Hi guys, Kris from Custom Fitness here, your Amarillo personal trainer. Today we’re going to be talking about four things that you really need to consider when you’re building your best pushup. This is going to be the first part in a two part series, so be on the lookout for part two coming soon. And if you have any questions about today’s blog, then please give us a call at (806)-322-3188
So pushups are one of those things that some people really have down. That’s great. But other people really envy those people. They just want to know how do I do that, and how do I not feel like I’m dying while I’m doing it. So there’s a few different ways that we can modify pushups. I’ll go over those briefly today, but really I’m talking more about the form of the pushup. How do make sure that you’re getting the most out of what you are doing so that even if you only get one, you got every bang for your buck in that one.
As you get stronger and you build up in them, you want to make sure that form’s great so that you can pop out a whole lot more of them without causing damage and injury to the body. So how can we modify a pushup first of all?
If you’re new to pushups and you haven’t been doing them, use a wall first. Put your hands on the wall. Just put it here, you lean in, you push out. You practice that movement. When the wall gets to where you’re like okay I got that, you can walk your feet away, but obviously you can only go so far before you’re going to slam down on your nose. Walk your feet away, build that out. Then take it onto a coffee table or a bench or a countertop, something a little bit lower.
The more that we have the body in an upright position, the less stress we’re putting on the muscles, the less weight you’re pushing. But the lower you get, anywhere from that slight angle all the way down to on the floor, the more of your body weight that you’re actually using. Therefore the pushup gets a little harder.
If you’re new to pushups, stick with the modified form, either on the wall, on a bench, on a coffee table. Start there. Make sure you got all the elements in place, and then once you feel good with those, start moving it down. We’ve got four different areas that we’re looking at today.
First one is body position. So again, it can be on the wall, it can be on a bench, on the floor. Once we get down there, we can be on our knees, we can be on our toes. We can have our feet apart, we can have our feet together. There’s a lot of different body positions. Keeping in mind that wall going down is going to be easiest to hardest. Feet apart versus feet together is again going to be easier and harder. So we want to make sure that we’re doing the position that’s best for our body depending on our skill level.
If we haven’t been doing many of them, modifying is a much better option than going straight onto our toes. Especially if we’re females. A lot of us don’t typically do a lot of pushups, so when we’re asked to do them, it’s oh my goodness. Those are so hard. We need to modify, and that’s okay. No, they’re not girl pushups on your knees. It’s just the fact that you’re modifying at that moment and time. And yeah, you can even make knee pushups feel pretty darn hard. If anybody ever gives you a hard time about that, you can come talk to me about it.
So body position is number one. Number two is arm position. So our arms in a pushup are not actually going to be in the tight position usually with the elbow kissing the ribs. That’d be more of a tricep pushup. It’s a different specialty type of pushup. What else happens is people tend to take their arms all the way up here, and then we’re doing pushups like this with the hands above the shoulders, and that won’t work either. So our optimal goal, is to have our hands just a little bit wider than our shoulders, basically in this position here. You can see how my elbow drops lower than my shoulder, almost in an arrow type position so that the upper arm is moving into that arrow position.
Now our hands have to be wide enough out that whenever we bend the elbow our wrists don’t take all of the pressure. But rather, as we bend the elbow, we take it down, then our wrists move in a natural motion. So they’re pulling, flexing, and extending in the natural position. For hand positioning here, we would take it down. And again, knees or toes, your choice. If you’re doing your own thing.
All right. So hands are a little bit wider than my shoulders. Now we’re going to take the elbows back at that angle and bring it back up. Now how deep do you have to go? Well that’s up to you again. Skill level, experience in strength are going to come into play in that. So maybe you don’t get all the way down. That’s just fine. Maybe you get a quarter of the way down, and you build up to half, build up to three quarters, and eventually you can get all the way. Everybody’s a little different, and at different place with that.
So i’m going to end part one here. In part two we’re going to be talking more about what you can do with these techniques.
If can’t wait for part two, or you want to know more about Custom Fitness and what we do here, then please give us a call. If you’re wanting the accountability and help with creating an action plan to see results, or are wanting to someone to help create a workout plan to push you to your greatest potential, then that’s what we’re here for. Our trainers are here to look out for you and make sure that you are meeting your goals in a safe way.
At Custom Fitness, we customize a plan for you. We sit down with you and find out what your needs are and then build a health and fitness plan around that. We have an entire team of dedicated professionals to help you with your health and fitness goals. To get your consultation set up, give us a call at 806-322-3188 or email us at info@customfitness.biz At Custom Fitness, we are YOUR personal trainers in Amarillo, Texas. Have a great day.