The push-up is one of the most fundamental bodyweight exercises, accessible to anyone, anywhere. Its usefulness as a test of upper body strength and core stability make it a mainstay for physical fitness assessments. Unfortunately, lifters sometimes regard the exercise as being “too basic” and not challenging enough.

Here’s a refresher on why the classic push-up should be part of your training plan, whether you’re new to fitness or a lifelong lifter.

• How to Do the Push-Up
• Push-Up Mistakes to Avoid
• Benefits of the Push-Up
• Muscles Worked by the Push-Up
• Who Should Do the Push-Up
• How to Program the Push-Up
• Push-Up Variations
• Push-Up Alternatives
• Frequently Asked Questions

How to Do the Push-Up

The goal of a push-up is to lower yourself down towards the floor, graze the ground, and then push back up. Keep in mind the phrase “light as a feather, stiff as a board,” from the levitating game from classic kids’ sleepovers or classic ’90s teenage witch movies.

For an efficient push-up, your whole body has to work together. It’s not just “a chest exercise.” All of the muscles — from your head to your toes — are going to work to keep your body in a powerful and stable position. When all of your muscles are working together, you’ll be at your strongest and the movement will be at its most efficient.

Step 1 — Begin in a Tall Plank Position

Get on the ground and support your body with your hands and the balls of your feet. Keep your arms and legs straight. Set your hands directly under your shoulders, just about shoulder-width apart. You may need to be a little wider depending on your frame and arm length.

Squeeze your glutes and tuck your hips toward your belly button. This will help keep your core from sagging. Keep your ribs and hips in alignment. It’s okay if your back ends up slightly rounded, because that’s more stable than having a sagging core.

Form Tip: For increased upper back stability and a stronger shoulder position, pull your shoulders toward your feet, away from your ears. For so many exercises, it’s important to lock your shoulders into place. Drilling this habit with the push-up is one effective way to learn a strong pressing posture.

Step 2 — Pull Yourself to the Ground

Don’t just drop into the bottom position. Think about pulling yourself down toward the ground. You want to be in total control of your movement. Squeeze your shoulder blades together as you lower yourself toward the floor. Maintain a “stiff as a board” plank position from your torso through your legs.

As your body descends, aim your elbows at roughly 45-degrees between your feet and shoulders. Feel muscular tension increasing in your chest, shoulders, and triceps as you approach the bottom position. Lower yourself as far as your mobility allows, with the goal of touching the floor.

Form Tip: Don’t allow your elbows to flare out as you lower yourself because it can increase stress on your shoulder joints. You may need to adjust your hand position to allow proper elbow tracking. If your fingers are pointed towards each other, your elbows will be more likely to flair. Position your hands with your fingers pointed straight ahead or slightly outward.

Step 3 — Press to Return to the Top Position

Once you graze the ground with your chest, or reach your lowest possible depth, push through your hands and feet to bring your body away from the ground. Keep your legs straight, but use the muscular tension stored head-to-toe to make your body “light as a feather.”

Apply steady force until your arms are fully locked and you’ve returned to the starting position. Pause briefly in the tall plank position and re-engage your core before beginning the next repetition.

Form Tip: You can change the tempo (rep speed) to adjust the difficulty of the exercise. Moving at a slower pace will increase the total time under tension and increase muscle recruitment, which can increase the muscle-building stimulus. (1)(2)

Push-Up Mistakes to Avoid

There are many different mistakes that can happen in a push-up because the movement involves coordinating your entire body from head to toe. However, the most common mistakes usually occur at your arms and in your core. Here’s what to watch out for.

Elbows Flaring Out

One frequent mistake is allowing your elbows to flare out during the exercise. For better results with less joint stress, be sure to keep your elbows at about 45-degrees. Don’t allow them to point sideways toward the walls.

Your elbow position can vary slightly depending on your individual arm length and leverages, but letting your elbows spread out toward your shoulders shifts more strain to your shoulder and elbow joints.

Avoid It: When you set up to begin the exercise, lock your shoulders into place by “un-shrugging” and pulling them away from your ears. When your elbows flare, it can drive your shoulders up toward your ears. By securing strong shoulders, your shoulders help to keep your elbows in position. Also be aware of maintaining this strong shoulder position as you begin pushing from the bottom of the movement.

Sagging Core

Another major mistake is your core sagging down toward the floor. Instead of falling out of core alignment, keep your rib cage and hips stacked evenly. This is the same fully engaged position you need during many standing exercises, like the overhead press.

When your core sags down and breaks the stable plank position, it’s an indicator that you’re not holding tension in your core. With this unstable position, the rest of the movement will be out of alignment. It also puts unwanted pressure on your spine, which can potentially lead to injury.

Avoid it: Many people have been told too many times that their butts are “too high in the air” while doing planks, so they try to compensate and the opposite occurs — they end up sagging to the ground.

It would be more effective to have your butt “too high” while you are gaining strength with the movement, rather than have your core sag down and compromise spinal stability. Tuck your pelvis and rib cage toward your belly button, as if doing a basic crunch. Hold this strong core position as you focus on lowering your body as one unit. 

Benefits of the Push-Up

Push-ups have several benefits including general muscular strength, muscular endurance, core stability, and longevity. Here’s a closer look at why you should work on this simple and effective bodyweight movement. 

Upper Body Strength

Push-ups are one of the most complete upper body, bodyweight exercises you can do. Without needing any training equipment whatsoever, you can challenge your chest, shoulder, and triceps muscles, as well as your core and hips.

Your legs, and even your back muscles, are also recruited as stabilizers to control your body’s movement during the exercise.

Versatility

Push-ups can build muscular size, endurance, or general strength. Each goal may involve different volumes (sets and reps) or intensity techniques, but the push-up is a quick and effective option to train for nearly any goal without any training equipment.

Relative Strength

The push-up is an efficient way to build, maintain, or monitor relative strength — being “strong for your size” or having a high degree of functional strength. Because it requires you to lift your bodyweight, the push-up can help to ensure or monitor relative strength gains as you build muscle. This may also be one reason why push-up capacity has been associated with general cardiovascular health. (3)

Muscles Worked by the Push-Up

Push-ups are most commonly known for working the pectoralis muscles (your chest), but push-ups work several other muscles throughout the body.

Pectoralis Major and Pec Minor

The pec major is the primary “chest muscle” and it is responsible for pulling the arms toward the body’s centerline. The is composed of two separate heads — the sternocostal and the clavicular — which work together during most movements.

The pectoralis minor is a supportive, stabilizing muscle located beneath the pec major. It plays a role in joint stability and is heavily recruited as the shoulder blades move during the exercise. The pec muscles are stretched as you descend toward the ground and they strongly contract as you push up from the floor.

Serratus

The serratus are found alongside your ribs, sometimes considered “armpit muscles” because they run near your underarm. This stabilizer muscle aids in keeping your shoulders and scapula in a strong, locked-in position as your arms press and extend during push-ups. They are significantly recruited as your approach lockout at the top of each repetition.

Triceps Brachii

Your triceps are made of three separate heads — the lateral, the long, and the medial. Because the triceps are responsible for straightening your arms at the elbow joint, they are recruited during all pressing exercises, including the push-up.

The triceps are more significantly activated if you perform a relatively close-grip push-up, as opposed to using a shoulder-width or greater hand position, which recruits more pec muscle. (4)

Anterior Deltoid

These muscles are found on the front of your shoulders. The anterior deltoids help to control arm movement in front of your body. During push-ups, the muscles lengthen as they aid in controlling your descent. They contract when you apply force to the top of the movement. 

Abdominals

Your abdominals, running along the front of your torso, act as a brace and provide upper body strength and support in conjunction with your hips and lower back. The abs are recruited to maintain a stable and efficient total-body pressing position. They are not put through any significant range of motion during push-ups. They work statically, holding one position from start to finish.

Who Should Do the Push-Up

Push-ups are for everyone — from bodybuilders and strength athletes to the general population who just want to be able to lift their kids. The simplicity and versatility of the push-up make it an useful exercise for the majority of people in the gym.

Bodybuilders and Physique-Focused Lifters

While the push-up may not offer relatively heavy loads, unless you add a weighted vest or other external resistance, its convenience and practicality make it an effective choice for supersets during a chest workout — immediately performing a set of push-ups after a set of dumbbell flyes, for example.

This is a simple way to increase total training volume and intensity during a workout, which can lead to improved muscle growth.

Strength Athletes

Lifters who continuously move heavy loads with barbell or dumbbell exercises can achieve comparable strength-building benefits from push-ups performed with added resistance. (5)(6) This allows load-focused lifters to increase their strength while reducing wear and tear on their shoulders and elbows from repetitive exercises.

General Trainees

Because push-ups are a fundamental bodyweight exercise, they are an excellent way to build functional, real-world strength with quick, efficient training. (7) The ability to perform push-ups anywhere there’s room on the ground (any room of the house, for example) makes it an ideal exercise for people who find it difficult to schedule consistent gym time.

How to Program the Push-Up

The beauty of bodyweight movements is that the range of volume (sets and reps) and intensity can be very broad. The volume and intensity depends on your goals and ability.  If you are more advanced, you can either do more volume or you can make the push-up more challenging. If you’re still learning the movement, focus on racking up quality repetitions instead of pushing your limits.

Unweighted, Low Repetition

When you’re first learning the push-up and establishing basic strength in the movement, you don’t need to do a ton of repetitions because your form will start to break down from fatigue. Three to four sets of four to six reps is a good place to start.

You’ll benefit from performing a few solid repetitions with perfect technique to create good movement patterns, and slowly increasing the volume.

Unweighted, High Repetition

High-repetition training can be an effective way to build muscle without putting your joints under any significant load. (8) Once you’ve mastered push-up technique, aiming to reach muscular fatigue for two to three sets of 25 or more repetitions can be a unique muscle-building stimulus for the chest, shoulders, and triceps.

In this high-rep range, your abdominals are also significantly challenged from holding the static support position for the duration of each set.

Weighted, Moderate Repetition

Advanced lifters, in particular, can benefit from adding resistance with a weighted vest, loaded backpack, or other alternative, and performing three to four sets of 10 to 15 repetitions. This is a time-tested approach, similar to traditional weight training, which challenges the muscles with significant time under tension to promote muscle growth.

Push-Up Variations

The beauty of push-ups is the incredibly long list of variations, which make push-ups suitable for just about everyone. Understanding the ability to regress, progress, or just have other options available will help you be able to learn push-ups or incorporate them into your existing program.

Incline Push-Up

Incline push-ups allow you to do a full range of motion push-up using a “decreased” body weight because you shift the leverage.

While incline push-ups are a regression (easier version) of the standard push-up, it can still be progressed by gradually lowering the height you use. You can start by leaning on a wall at a very high, nearly upright, angle and slowly progress your way to the floor.

At home, you can use sturdy countertops, couches, or stairs to adjust your incline over time. At the gym, using a flat bench is a simple solution. A Smith machine is also an excellent way to make the exercise incrementally more challenging as you slowly move the bar down the rack toward the floor.

Negative Push-Up

Negative push-ups are another effective favorite because, not only are they great for beginners, but they can also provide a fantastic challenge for more advanced lifters.

A “negative push-up,” simply means that you only focus on performing a slow, controlled descent (eccentric, or negative, phase) without trying to press yourself up to the starting position. You can “cheat” yourself back to the top by kneeling and resetting between each rep.

Advanced lifters, however, can add a regular-speed press to the top position or perform a press using the same slow tempo for an increased challenge.

Negative push-ups help to learn control of the movement, they help to work on core stability and strength. Take at least five seconds to complete the negative phase of the repetition. The longer it takes, the harder it will be, which in turn helps to build upper body strength. When using a slower slow speed, simply focus on using proper form with full core engagement and stability.

Single-Leg Push-Up

If you want to make push-ups more challenging without throwing weights on your back, just remove a limb from your base of support. By keeping one leg raised in the air throughout the exercise, you’re focusing your core to engage even more drastically to stabilize your entire body through your hips and working leg. Alternate the raised leg with each set to ensure balanced strength development.

Once you’ve mastered single-leg push-ups, keep both legs on the ground and work on single-arm push-ups — arguably one of the most advanced bodyweight exercises. If/when the time comes that single-arm push-ups aren’t tough, it’s time for single-arm/single-leg push-ups. Really. Lift your right arm and left foot off the ground, perform reps, then switch sides.

Push-Up Alternatives

Some lifters still might not be ready for push-ups. Maybe they live where there’s no ground to press from. Who knows? Let’s talk about alternative exercises that work muscles similarly to a push-up.

Dips

Dips are right at the top of the list with push-ups, as far as bodyweight chest exercises go. In comparison to push-ups, dips are typically harder because you can’t push through the floor with your legs. It’s also a slightly more “vertical” body position, making you lift a higher percentage of your bodyweight. To make dips more accessible to a broader range of the population, the exercise often needs to be modified. 

Bench dips, using a flat bench or sturdy chair, let you brace your legs similar to performing incline push-ups. It will help to decrease the amount of your body weight being used, but the altered body angle will emphasize your triceps more than your chest.

Performing dips with resistance bands is a very effective way to reduce the percentage of body weight you lift during the movement, allowing you to progress gradually. Dips do require a higher degree of upper back mobility and shoulder joint stability, so take your time progressing the movement and always work within a controlled range of motion.

Dumbbell Chest Press

The dumbbell chest press is a free weight alternative to the push-up. This basic exercise challenges all of the same muscles — chest, shoulders, and triceps — with the straightforward progression of added weight.

The exercise is adaptable and can be performed on a flat, incline, or decline bench. Dumbbells also allow the wrists to rotate freely, which can adjust hand position for altered muscle recruitment or increased comfort on the wrists and elbows.

You can even do dumbbell presses while lying on the floor to limit the range of motion, reduce shoulder strain, and increase triceps recruitment.

Bench Press

The big, basic, barbell bench press might be the most popular upper body exercise around. It’s a very effective alternative to the push-up and allows the use of potentially heavy weights.

This staple exercise can be adapted, like the dumbbell variation, with multiple angles and adjusted ranges of motion (like lying on the floor instead of a bench).

Many people jump to the barbell bench press as one of the first exercises they perform in the gym. But if they’ve ever practices push-ups at home, they’ve prepared themselves for the bench press without even realizing it.

FAQs

Why are push-ups so hard?

Push-ups challenge the whole body and require coordination and strength from head to toe — from your upper back and neck across your torso through your legs and into the ground.

Push-ups are hard for many people because it requires lifting your body weight off of the floor using the direct strength of your chest and arms, which are often undertrained, especially in beginners. With time, practice, and inevitable strength gains, the exercise can start to feel easier, more controlled, and much more natural.

Can I do push-ups every day?

The simple answer is: Yes. The more complicated answer is: Yes, but… don’t forget to listen to your body and rest your muscles as needed. When you’re just starting to learn how to do push-ups, performing five to 10 reps a day can help to build good patterns.

You can even do very low-rep sets multiple times throughout the day to benefit from “greasing the groove,” or building strength and technique with high frequency training.

However you need to make sure that you don’t train every day with high intensity and you don’t train to muscular failure. You need to rest the muscles and allow them to recover so that you don’t overtrain.

Get Pushin’ with the Push-Up

Everyone can do push-ups, anywhere, anytime. From young lifters to competitive athletes to elderly adults, push-ups can help to keep your training plan convenient and accessible so your body stays strong. You’re never too strong, too experienced, or too new to hit the deck and gimme 20. Or 10. Or even five perfect reps.

References

1. Burd, N. A., Andrews, R. J., West, D. W., Little, J. P., Cochran, A. J., Hector, A. J., Cashaback, J. G., Gibala, M. J., Potvin, J. R., Baker, S. K., & Phillips, S. M. (2012). Muscle time under tension during resistance exercise stimulates differential muscle protein sub-fractional synthetic responses in men. The Journal of physiology, 590(2), 351–362. https://doi.org/10.1113/jphysiol.2011.221200
2. Hsu, Hsiu-Hao & Chou, You-Li & Huang, Yen-Po & Huang, Ming-Jer & Lou, Shu-Zon & Pei, Paul & Chou, Hsi. (2011). Effect of Push-up Speed on Upper Extremity Training until Fatigue. Journal of Medical and Biological Engineering. 31. 10.5405/jmbe.844. 
3. Yang J, Christophi CA, Farioli A, et al. Association Between Push-up Exercise Capacity and Future Cardiovascular Events Among Active Adult Men. JAMA Netw Open. 2019;2(2):e188341. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2018.8341
4. Kim, Y. S., Kim, D. Y., & Ha, M. S. (2016). Effect of the push-up exercise at different palmar width on muscle activities. Journal of physical therapy science, 28(2), 446–449. https://doi.org/10.1589/jpts.28.446
5. Calatayud, J., Borreani, S., Colado, J. C., Martin, F., Tella, V., & Andersen, L. L. (2015). Bench press and push-up at comparable levels of muscle activity results in similar strength gains. Journal of strength and conditioning research, 29(1), 246–253. https://doi.org/10.1519/JSC.0000000000000589
6. Kotarsky, C. J., Christensen, B. K., Miller, J. S., & Hackney, K. J. (2018). Effect of Progressive Calisthenic Push-up Training on Muscle Strength and Thickness. Journal of strength and conditioning research, 32(3), 651–659. https://doi.org/10.1519/JSC.0000000000002345
7. Harrison, Jeffrey. (2010). Bodyweight Training: A Return To Basics. Strength & Conditioning Journal. 32. 52-55. 10.1519/SSC.0b013e3181d5575c. 
8. Schoenfeld, B. J., Peterson, M. D., Ogborn, D., Contreras, B., & Sonmez, G. T. (2015). Effects of Low- vs. High-Load Resistance Training on Muscle Strength and Hypertrophy in Well-Trained Men. Journal of strength and conditioning research, 29(10), 2954–2963. https://doi.org/10.1519/JSC.0000000000000958

Featured Image: Roman Chazov / Shutterstock

The post How to Do the Push-Up — Benefits, Variations, and More appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Push-ups are the gold standard in bodyweight and at-home workouts. In fact, they probably deserve to be the go-to exercise from toddler to senior. They don’t require any special skills or genetic predisposition to be done at any level, they are adaptable to almost any situation, and they never let you down, get any easier or stop being beneficial.

My grandfather, a veteran, would, until his death at the age of 94, get up every morning and knock out 20 push-ups before we did anything else. No excuses. Do push-ups.

Raising Your Push-Up Game

The spiderman push-up is a variation that not only gets you out of a rut if a push-ups are boring you or not giving you that sense of achievement that you crave, but it also provides a total body workout that hits a trifecta of strength, stamina, and mobility in one movement that you will find very difficult to master.

There are a few things that you have to keep in mind before you get into this movement:

1. You are, effectively, holding a perfect plank position, upper and lower holds, throughout the position. That means whether you are in the top position of the push-up or the bottom, you maintain a straight line from head to butt, you don’t drop your pelvis so that it looks like you want to hump the ground, and you feel tension through the length of your body. Keep that in mind so that you don’t stress your lower back
2. Your elbows don’t try to escape and stay in place throughout the movement, by your side, which is exactly what they will try to do when you start feeling tired or you lack the mobility to get your knees to the right position. You want to feel the strength surge through your arms and upper body then conquer those elbows
3. You are going to be opening up your hips at one point which means that you have an antagonistic interaction that will take place between the tension in your body and the looser movement of your leg opening up when your knees moves to your elbow. You want your lower body involved and not left out so focus on form and strength of movement in the legs as you raise your knees
4. You’ll need to think of this exercise as being both unilateral and bilateral because it kind of goes both ways so try and feel the shifts in movement and tension through your body, reacting to the forces at play. You want to create variations that change the demands of this exercise then you want to have an awareness of the flow of the movements

Bearing all that in mind, the instructions in this video are straightfoward. Like I said, this isn’t a complicated exercise but if you think about the technique and form requirements, there are many challenges to overcome if you are to master it.

If you’re up for it you can make a pretty strong case for building a complete high-intensity workout around the spiderman push-up. Change the tempo to controlled, slower movements and you’ll create constant tension in your muscles for more emphasis on strength.

Raise the tempo while keeping strict form and you should be able to create a taxing full-body HIIT workout. Do it casually, even as a warm-up and you might get all your joints moving and feel yourself open up a little.

Just maintain that strong line running through your torso so that you are not twisting or collapsing at any point, otherwise adjust the rep scheme, your rest time between sets or whatever it is so that you are not flailing away uselessly.

The key to bodyweight exercises (especially something like the push-up) is how you’re in the driver’s seat and can make them be whatever you want them to be.

The spiderman push-up is pretty good at giving you feedback on your total body and it can probably teach you a little more about yourself and where your weaknesses and strengths are.

The post Spiderman Push-Ups: One Bodyweight Exercise to Rule Them All appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Say the word “exercise,” and the push up inevitably will be thought of as the movement of choice. For decades and possibly centuries, men have pointed to the push up as a true test of strength, not to mention machismo. How much simpler can it get than to just drop to the ground and start pumping away?

Related: The Best Chest Workouts for Muscle Mass, Strength, and More

How many push ups can you do? 20 or 30? 50? More? Maybe you’re one of the unlucky souls who can only manage five reps with questionable form.

Say the word “exercise,” and the push up inevitably will be thought of as the movement of choice. For decades and possibly centuries, men have pointed to the push up as a true test of strength, not to mention machismo. How much simpler can it get than to just drop to the ground and start pumping away?

Despite all that, the push up has weaved its way in and out of the realm of fitness over the years. The military and other services have used it as an integral part of fitness testing, but it has all but disappeared from the muscle-building radar. 

Whether you’re a functional fitness freak, a diehard, old-school guru or just want to include this classic move to your current program, the push up is one powerful addition to any workout plan.

With benefits ranging from optimizing local muscular endurance to increasing overall stamina, core strength, and stability, it’s insane not to include this exercise.

Since the fitness pendulum has swung in favor of bodyweight training, you may have the desire to improve on your push up prowess. Along with pull ups, dips, sit ups, muscle ups, and pistol squats, push ups test real-world, authentic strength and stability, and are a testament of total body control.

Increasing reps, strength, and muscular endurance should be a top priority for a standalone bodyweight program, and a big part of any strength routine.

8 Weeks of Push Up Power

Below is an eight-week program guaranteed to increase your push up power. Adopting a serious, regimented program will ensure that you will progress on this classic, yet effective muscle-building exercise.

For the duration of this program, cut down on heavy presses and flys. Maxing out on the bench press and other heavy compound movements may need to take a backseat for a while. Also, flys tend to stress the shoulder joints considerably, so nix them for now.

Since strength and stability of the abdominal area are important factors in the push up, make sure to include plenty of work for your midsection. If you are weak in this area, you will tend to bow and bend at the waist.

For the entirety of this program, ensure you execute each and every rep with proper form and technique. Hands slightly wider than your shoulders, lower down until your chest touches the floor and then press back up while maintaining a straight spine and tight core.

Weeks 1 and 2

The first step is to perform a short pre-test. Perform as many push ups with good form without resting at the top or bottom of the movement. Record your results.

This will be your baseline. If you have trained your chest shoulders or triceps recently, be sure to space your pre-test far enough away so that you are fresh enough to give your best effort.

• To start your program, choose a high number of push ups as a goal. Start with about four times your max number from your pre-test. For example, if you achieved 20 reps, your new goal will be 80. Now you will perform as many sets as it takes to make it to 80 total reps. You may reach 20 on your first set, 15 on your second, 12 on your third and so on, as long as you reach the total goal.
• For the first week, rest one minute between sets. During the second week, reduce rest to 30 seconds. Also, work to reduce the number of total sets it takes to reach your total.
• Do this routine at least twice per week.
• If you want to add in some assistance training be sure to include bench press, close-grip bench press, shoulder press, front raises and dips. But remember, don’t go super heavy.

Weeks 3 and 4

By now you’re performing quite a few reps with reduced rest. For the next two weeks, you’ll increase frequency, total reps, and keep your rest to a minimum. You will effectively be improving your overall muscular endurance and stamina.

• Increase your frequency to three times per week. By now, you should be getting used to training more times per week, so don’t worry about your strength training sessions getting in the way of your push up program.
• Increase your total reps even further to around 150% of your original goal. For the example above, your new total number of reps should be 120. It may seem like a high number, but just do as many sets as it takes to get to that new goal.
• Rest should stay at 30 seconds or less. Your goal should be to close the gap between sets so you can perform more reps per set.
• Stay strict with form and technique.

Weeks 5 and 6

For the next two weeks, you will again increase frequency, reps and reduce rest time. Since you will most likely be getting into the high rep ranges, you can also start using a few alternative hand placements and angles.

• Increase frequency to four times per week.
• Reduce rest time by 15 seconds between sets.
• Increase total reps by another 50% of your original number. For the above example this would be 160.
• Experiment with different hand placements and elbow angles; narrow, wide, elbows out, elbows by your sides, etc.
• This can’t be stressed enough: keep your form in check. This is no time to rush through reps and sets for the sake of getting more reps.

Weeks 7 and 8

The final two weeks will be challenging to say the least, especially if you are supplementing with your regular resistance training program. Increase frequency and total reps once again while decreasing rest. Add in a few new and challenging ways to perform the push up to increase the intensity.

• Increase frequency to five times per week.
• Keep rest periods to 15 seconds or less. You could start by resting only a few seconds for the first few sets and then increase closer to 15 seconds as you move through later sets.
• Total reps will increase another 50% based on your original number. Yes, for the example above, your new number would now be 200.
• Continue to utilize the different hand placements and elbow angles.
• Include several sets of feet-elevated push ups and hands-elevated push ups.
• Again, keep your form in check.

Test time

Now it’s time for your post-test. Do it exactly as you performed your pre-test. This time, you should see a significant increase in reps and an increase in general strength, power, and shoulder stability.

After the eight weeks, sit back and reap the rewards of your increase in strength and push up performance. You can either maintain your current level, or start the program all over again for a new challenge.

Typewriter Push Up: A Challenging Push Up Variation.

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When I first got out of college I was hired to teach World History and coach football at a large high school in the Dallas-Fort Worth suburbs. I reported to work three weeks early along with the rest of the football coaches so that we could prepare for the season.

I had relocated many times to many states, so being the new guy wasn’t new to me. In each new setting, I stood out early on because I was the “strong guy.” In high school, I obsessed on setting the lifting records and in college, my comfort in the weight room became a pursuit for biceps, triceps, back, and chest. I followed the Schwarzenegger workouts and wanted people to know I was strong because I carried an extra 30 pounds just for show.

One day in those first weeks, one of the “old” coaches threw out a challenge. He said, “I know you’re strong and all, but can you do a fingertip push-up?” I then watched him get on the floor, extend his arms as far from his torso as possible and proceed to come all the way up, repeatedly, pushing through only fingers and toes.

I’d never seen anything like it, but I had to assume it was easier than it looked. I was wrong. As I got on my belly to try, it occurred to me that I didn’t even know where to push from. I extended my arms and grunted, but no movement followed. I had no chance. That was my first introduction to old man strength—which is really just the original designation for functional strength, which is really just how everyone once thought of strength.

Training soon became my passion and I spent the next few years obsessively developing my strength and conditioning knowledge. That process radically shifted how I viewed training and within very little time I could knock out fingertip push-ups myself.

The fingertip push-up is a great indicator of real functional strength and, if nothing else, a great party trick—here is how to get started.

Fundamentals of the Fingertip Push-Up

As always, all training is just progression and regression. If an exercise is too challenging, you just regress back to easier an easier variation until you can execute the movement perfectly many times.

So, the obvious place to start training for a fingertip push is the push-up. Most people think they have push-ups mastered but there is often quite a bit to clean up there that will help with almost every other exercise you try. Take the time to really master the push-up, first and foremost.

So, you have perfect push-ups. What now? The fingertip push-up is a total body exercise. Every muscle in the body has to work together to complete the movement. But before that can happen you have to shore up all the pieces in the chain. The major points of emphasis are the forearms and core.

Fingers use tendons from the forearm to contract. Strong fingers are really just strong forearms so you’ll need to strengthen your grip. (Side note: this will help every lift.) There are a billion ways to train grip from the old-fashioned grip squeezers to the even older-fashioned rice in a bucket.

My favorite approach is simple. Do tons of farmer’s walks. Complete farmer’s walks or other carry variations daily. Also, never carry weight to a rack or do any lift without thinking about training your grip in the process.

Kettlebell work did more for my grip strength than anything else. If you want more specific forearm drills, I’d suggest adding finger curls, but by focusing on a tight neutral grip in your daily farmer’s walks, you’ll be more than covered.

You’ll also want to really shape up your core. If you’ve mastered the push-up, planks and push-up position planks should now be easy. A simple way to progress your plank is to keep your core tight like you are bracing for a gut punch and then to walk your hands as far out as you can without allowing your abdomen and lower back to drop.

Try doing sets of five where you slowly walk your plank out as far as possible and then walk the hands back in. These are called inchworms.

You can add side planks as well, but make sure your body is in as straight of a line as possible. When you can easily hold for 30 seconds, try lifting the top leg a couple of inches while keeping the toes pointed forward.

The lower back is also part of the core and you’ll want to balance all of this front work with some erector spinae attention. I recommend sets of 10 Supermans with a one-second pause at the top of each rep.

You’ll also want to train pull-ups to help increase grip, core stability, and especially lat strength. The lats will be instrumental in helping to stabilize your extended arms.

The Fingertip Push-Up Training Plan

All of these exercises are best trained daily in accordance with the grease the groove philosophy. Think higher volume, but not to failure. The idea is perfect, consistent practice.

A good daily fingertip push-up training program would look like this:

• Set 1:
  • a. Side Planks – 3×30 seconds/side
  • b. Inchworms – 3×5
• Set 2:
  • a. Heavy Loaded Carry Variation – 3x Technical Failure
  • b. Push-Ups – 3x (about a third of your max perfect reps)
• Set 3:
  • a. Supermans – 3×10 (with a one-second pause at the top of each rep)
  • b. Pull-Ups – 3x (about half of your max perfect reps)

Feel free to lower the reps and add more practice throughout the day as well. Bodyweight skills are best mastered with a lot of practice. They are skills so you want to try them daily and throughout the day. Rather than approaching them like a workout block that you would insert a few times per week, think of it like juggling or any other skill. The more you practice, the better.

After a few weeks, you can begin to sub out your inchworms for bar roll-outs. Here you’ll be putting a lot of pieces together. This more advanced progression requires a solid grip on the bar, strong lats, and an iron core.

From your knees, you’ll simply let the bar roll-out as your hips roll forward and your arms extend. Then, keeping the hips and elbows locked and the core rigid, drive your arms straight down to bring the bar wheeling back towards you.

To begin, don’t go all the way out. Progress slowly and focus on form. The bar roll-out is easy to cheat by rowing the bar back in with bent elbows or pushing your hips back.

When you can do ten perfect bar roll-outs, you are close to your fingertip push-ups. Start adding consistent extension press-up practice. The extension press-up is just like the fingertip push-up except you are pushing through the heels of your hands.

Start lying face down with arms extended overhead, but your elbows bent very slightly. Grip your toes into the ground, your hands into the ground, and tighten your core rigidly as if you are about to take a gut punch.

Then push through the heels of your hands and extend your arms while pushing yourself into an elevated position.

When these become easy you are ready to do the fingertip push-up. Just fully extend your arms and push through rigid fingertips.

The post The Fingertip Push-Up Training Plan appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

If you’ve watched movies based on American football such as “Remember the Titans” you’ll know the scene when a team of give or take 30 football players are smacking the floor, getting up into a squat, and jumping as high as they can then they repeat the process for more than five minutes at a time.

Burpees are high intensity, involve the total body, and are excruciatingly difficult to do. They also can be an easy way to injure oneself if they haven’t a clue of how to execute them.

If you’ve watched movies based on American football such as “Remember the Titans” you’ll know the scene when a team of give or take 30 football players are smacking the floor, getting up into a squat, and jumping as high as they can then they repeat the process for more than five minutes at a time.

The result you ask? Uniforms drenched in sweat, grown men gasping for air, and a smug coach placing these men in a practice game to prepare for a scrimmage.

This article will break down the parts of the burpee and provide much needed insight into the efficacy of it in training. Burpees (or squat thrusts) primarily work on aerobic (with oxygen) movement by increasing the demand on the body for oxygen; producing a stamina building effect.

The burpee works as a total body movement—the upper and lower body work in tandem with the muscles of the core to move and as a result more calories are burned and cardiovascular strength is built.

How to Perform the Burpee

In the first phase of the movement, learning how to lower oneself from a standing position is crucial.

Begin by having a wider than shoulder width stance, strategically bending at the knees and hips simultaneously. As you do so, straighten the arms while keeping a slight bend at the elbow.

Ensure that your back remains straight and at an angle. Then spread your hands out. In the end of the movement you should be in a sumo squat position with your hands on the floor.

In the second phase of the movement or what is known as the kick back phase, we will begin to shift the weight of the body from being centered mid-foot to slightly forward while using the strength in our core and arms to create a stable base in which we explosively kick back the feet.

In doing so we will end up in the top portion of a push up. The back is straight and the core tight.

In the third and fourth phase, we first perform a push up then reverse the kickback movement by pulling the feet back into the sumo squat with a small hop while our hands are in contact with the ground.

The fourth phase prepares us to jump by straightening up the spine and looking ahead with a chin depressed (thus keeping the cervical spine in alignment).

In the fifth phase, we ready ourselves to jump in vertical jump position. There are two ways to accomplish this:

1. Straighten your arms prior to jumping.
2. Place your arms beside your body as you extend your arms back (imagine a basketball player preparing to jump to block a shot).

I will be showing the former because it its much simpler to understand for those without proprioception (spatial acuity) nor shoulder flexibility. Load your hamstrings and keep your back straight at an 45 degree angle.

To absorb the shock do not straighten your legs on the descent but begin to bend your knees as you return to the floor and return to the squat with your arms between your legs.

In the sixth phase or the resetting phase, prepare to repeat the cycle once more.

Should You Be Doing Burpees?

If you are any one of these categories of people, burpees should not be a part of your regimen if any of the following apply to you:

• You have knee issues (i.e. bursitis, runner’s knee, tendonitis, meniscus inflammation).
• You are currently recovering from knee, shoulder, neck, back, wrist, and hip surgery or injuries.
• You are highly sedentary. This dynamic movement with explosive phases will not make your hamstrings nor knees very happy without proper training in the aforementioned exercises
• You have lordosis of the spine.
• You have weak ankles. The susceptibility for sprains is higher if one is pronator and or supinator, and without proper training and adaptation the rate for injury is high in the jumping and landing portions of this movement.
• You have pre-existing heart or cardiovascular conditions. The concern here would be orthostatic changes in blood pressure, underlying arrhythmias, and angina pectoris.
• You experience sports or exercise induced asthma. One must work up to a proper heart rate and breathing rate to increase overall stamina before engaging in this movement for long periods of time, anything greater than three minutes.
• You cannot perform a push up, plank, and squat.

Use Burpees As Part of Your Training

Any trainer understands the cardiorespiratory or cardiovascular heart rate ranges when initially training a client.

However, every gym patron should understand cardiovascular heart rate guidelines as well. Ideally for a sedentary male or female, no more than three minutes of burpees should be executed.

Check for signs of strain and or form degradation as you’re performing this movement. For an intermediate gym goer where strength training and aerobic training are a part of their weekly regimen burpees can be attempted anywhere from five to ten minutes.

Anything more than thirty minutes doesn’t provide much of a substantial benefit. Typically, a fifteen minute bout of burpees will more than suffice. If you’re able to perform more than thirty minutes of burpees at high frequency (in rapid succession), high intensity (little to no breaks), and with proper form each repetition, you’re probably not providing your body enough of a cardiovascular stimulus.

Burpees Can Benefit You

You should perform burpees on non-intense training days and they should be the very first thing you perform after warming up.

Another time you will benefit from burpees is at the tail end of a workout session or as a warm up for five minutes prior to power training and or plyometric training.

Burpees are a tried and true exercise. They are deceptively simple and at the same time very fun. Execute burpees with caution and care and you can take your training to the next level.

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First, You Need to Be Able to Do Push Ups

If you’ve gotten to the point of signing up or maybe are even partly through the recruitment process, you can hopefully do some push ups. This isn’t a how-to-do-push-ups primer. This is a how to pass the physical fitness standards tests.

RELATED: The Police Physical Ability Test: Would You Meet the Requirements?

If you are an absolute beginner, I suggest buying a book like Convict Conditioning, which has a great series of progressions to get you from zero push ups to doing them competently. But depending on which branch you aim to enter, you may still need quite a few more reps than the plans within that book will build you to.

Cut Push Ups From Your Training Sessions

The first thing we’re going to do is cut out nearly all of the push ups from your training sessions. You’ll still do some, and you’ll do variations of push ups, but within your actual training sessions, we’re going to try to limit how many you do. That’s because you’re going to be doing them almost constantly during the day outside of training so we can focus on other things during training.

The first thing to understand is that you need some maximal strength increases as that will help you pump out more reps. But the second thing is that there are better ways of adding reps to your total than trying to add weight to your push ups.

“When the test involves high degrees of muscular endurance, it actually makes more sense to attack the pressing muscles once everything else is already fatigued.”

Adding weight to your push up means that at best you wear a weight vest, which can be helpful (but means you need to own a vest). At worst, it means you have someone try to balance a plate on you while you do push ups. I’d rather you do exercises that can be done with little to no equipment, that don’t need a partner, and are safe.

Start at the Back of the Program

We also need exercises that work the same muscles and reinforce patterns needed need for high-rep push ups. So, taking a cue from Ian King, we’re going to start with the back of our program and work forward. What do I mean by that?

Normally when you create a program, you start with the hardest exercise and move to easier versions as you fatigue. For maximal strength that works well, but when the test involves high degrees of muscular endurance, it actually makes more sense to attack the pressing muscles once everything else is already fatigued. (And don’t stress about your reps dropping, as the second half of this program has plenty of high-rep push up work).

Workout Example:

• 1A Left side plank/ plank/ right side plank/ plank combo – 30 seconds at each position. 3 sets.

• 1B Ys and Ts – 10 reps each. For best results do these with TRX or rings. 3 sets.

• 2A Dips – 3 sets of max reps

• 2B Bent over rows – 3 sets of max reps

• 3A Handstand push ups – 3 sets of max reps

• 3B Pull ups – 3 sets of max reps

For the handstand push ups, begin with a block so you are doing half-reps instead of full head-to-ground reps. You can use a foam roller, medicine ball, yoga block, or anything that shortens the range enough to allow you to get at least five reps.

As you get stronger use a smaller and smaller block, until you are working full range. And don’t worry at this point about building the hands up off the ground, as the goal here isn’t to become great at handstand push ups, but to assist our regular push up training.

Greasing the Groove

Follow this routine twice per week. On your other training days, add in a heavy upper-body pulling workout to even things out. The volume of pushing in this plan is heavy, so you’ll need some pulling to keep your shoulders healthy. Avoid extra pull up work on this day and stick to scapular retraction work such as rows and even partial deadlifts. 

But here’s the magic of the plan – you’re going to do push ups every hour, every day. This is what is commonly called greasing the groove (GTG). This approach relies on motor learning enabling you to quickly become better at a task. The goal is never to work to failure, or even close to it, and to have frequent exposure to the task daily.

When I do GTG work, I set an alarm for every hour and just drop down and do my push ups wherever I am. This has led to some weirdness in the past, so these days I tend not to be so obsessive about it. If I miss one or two sessions because I’m at the movies, I just accept it and move on.

“This approach relies on motor learning enabling you to quickly become better at a task. The goal is never to work to failure, or even close to it, and to have frequent exposure to the task daily.”

Multiple Sets During the Day

Begin by doing an all out set of push ups and record your number. Let’s imagine that your goal is fifty push ups for your test, and you’re currently at thirty. If you can do a set of thirty, then you can easily manage multiple sets of twenty during the day without making yourself sore or too fatigued. To calculate your own number just take seventy percent of your maximum and use that. (And yes, I know that seventy percent of thirty is 21, but it’s not a nice round number).

Every two to three days, add a rep. So, if you started at twenty, on day three you’d start doing 21. On day five or six, you’d do 22, and so on. If you reverse the formula, to get a total of fifty reps for your test, then you’d need to be doing multiple sets of 35 during the day. If you add a rep every two days that means within a month you’ll be able to hit your test score.

Strength and Muscular Endurance

The added bonus of this is that you’re also teaching yourself to be able to perform many, many sets of push ups daily. That is going to come in handy later on during your academy or boot camp course when you get dropped because you or your team screwed up and get punished. At a minimum, these punishments will be doled out in sets of at least twenty push ups, so having some extra gas in the tank will be extremely handy.

RELATED: Basic Training Breakdown: What to Expect When You Join the Military

The added strength and muscular endurance from the training plan will go a long way towards helping you, too. Just be sure to add extra pulling and shoulder prehab training in to keep your shoulders healthy. The benefit with the plan is that for most people they’ll be able to hit their target within a month just by using more targeted training and diligent daily practice.

Photo 1 “100319-F-8716G-010.JPG” by JBLM PAO. Attribution-NonCommercial License.

Photo 2 “Deadlifts, Air Squats and Handstand Push Ups 121812_2” by CF Undaunted. Attribution-NonCommercial License.

Photo 3 “Iraq” by The U.S. Army. Attribution-NonCommercial License.

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About EMG

To conduct EMG, electrodes are placed on the skin over a particular muscle. The electrodes then read the electrical activity of the muscle below them. Not only can it tell if a muscle is working or not, but it can also detect the amount of electrical activity generated by the nerves.

This simplicity is the reason studies using EMG are so well regarded by the non-scientific community. What makes more sense than an easy-to-compare number on a page that tells us what muscles had what activity? And the bigger the electrical reading, the greater the contraction. Thus, in theory, an exercise that produces a stronger reading will also produce stronger muscles. It seems pretty clear cut.

Study Design

In this study, the researchers were concerned because all the research so far either examined the EMG data from an exercise or examined strength gains from a program, but not both. The goal of their research was to see if EMG data could be put to use as a part of a strength training program.

To do this, they needed two exercises that worked similar muscles but had a long history of being notoriously difficult to reconcile with one another. They chose the perfect pair in the bench press and the push up. Each of these exercises is a horizontal upper body press, but they are often used for different purposes. The bench press is a power lift that is frequently used as a test or training modality for pure strength. The push up is a conditioning exercise, usually employed as a test and training method to develop endurance.

The participants of the study were divided into a bench press group, a push up group, and a control. They were tested for their one-rep-max, or 1RM, in the bench or push up using bands, and also for their 6RM. EMG data was gathered throughout all the tests. The training period lasted five weeks, and the 6RM load was used as the training load. At the end of five weeks, the participants were evaluated again.

Results

Perhaps most important of all the results was that the bench press and the push up showed the same EMG activity for the pectoralis and anterior delt, which were the two regions the researchers analyzed. At the 6RM for each exercise, these muscles experienced the same contraction intensity.

With that in mind, we move on to the effectiveness of the program. Despite being fairly short, the 6RM of each group increased from twenty to 26 pounds, and their 1RM went up between twenty and 28 pounds. Not bad improvement over such a short time. The increase was comparable for both groups.

With EMG data and an effective training protocol, both the bench press and the push up can perform similar tasks when used in similar conditions. This is great news for any athlete looking to get a change of pace in their training. You can add variety without fear of losing strength or endurance.

References:

1. Joaquin Calatayud, et. al., “Bench press and push-up at comparable levels of muscle activity results in similar strength gains,” Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, DOI: 10.1519/JSC.0000000000000589

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock.

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