Perfect Your Pushups!

Advantages of Pushups

• They improve strength and cardio respiratory performance
• They can be done almost anywhere: at home, in a hotel room, even in the aisle of the grocery store!
• They require no, or minimal equipment

But I Can’t Even Do One Pushup….

I found a great article on this website that explains many variations. Here’s a summary

• Beginner Level
  • Wall pushups
    • Stand in front of a sturdy wall and place your hands against a wall at shoulder height, shoulder-width apart.
    • Bring your feet slightly away from the wall, about an arm’s length, so you’re leaning forward.
    • Bend your elbows and perform a push-up against the wall. 

• Next Level
  • Knee pushups
    • Knee Push-Up
    • Start in a plank position on your palms, hands below your shoulders.
    • Lower knees gently to the floor.
    • Engage your core and maintain a straight spine from knees to head. 
    • Lower down until your elbows reach 45 degrees with your torso. 
    • Push up to return to start.

• Incline pushups
  • Incline Push-Up
  • Place hands on a bench, stair, step, or elevated surface, slightly wider than shoulder-width apart.
  • Maintain a strong plank position with your spine forming a straight line from head to heels.
  • Perform the push-up motion with controlled movement.
  • Either a kneeling or a full pushup form can be used

• Decline Pushups
  • Not quite a full pushup
    • Start in full pushup position: hands and toes
    • Keeping great form, lower your body to the floor
    • Raise up with a knee pushup
• Full Pushups
  • Copied from the peloton site
    • Start in a strong plank position on your palms, hands stacked below your shoulders. Maintain a neutral spine and keep your gaze on the floor (rather than ahead). 
    • Squeeze your shoulders, glutes, and core to create full-body tension and maintain this as you move. 
    • Bend your elbows to move towards the floor. Your elbows should reach a 45-degree angle relative to the torso. (This may change with certain variations.)
    • Maintain tension throughout your body as you push back up off the floor, raising up to your original position, with arms fully extended. 

Some Mistakes to Avoid

From lesmills.org

ISSUE #1: THE ROCKER

A lot of kids learned to do push-ups on their knees with their feet up in the air and it carries over into adulthood. It’s probably taught this way because the lower leg is thought to act as a counter-balance to the upper body (think of a see-saw!) and it makes the push-up a little bit easier. But there are two big reasons why you should lose this habit immediately:

• The distribution of mass in our bodies is such that the mass of the lower leg is tiny compared to the mass of the upper body. Imagine an adult on a see-saw with a child: it’s not going anywhere! In exchange for the small gain of the counterbalance effect, you’re essentially grinding your knees into the floor. The rocking effect requires the knee joint to act as a fulcrum on the floor. The patella, or kneecap, is floating in front of the joint and, as we rock on the knee, it gets mashed around, causing discomfort and possibly pain. 
• Having your knees as the only two points of contact on the floor can make you unstable. If you’re working to try to get stronger in the push-up, this instability can take your focus away from the pushing motion, instead you are simply concentrating on not falling over. When this happens you’re no longer isolating the push muscles and it makes it that much harder to get stronger.

Here’s the solution: Rather than keeping your feet dangling up in the air, place your toes solidly on the floor. With your toes on the floor, you’ll find that the tibial tuberosity (the head of the bone in your lower leg) actually makes contact with the floor rather than the patella. And the four points of contact (knees and toes) will make your body more stable so you can focus on isolating the arms and chest.

also from lesmills.org

ISSUE #2: THE T

When most people think of a push-up position, they think of the capital letter T – the arms are out wide and even with the shoulders.

In this position, the motion is outside of the line of action of the pectoral muscles, so the anterior deltoid and muscles of the shoulder become the primary movers. Since the shoulder muscles are relatively weaker when compared to the pectorals, the force generated is less. So if you choose to do push-ups in the T position, you may find that you struggle to do push-ups on your toes, or simply tire sooner.

Instead of thinking of a T, it’s a good idea to replicate a position that’s closer to an arrow shape.

When your arms are in this position the hands are in line with the center of the chest and the motion is within the line of action of the pectorals. This allows the bigger chest muscles to take over and the shoulder muscles are used for stabilization. When the larger chest muscles are recruited, it becomes easier to do the push-up on your toes and it takes longer to fatigue. 

More information is available from this post