There have been a lot of 22 push-up challenges going around on social media lately and my wonderful wife made a solid point when she said not everyone knows how to do push-ups. So I’ve decided to do a breakdown of what a push-up should generally look like and put together a “how-to” for those who would like to get to a point where they can finally do a solid pushup.
First off, push-ups are difficult and being able to do one isn’t a given. It takes practice and time to do them well. If you have ever done a plank for any amount of time, you know how hard it is to stay in that position. Well, a push-up is a sustained plank while lowering yourself to the ground and coming back up. It takes a good deal of muscular strength and coordination to perform one correctly.
CORE STABILITY
One should be able to keep a solid high plank position without mountain butt or camel back. To do this, your glutes , abdominals, and multifidi muscles along your spine need to wake up. When I write “abdominals”, I’m not just referring to the “6-pack” vanity muscle group. I’m talking about the Transverse Abdominus, Rectus Abdominus (6-pack), and Obliques. I’ve put pictures down below to help you visualize these muscles.
1) Squeezing your butt helps put and keep your hip position in the right place. That means no Anterior Pelvic Tilt or Posterior Pelvic Tilt {click here}, but somewhere in the middle of both extremes.
2) Firing your abdominals also helps keep that position balanced. Try getting in the high plank position with your arms locked out without firing up your abs. What happens? Camel back happens and no one wants to be a camel so fire those puppies up.
- To activate your transverse abdominus, you may want to try lying on your back with yours knees bent as if you were about to do a sit-up. Find your hip bones and go in towards your belly button about two inches and press down slightly with your fingers. Now imagine there is a string attached to both your hip bones and use your muscles to make that string tight. You should feel pressure underneath your fingers. If that metaphor doesn’t work for you. Try thinking about bringing your belly button closer to your spine, not just by sucking in air but by using your stomach muscles to force your belly button closer. You can even google “how to activate the transverse abdominus” for other examples if you need to.
- Activating your rectus abdominus is the easy one so pretend you’re in front of that mirror looking pretty.
- You may not hear a lot about contracting your obliques but if you think of your torso as a cylinder that your are trying to tighten all the way around, take a deep breath while trying to keep your entire torso tight and rigid as if you were forcing air into a cylinder. You should be able to feel the contractions all around your trunk.
3) Contracting the multifidi adds to that stability by keeping your spine in the neutral position during any movement.
- The multifidi muscles are more difficult to isolate because they are part of your “deep core muscles that no one really cares about on the beach. They are so rarely talked about unless you possibly work in a physical therapy clinic. Most often, those who have low back pain have multifidi muscles that have “gone to sleep”. They don’t fire like they should and the bigger, superficial muscles try to take over the role the smaller multifidi muscles were made to fill. As you can see, the multifidi attach to every vertebrae. They are meant to provide the first line of stability when performing a movement and if they aren’t turned on, you can still get stability from the surrounding muscles, but they could never replace the stability the multifidi muscles can provide. They are part of an interconnected musculoskeletal system that must work harmoniously if the body is to move well and injury free for a lifetime.
- To contract the multifidi muscles, I like to lie on my back with knees up starting out. You, or a friend, can then reach around to touch an inch or two to the side of your spine. Without actually moving your hips or back, try to make a contraction to the side of your spine. This can be done by pretending you are stopping the flow of your pee when you go to the bathroom or visualizing that you are about to get up from the floor or table. Your multifidi activate some milliseconds before a movement actually occurs in order to provide your body the stability it will need when you say reach for a book on a shelf. Visualizing movement may help you get the contraction you are looking for.
I will post an article later describing ways to strengthen these muscles, but I need to move on to the other aspects of the pushup. I felt I would’ve been remiss had I not touched on core stability.
ARM POSITION
Once you know how to keep a rigid torso, you can start working on the arm position for the push-up. Arm position is important because once you are strong enough to crank out a lot of pushups, if your form is poor, you could be setting yourself up for a shoulder problem later on down the road. Learn the proper movement before progressing to more difficult versions of the pushup.
Arm position should be roughly 45 degrees from your sides. If your arms are at a 90 degree angle with you body, it will work your pressing muscles in your chest, but you will most likely cause friction on the connective tissue in your shoulder. Over time, this will cause irritation and pain. Having your arm position right by your sides will work your triceps (back of the arm) a lot more than necessary if your goal is to perform one pushup on the floor. Although it is a good exercise, the arms close position isn’t necessary.
Many people forget the importance of your shoulder blades in the any pressing movement. Much to my shame, I even used to think what I’m about to tell you was dumb… Shoulder position needs to be locked down. My favorite cue for the placement of shoulder blades is “put your shoulders in your back pocket”. To do this, you would need to squeeze your shoulders back and keep them tight as you slide them into your “pocket”. Keeping your shoulder blades pinched back gives you a solid foundation from which to do your pushup.
Think of shoulder blades properly placed in your “back pocket” as the concrete foundation from which you could try to push a car. Concrete is much easier to push against a car than sand. Loose shoulders are sand. Tight shoulders are concrete. Be concrete.
The final point on arm position deals with your forearms. In order to most effectively distribute a load in the pushup, the force needs to be straight up and down. This means your forearms in the pushup, and any other pressing motion, should be vertical. If there is an angle on you forearm during the pushup, you are creating another force for your body to adjust for and also creating more stress on the joints than is necessary.
NECK POSITION
The neck position should be neutral. No looking at your toes and no arching your neck. You shouldn’t arch your neck when pushing an object across the floor or pushing something like a car and you shouldn’t arch it while doing a pushup. If you do, it will affect how you perform any pressing movement. Your body remembers patterns. Just like how it is relatively easy for a retired basketball player pick up a ball to dribble through their legs and shoot a 3 pointer after years of not playing, your body holds onto the patterns you repeatedly put it through whether they are good or bad. Also, arching your neck will make your body do a bit of a wave when the reps get difficult and your strength starts to fail. Keep good form! It’s more important than your ego.
REGARDING KNEE PUSHUPS
Knee pushups take out the extra height you would have if you were doing a pushup from your toes. This may be about a 6 inch lift when doing a regular pushup. If you are on your knees, you have no lift and things like thighs, stomach, and chest will hit the floor before you get a reasonable amount of depth. It’s also a lot easier for you to cheat and do the “worm” in an effort to get back in the up position. If you want to do knee pushups, elevate your knees with a block or 2-3 pillows for comfort. Since you are propping yourself up on your knees as opposed to your toes, there will be less of a core strength/stability requirement due to a smaller moment arm, but you can still get a good pushing range.
PROGRESSION
For beginners, start out either on a wall or at a level on a squat rack with adjustable pipe safeties. Starting out at a reasonable height that allows you to keep a plank position while performing the pushup, perform 3 sets of 15 reps. I like this range as it builds up good movement patterns for your body to remember while getting some muscular endurance. If the form is good throughout the reps, you can move down to a lower height for the next workout. This could mean moving from the wall, to a counter, to a chair, to a stair, to the floor. Stairs work well because you can easily see how you can make it more difficult by going down each stair as you get stronger and get closer to the floor. If a squat rack isn’t available, I prefer using the stairs because when you try to do a pushup on a wall, your range is limited because your head will hit the wall if you push your feet out far enough.
You can do 3 sets of 15 pushups 3-4 times a week until you eventually make it to the ground for your OFFICIAL PUSHUP! As with anything, consistency is key. Some will catch on fast, some will be slower to make progress, and keeping good form is an ongoing challenge for everyone when you try to make an exercise more difficult. The best program is the one you stick to. Grab a friend and keep each other accountable. Seeing your body do something it couldn’t do a week ago is a feeling hard to match.
If this article has helped shine some light for you, let me know! If you have a question, let me know! I hope you’ve gotten a few good things to think about in your pursuit of doing a pushup.
If you would like to take your fitness to a more serious level and commit to becoming a healthier and stronger you, shoot me a message about what you are looking for at wbryce.berry@gmail.com.
Take Luck,
Bryce Berry, CSCS
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