Heels Over Head

CrossFitters are always looking for ways to make the difficult more challenging.  One way to take push-ups up a notch is to do them while standing on your hands.  (Or, if that's too easy, you can do handstand push-ups on rings.)

It's been many years since I could hold a handstand outside of a pool, so I do these against a wall.  When I first started doing CrossFit, I'd get into a headstand position and push up from there to start.  I found that less scary.  Now, I just kick up straight into a handstand which is actually way less taxing.    

I don't have the strength to lower myself all the way down so that my head hits the floor and push back up to full extension.  Yet.  So, in the mean time, I place abmats beneath my head to shorten the distance.

Last Wednesday's workout called for a lot (45 total) of these bad boys, so I used two ab mats.  It's funny because I look at the picture and I can see that the difference between the down and the up is negligible.  But wow.  I managed five in a row on the first round, and it went downhill from there.  I squeezed out a few more singles, but after that I was back to regular push-ups to finish the workout.

I ran this morning, but might head over to CrossFit tonight where handstand pushups are once again on the agenda.  I'll keep you posted.

-Gym Belle-