The Push-Up Predicament
Are push-ups a part of your fitness repertoire? Why do you do them? Should you do them? Better yet, do you do them correctly? All of these questions should really be part of anything you do for your health. You should know why you are doing any particular exercise or health related regime. You should also know if that exercise or routine is appropriate for you, is it increasing your fitness or causing pain, and you should know HOW to do whatever it is you are attempting. To drive these points home, I am going to focus on the predicament of the push-up.
I am always amazed how glaringly obvious it is when someone has learned to do push-ups on their knees. In my humble opinion, no one at any time should ever do push ups on their knees.
A push-up is a moving plank where you pull your body towards the floor and then push yourself back into the top position fully extending your elbows while never losing the full active plank from head to toe. Your ankles, knees, hips, shoulders, and ears should remain in a nice straight line through the entire range of motion. There should be weight in both the hands AND the feet. When someone has started push-ups from the knees, it is always difficult to transition to full push-ups because they are accustomed to having all the weight in their shoulders. No one puts their weight in the knees, nor should they. This leads to the shoulders rising, dropping of the head, abdominal collapse, lack of lat engagement and lower back pressure.
Please do not assume that if you cannot do a full push-up that you should abandon the exercise all together. If full on push-ups are beyond your current level of strength, all hope is not lost. As with all exercises, you should set a standard with something you can currently accomplish, build on that standard with movement and then begin to add levels of difficulty to challenge yourself. Start with incline push-ups. You could start as high up as your kitchen counter or even a wall. Gradually lower your level of incline until on the ground you go. Too easy. You are acquiring the skills to set the standard of the plank while letting your body and central nervous system find success in the movement.
What if you can do push-ups, but not very many because you can’t seem to keep your plank? There are quite a few options. You could do several sets of just a few push-ups with ample rest in between and at each session decrease your rest time, and you could lift a leg while doing push-ups. Chances are you have the required strength for this fundamental movement but your neural pathways have taken a detour. Lifting a leg forces you into a movement that is more plank like, meaning total body tension due to your body having to resist rotation, which forces a better distribution of weight from head to toe.
So why should you even bother to learn how to do a push-up in the first place? They are an excellent exercise for several reasons. When performed correctly they can help protect the shoulders from injury by not only working the larger upper body muscles, but also the smaller stabilizer muscles as well. They require full body activation and therefore work your entire body. Push-ups don't require any additional equipment and are also great for posture, bone density, and cardiovascular health.
Let’s face it — our bodies do not take verbal directions unless we can visualize the outcome. No matter how many times you are told how to do something, you must know what right feels like, to truly recognize wrong. Practice makes perfect as long as you practice the correct movement. It is always a great idea to video yourself to make sure what you think you are doing and what you are actually doing are the same. Often times they can be vastly different. If you are unsure that you are setting the standard correctly, being coached is an excellent option. You can do this!
