Impress with Presses

Wade Petersen:

Also worth checking out:

Jason Mortimer's straddle press handstand progressions
Valentin Uzunov's Teaching the Press Handstand
Jay Thornton's straddle press to handstand

Via GymnasticsCoaching.com:

Yuri Marmerstein:

What we are looking for is that the arms are vertical. This means that the shoulder should be directly over the hand. …
Can you stack your hips directly above the hands without learning forward? Probably not unless you have amazing flexibility and the right proportions of length of arms, legs, and torso. This means that we must be in a mechanically inefficient position for some time.
Shoulder lean can be minimized by maintaining a strong base and demonstrating maximum compression in the body. …
“Order of Operations” in Press Handstand

When I was working at Redlands YMCA part-time, out of high school, I had a kinder-gym class with one 6 year old who could flawlessly do a straddle press handstand with zero shoulder lean.  Just naturally strong and flexible enough to get compact and circle her legs around the side and up to a handstand.  I've never had anyone as good at it, since.


Quality might not be totally there...but on quantity:

And to top that, 115 consecutive press handstands in under 10 minutes:

The feat is impressive, but totally unnecessary beyond a certain point, as time can be better spent improving on other attributes for the sport.

The only other person I know who might be able to give her a challenge is Makoto Sakamoto. 

I remember once in the Yates gym at UCLA while he was visiting with his BYU gymnasts (sometime in the early 90s, maybe), he did something ridiculous like 40 pike press handstands on the parallel bars followed by 40 handstand push-ups.  Just insane.  I asked him what his secret was and he basically told me that he maxes out every day.  It goes counter to the conventional wisdom of needing about 48 hours of rest in between sessions to give muscle fibers time to repair and grow stronger against future stress and damage.

The most recent feat I can find on the 'net, from almost a year ago, a bio at Hawaii Academy:

On his 53rd birthday, Mako performed 163 handstand pushups (in 30 minutes), touching his shoulders on each count, and without coming down from a handstand… a record no one has touched.

You can find out more about Andreea Iridon at The Couch Gymnast

Great read on Makoto Sakamoto here.