Retool your gymnastics skills with elite gymnast Carl Paoli, founder of Naka Athletics, coach at San Francisco CrossFit and creator of GymnasticsWOD.com. Through his Freestyle Connections Seminar, Paoli introduces athletes to advanced gymnastics skills using simple progressions and coaching points. Today’s movement is the kipping handstand push-up.
Paoli says he adds skill to the handstand push-up by kipping the movement. He starts with the tripod he discusses in Handstand Push-Up Progression With Carl Paoli: Part 1 and shows how to kick out of it into a push-up position. He also demonstrates how to spot and assist the movement.
The next step is kicking up from the tripod position to the wall. He cues the athletes to get tight.
“When there’s a big jolt and we see the butt move a lot, most likely it’s because it wasn’t under a lot of tension, OK? So as we hit the wall, squeeze your butt like you never squeezed it before,” he says. “It’s going to translate into so much more work capacity down the line.”
To correct those who delay their shoulder lockout, Paoli adds a drill to activate the shoulders by teetering in the tripod position. Shoulders and hands drive the kipping handstand push-up.
“Definitely, you don’t want to push off of the head. You want to make sure you push off of the hands,” he says.
7min 1sec
Video by Again Faster.
Additional reading: The Freestanding Handstand Push-Up by Roger Harrell, published June 1, 2006.