleteNo worries, take your time!
ReplyDeleteFor the side bend, you do have to lean on the side, but with your entire body in one block. If you bend at the waist when you're pushing so that your upper body lifts and your legs don't, you don't lift your entire body in one shot. Take a look at this video, it's an extreme example of the side bend (it IS really strong and skilled, but I know it's not what you're after):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnzob6hLI9o
Still about the side bend... I think it's okay if you use it for now. It's already hard enough as it is, I think that you should just get it like that first, and then improve the form after.
ReplyDelete