Handstand Press Lift Holds
Handstand press lift holds are a straight arm press drill for toe off, the moment your feet leave the floor, mainly working the abs and front deltoids. From a standing pike with palms flat and arms locked, you lift the hips until both feet float, then hold the toes toward your arms for a couple of seconds. Pausing there builds strength at the hardest point of the press, and unlike the toe touch drill or press walks, both feet rise together and stay up.
Handstand press lift holds are a straight arm press drill for toe off, the moment your feet leave the floor, mainly working the abs and front deltoids. From a standing pike with palms flat and arms locked, you lift the hips until both feet float, then hold the toes toward your arms for a couple of seconds. Pausing there builds strength at the hardest point of the press, and unlike the toe touch drill or press walks, both feet rise together and stay up.
How to Do Handstand Press Lift Holds
1. Stand In A Pike With Your Hands Down
Stand with your legs straight and your feet side by side, fold forward and place your palms flat on the floor in front of your feet, about shoulder width apart. Keep the knees straight from here on.
Palms flat, legs straight.
2. Choose Your Distance
How far your feet stand from your hands decides where the work comes from. If you know your shoulders are really strong, you can keep a bit more distance and rely on leaning forward with the shoulders. If you know your core is the stronger part, stand closer and rely more on your core when you lift.
Strong shoulders, further. Strong core, closer.
3. Lock The Arms And Push Tall
Lock your arms completely straight, because this is a straight arm handstand press. Push the shoulders up, push yourself off the ground and make yourself as tall as possible toward the ceiling before anything else moves.
Locked arms, push the floor away.
4. Suck In And Lift The Hips
Apply a very strong suck-in, drawing your belly button toward your spine to activate the transverse abs. Then lift the hips as high as possible by leaning forward with your shoulders, through the suck-in, or both. Your heels rise as your weight moves into your hands.
Belly button to spine, hips up.
5. Lift Off, Toes To Your Arms
Keep leaning and compressing until both feet float off the floor together. With the legs still straight, bring your toes in toward your arms so they end up just behind your wrists.
Both feet up, toes to the arms.
6. Hold, Then Come Down
Hold that position for a couple of seconds, then set your feet back down on the floor. That is one rep. Reset the push and the suck-in before you lift again.
Hold a couple of seconds, then down.
Treat this as a hip lift, not a leg lift: push tall, suck in and let the hips climb until the feet float off on their own. A hop means the hips are not high enough yet. Train these early in the session while you are fresh, since fatigue ruins coordination, and end the set once the hold becomes a jump or the arms start to bend.
Muscles Worked During Handstand Press Lift Holds
Primary Muscles:
Secondary Muscles:
Primary Muscles
Rectus Abdominis (Abs) - The transverse abs do the suck-in, drawing the belly button toward the spine, while the rest of the abs fold the trunk so the hips climb over the hands.
Anterior Deltoid (Front Deltoid) - The front deltoids hold the arms at a high overhead angle as you lean past your hands, working harder the more distance you keep between hands and feet.
Secondary Muscles
Iliopsoas (Hip Flexors) - Once the feet leave the floor, the hip flexors keep the hips folded and draw the straight legs in toward your arms, then hold them there for the pause.
Serratus Anterior (Serratus Anterior) - The serratus anterior helps you push yourself tall off the floor and keeps the shoulder blades wrapped around the ribcage as your weight moves over your hands.
Trapezius (Trapezius) - The trapezius lifts the shoulders toward the ears so you can make yourself as tall as possible, the shoulder position you set before every lift.
Triceps Brachii (Triceps) - The triceps keep the arms locked straight for the whole rep, because this is a straight arm press and bent arms turn it into a different exercise.
Forearm Flexors & Extensors (Forearms) - The forearm and wrist muscles take your weight through flat palms in a bent wrist position and make the small corrections through the fingers that keep you from tipping.
Benefits of Handstand Press Lift Holds
- Builds strength in the exact position where the feet leave the floor, the hardest part of the press.
- Teaches you to get the feet up by lifting the hips instead of kicking or jumping, which is how a real press works.
- Trains straight arm shoulder strength at the high overhead angle the press lives in, a range ordinary pushing work rarely loads.
- Builds the deep core compression that lets you lift the hips higher and lean less with your shoulders.
- Lets you find your own mix of lean and compression by moving your feet closer to or further from your hands.
- Needs nothing but the floor, so you can practise it at the start of any session.
Who Is This Exercise For?
You need hamstrings flexible enough for a straight leg pike with palms flat, wrists comfortable carrying a large share of your bodyweight in a bent position, and shoulders that can lean past your hands on straight arms. Good benchmarks for the full press, helpful but not required, are a 10 second handstand, a 5 second tuck planche, 3 chest to wall handstand push ups and forearms to the floor in pike and pancake.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
Jumping the feet off the floor: A hop skips the hip lift, so let the feet float from the lean and the suck-in alone. If they will not, your hips are not high enough yet: stand a little closer or lean a little further and try again slowly.
Letting the arms bend: Keep the arms locked for the whole rep, since bending usually makes up for missing strength or flexibility. Stand closer to reduce the lean, compress harder, and build shoulder strength in the overhead lean with a drill like the Wall Handstand Press Lean.
Sinking into the shoulders: Sinking between your arms loses height before the lift even starts. Push the shoulders up, push yourself off the ground and stay as tall as possible toward the ceiling from the setup until your feet come back down.
Leaning with a loose belly: Without the suck-in, the only way to get the hips high is to lean further, which asks much more of your shoulders. Draw the belly button toward the spine before you lean and keep it there through the hold.
Skipping the hold: Popping the feet up and straight back down turns this into a different drill, so hold for a couple of seconds. If you cannot hold at all yet, work on getting the hips higher first.
