Exercise Description
What is the Handstand Push Up?
The Handstand Push Up is a Calisthenics Exercise that consists of performing push ups while maintaining the handstand position. The main difficulty of this exercise with respect to the normal push ups is that the arms need to hold nearly the entire body weight (except the arms), while in regular push ups this number lowers to 60%-70% of the total body mass. In addition to that extra weight, we need to add the fact that the athlete needs to control the handstand position along the exercise, which makes it even harder and tougher.
This handstand (and therefore the handstand push ups) is one of the most important elements in Calisthenics. There are many closely related exercises such as Pike Push Ups or Against the Wall HSPU that will help learning the Handstand Push Ups.
Main Muscles Involved
The main muscles involved in the Handstand Push Ups are:
– Main Muscles: deltois (mainly anterior and lateral), the pectoral (major and minor), triceps and back muscles such as back extensor, trapezius and latissimus dorsi.
– Other Muscles Involved: core muscles for stabilization.
