I've been doing the Prismatic Strength HSPU mini course as I wait for my right wrist to heal and feel good enough to clean+press a 20kg kettlebell. As mentioned elsewhere, the mini course is built on the GMB Method, which organizes activities into Prepare, Practice, Play, Push, and Ponder sessions. The Practice, Play, and Push sessions each has a progression of skills from easiest to most difficult. The Bent Arm Press Handstand is part of the Play progression. Thus, I too have Bent Arm Press Handstand as one of my goals. It's interesting to see someone else's journey to this same goal.
Geek Climber expressed frustration with seeming lack of progress in his pike push up training. What seems to be missing in his training footage is change in his body positioning at the start of each pike push up rep. Over time, the arms should be leaning forward more and more, and the toes should be getting closer to the hands. Following these 2 cues ensures more and more weight is shifted from the lower body to the shoulders over time. The legs don't have to be perfectly straight for the toes to be pulled closer to the hands. If he had followed the 2 cues, he would have progressed in his pike push ups to the point his feet started to float at the bottom of the movement. In the HSPU mini course, the floating feet is the checkpoint to let you know that you're ready to progress to a more difficult exercise - the bent-arm stand in the Play sessions and the feet-elevated pike push up in the Push session. However, even if he knew about the 2 cues, he stopped himself from following them by trying too hard to protract his scapula at the bottom of the pike push up. I suspect he was doing that because some Youtube calisthenics influencers insist on scapular protraction as an essential cue for the pike push up. I get it - I myself held the same belief because I was, well, influenced by one of those Youtbe influencers. I was trying to maintain scapular protraction when I injured myself on a pike push up attempt a few years ago. I think the injury wasn't cause by protraction per se, but really caused by progressing too fast towards pike push up with feet elevated about 2 feet higher than my hands, but I suspect the protraction didn't help. Anyway, by trying too hard to protract his scapula, Geek Climber rounded his upper back, which kept his head too close to his hands to allow his feet to float.
The mini course Play progression starts with pike push up with hands and feet on the floor. Floating feet is the checkpoint for progressing to the next exercise in the Play progression, which is the bent-arm stand. The next exercise after the bent-arm stand is the bent-arm press to handstand.
Geek Climber's training footage didn't show any practice of static bent arm stand training, which is holding your current variation of the bent-arm stand for a given amount of time. I can't tell if he didn't practice static bent arm stand because he didn't know about it; or if he avoided it because he didn't it would be worth his time. Geek Climber appears to have skipped static bent arm training, progressing straight from pike push ups to attempting bent arm press to handstand. Thus it's no surprise he fell a lo while attempting bent-arm press handstand. He mentioned suffering injuries from all those falls, though he didn't offer specifics. He also mentioned not feeling strong enough to push out of the bottom of a pike push up into bent arm stand - that seems harder to me than simply working on leaning forward more and bringing the feet forward more in the pike push up, until you reach the balance point for a bent arm stand. By not developing a strong and stable bent-arm stand, he was trying to fire a cannon out of a canoe.
Geek Climber then decided to practice barbell overhead press, instead of pike push up, to improve his overhead pressing. He noted some differences between barbell overhead press and pike push up. I'm guessing he thought the scapula should be protracted for pike push up because he watched a pike push up video by Daniel Vadnal/FitnessFAQs who thinks that scapula protraction is required for good pike push up form. However there are other trainers like Sondre Berg, who is mentioned in the video, who do not seem to put any emphasis on scapular protraction for pike push up. In fact, Sondre advises Dr. Yaad in this video to try HSPU (similar mechanics to pike push up) with a more open chest - which is impossible with protracted scapula - as one of his recommended fixes for the doctor's perceived HSPU issues. Eduardo Orihuela does not mention it either in his free HSPU mini course. I've progressed to parallette pike pushups with floating feet, without having to protract my scapula. My shoulders have felt fine so far without scapular protraction as well.
I get though where Geek Climber is coming from in his decision to switch from pike push up to barbell overhead press. Progression in the pike push up is a challenge to manage compared to overhead pressing with barbell or kettlebell, because you have to constantly monitor how much of your bodyweight is shifted to your hand and shoulders, compared to your feet. Even Eduardo Orihuea admits that there is a huge jump in difficulty in the progression from feet-elevated pike push up to wall HSPU. Progression in barbell overhead press is relatively simpler, as it's a matter of gradually increasing weight over time.
My own preference for overhead pressing is the kettlebell clean+press because the hand is free to rotate - which makes the overall movement easier on the joints - and the clean provides a power training opportunity. Progression with kettlebell pressing is a little less straightforward than barbell pressing, but I don't feel like making room for a barbell set in my home, nor do I feel like getting a gym membership to access barbells. Progression in KB pressing was worse years ago when KB weight choices were limited to 16kg, 24kg, and 32kg. 8kg (roughly 16.6 lbs) increments are difficult for trainees used to being able to add only 5 lbs at a time. These days, 20kg and 28kg KBs are available. 4kg (about 8.8 lb) increments is quite an improvement for KB trainees working their way up the weights. Anyway, the majority of KBs are fixed weight, so to progression in overhead pressing using KBs involves increasing training volume over time with your working KB weight. If after the training block, your pressing performance with a heavier KB is not where it needs to be, you may need to repeat the training block. The progression scheme in The Giant has worked well for me, so honestly I'd rather be doing The Giant right now instead of the HSPU mini course. However as mentioned earlier, I'm doing the HSPU mini course because of my wrist injury preventing me from pressing a 20kg KB pain-free. The mini course Push sessions are when I practice pike push ups for volume. Parallettes are used for Push because they elevate the hands and allow a neutral wrist position. Thus one set of 6-8 reps is easier to execute with hands on parallettes, rather than on the floor.
Another nitpick I have with Geek Climber's video is that he already achieved the bar muscle up before beginning his bent arm press handstand journey so he was not really starting his journey with zero pushing strength at all. So really his 703-day journey to a bent arm press handstand was not from a state of being untrained, but from a state of better than average fitness, having the pushing strength to do a muscle up.
At the end of his video, Geek Climber shared a recap of his journey:
- Pike Push Up w/ feet to wall, until feet can be elevated into bent-arm stand
- Tripod tuck headstand to handstand
- Tripod headstand to handstand half rep
- Bent arm press handstand off the wall
To me the bent arm press handstand is just an intermediate goal to achieve on the way to a handstand push up. I don't know how long it will take me to achieve a freestanding HSPU. I'm guessing it will take me more than 703 days from now. My current clean+press weight is single 20kg. After I resume KB training, I don't intend to return to the HSPU mini course, until I complete some version of The Giant with double 32kg kettlebells. It will probably take me more than 703 days to progress from single 20kg clean+press with a 5 rep max to double 32kg clean+press with 10 rep max. After that, I resume the HSPU mini course. When I do so, it will be interesting to see how quickly I work up the the progressions for the Practice, Play, and Push sessions.
