The push-up, long a favorite among junior high school P.E. teachers and Marine Corps drill instructors, is for many more closely associated with punishment than anything else. Though common to group exercise programs, its use in serious strength and conditioning regimens is infrequent. These days, the push-up, like the jumping jack, tends to be relegated to outdoor programs where the number of exercisers and lack of equipment make it a staple due to necessity.

In an earlier time the push-up was largely regarded as a measure of a man’s strength and fitness. In more modern times much of this reputation has been passed on to the bench press, but the push-up’s passing misses the great opportunity to master a gateway movement to one of the most developmental progressions in all of fitness.

The push-up is more a family of movements than a single exercise. In fact, it is a progression that starts from the horizontal, which is the classic “P.E. push-up” and then, through gradually, incrementally, elevating the feet from the floor to a point where the athlete is eventually in a handstand, becomes the handstand push-up.

The handstand push-up, at the far end of the progression, is a challenging exercise that, when freed from the wall, becomes an extraordinary feat of strength and balance that has no peer in weightlifting movements. At the moment of performing 20 handstand push-ups without benefit of the wall, the athlete has achieved a level of strength and balance that not one in 100,000 gym goers will ever realize. The integration of strength and balance gives the handstand push-up, even though limited to bodyweight, an athletic edge that brings this movement to at least peer status with even the heaviest of presses—whether bench, overhead or jerk. Twenty handstand push-ups in the middle of the room or on parallel bars, again without the wall, confers, automatically, a single-rep military press of perhaps 150 percent bodyweight, whereas a 150 percent bodyweight single-rep military press suggests little or nothing about an athlete’s balance.

The possibilities and potentials don’t end at 20, 30 or even 50 handstand push-ups. Consider for just a moment the hand, finger and grip strength developed through performing these handstand push-ups on fingertips—at first all five fingers, then four and eventually three. Then there are the presses to the handstand that will come smoothly, easily and confidently as a bonus to the handstand push-up, but we’re getting years ahead of ourselves here.

Mastery of the basic, entry-level “P.E. push-up” is a prerequisite to the handstand push-up. Very few people have achieved mastery of the push-up, though many of you think you have. The test is simple: can you do 100 perfect push-ups? The standard for perfection, though simple, disqualifies nearly everyone. A perfect push-up is slow and deep with a body absolutely perfectly straight and taut. We’ve listed the most common push-up faults below. Not one in 50 guys with a 300-pound bench press can do 50 honest push-ups!