Yaad’s Handstand Push Up Tutorial

Declined Pike Push Ups

In regards to strength training, you will use this exercise throughout most of your HSPU training. Sure, other exercises exist out there, but for simplicity sake and with the way this tutorial is setup, this one will get you very strong, very far without getting convoluted.  And the great thing about this exercise is that it allows you to do everything with similar form to a HSPU.

• Setup:
  • The height you use for your feet should be knee-high.
  • The angle between your legs and torso should be 90°. If you’re not flexible enough for that you could bend your knees, but you should also stretch your hamstrings. in the mean time.
  • Update: If you ARE flexible enough to bring your hands closer to your feet to make your torso and hips LESS THAN 90°, do NOT do it. It will promote bad form in the form of scapular retraction. So keep your hand/foot distance the same over all the stages.
• The movement:
  • As you lower, notice the nose comes ahead of the hands.
  • As you press up, the arms and torso become perpendicular to the ground.
  • The elbows stay tucked in… do NOT flare the elbows out! (HSPU does not occur with elbows flaring out!)
• Warning: Many bad demos of this exercise are on the internet:
  • Example of a bad demo (the head does not come ahead of the fingers and elbows flaring excessively doesn’t mimic the proper motor pattern if you were to do an actual HSPU)
  • Another bad demo for the same reasons.

Frog Stand (aka Crow Pose)

• If you can’t hold a frogstand yet, I have a tutorial on how to achieve this here.
• I call it the foundation of all hand-balancing.

Yaad Lean = Holding the Bottom of a Declined Pike Push Up

• This is just a static hold.
• Since it’s a mouthful to say “Bottom ROM of a Decline Pike Push Up,” Yaad just called this the “Yaad Lean.”
• At first it’s okay to have the angle between your torso and hips to be 120°, but eventually you want it to be 90°.
• You want to increase the lean more and more by placing your hands closer to the platform.

Piked Yaad Hold

Tucked Yaad Hold

Full Yaad Hold

HeSPU negative

Frogstand to Handstand

The following plan is split up into 7 stages. The above exercises are classified as either “strength work” or “skill work.”

• Strength Work is done up to 3x/week.
  • In almost every stage, “decline pike push ups” are the main strength work element.
• Skill Work is done up to 5x/week (and twice daily).  These exercises are designed to teach your body how to hold certain positions. Skill work doesn’t tire you out much. It’s mostly just positional training and it’s usually only 10seconds long! (Well, 2x10sec, to be exact.)

Stage 1

This will be the stage you’ll be on for a long time until you achieve the 2sec piked/tucked yaad hold.

• Strength Work 3x/week includes:
  1. Frog Stand (Done immediately prior to the decline pike pu’s)
     • Just do a few attempts.
  2. Declined Pike Push Ups
     • Slowly increase volume…
     • First week: 2 sets / workout
     • Second week: 3 sets / workout
     • Third week and beyond: 4 sets / workout
     • Long term goal, not limited to this stage, is 4 x 10reps
• Skill Work:
  1. Yaad Lean
     • Perform a 10sec hold, twice daily, 3-5x/week
     • Hip angle of 120° is fine to start with until you could do 90°.
     • Goal is to eventually float in a Piked Yaad Hold.

You are ready for stage 2 when you can do:

• 30sec Frogstand
• 2sec Tucked Yaad hold
  • ProTip: Bring your nose REALLY CLOSE to the ground to make it easier to lift the knees!
  • GOOD Video example. (nose goes close to the ground)
  • BAD Video example (head doesn’t go lower, making this way harder.)
  • When you could feel floaty in a piked yaad hold, you should have enough strength for the tucked version.
• Notice that you don’t have to reach any particular # of decline pike push ups to proceed.

Supplemental help: This was not mentioned in Yaads tutorial but I tried doing tucked yaad holds with a band a few times. It really, really helped me with a breakthrough.

Stage 2:

• Strength Work: 3x/week, 4 sets
  • Declined pike push-ups
• Skill Work: 5x/week, 10sec hold, twice daily
  • Tucked Yaad hold

You are ready for stage 3 when you can do:

• 10sec Tucked Yaad hold
• 2sec Full Yaad hold

Stage 3

• Strength Work: 3x/week, 4 sets 
  • Declined pike push-ups
• Skill Work: 5x/week, 10sec hold, twice daily
  • Full Yaad hold

Ready for stage 4 when you can do:

• 10sec Full Yaad hold

Stage 4:

• Strength Work: 3x/week, 4 sets
  • Declined pike push-ups
• Skill Work: 5x/week, 10sec hold, twice daily
  • Full Yaad hold
  • HeSPU negatives

Ready for stage 5 when you can do:

• Stable HeSPU negatives

Stage 5:

• Strength Work: 3x/week, 4 sets
  • Frogstand to HS (Done immediately prior to the decline pike pu’s)
    • Just do a few attempts.
  • Declined pike push-ups
• Skill Work: 5x/week, 10sec, twice daily
  • Full Yaad hold
  • HeSPU negatives

Ready for stage 6 when you can do:

• Stable Frogstand to HS (that’s like the second half of a HSPU!)

Stage 6:

• Strength Work: 3x/week, 4 sets
  • Full Yaad Hold to HS (Done immediately prior to the decline pike pu’s)
  • Declined pike push-ups
• Skill Work: 5x/week, 10sec hold, twice daily
  • Full Yaad hold
  • HeSPU negatives

Ready for stage 7 when you can do:

• Stable Full Yaad hold to HS (this is a full HeSPU!)

Stage 7:

• Freestanding handstand push-up (You made it bro!)

Since all of this can STILL be confusing (I know it was for me), so I’ve created weekly schedules to help make it SUPER EASY to follow! Now you have even less excuses to follow this! You don’t have to adhere strictly to the AM/PM stuff, but again, it’s there to help give you a sample of what your schedule may look like. This is also perfect cause Yaad says the skill work should never be done more than 3 days in a row, but never skip more than 1 day in between. 😀

Click on any of the images to see it in full size. Then, save the image to your phone or print it in landscape.

Stage 1

Stage 2

Stage 3

Stage 4

Stage 5

Stage 6