Question about push ups

[Jonathan]

So, my arm strength (or, perhaps more specifically, my ability to exert strength over an extended period of time) is something I want to work on. It's odd, because I have no problem putting power behind my punches.

In my boxing class, the last exercise after working the bag and all is a series of push ups. I'm having trouble keeping up with the pace the instructor sets (though he says for everyone to go at their pace).

My question is, am I better off trying to keep pace and only doing the 'short drop' to the floor? I've been doing slower (as in, methodically slow) push ups- less reps, but I keep better form, and go all the way to the floor and up. With some back problems I've had in the past, it's sometimes hard to keep on my toes, so instead I balance on my knees with my feet up off the ground.

I'm not worried about working my way up to 'real pushups' (which I can do, just not quickly), but I'm curious as to what I can do now that will help me get to the point where they're much easier for me to do.

Any suggestions?

 

[tshadowchaser]

the only thing I have ever found the improves ones ability to do push ups is to do pushups and to push yourslef past where you think yo can go in doin gthem. Even if that means falling on your face a few times or haveing to stop to get your strength back a little, then continuing after missing one or 2 of the excercise

 

[Shaderon]

We have to do drill where we do 20 pushups, then 20 star jumps, then 15 pushups, then 15 start jumps, then 10 of each then 5 of each... We do full pushups, if we can't do the allotted amount, we do as many as we can.

This has been working for me.

 

[kosho]

I would add that when at the breaking point. move to the knees and go until you can't go anymore. this will help you gain more reg push ups plus it will help build power and focus to push threw. always do 1 more then the last time you worked them. so if you can drop and pound out 100 in under 1 min then next time you do 101 and so on.
good luck
Kosho

 

[SFC JeffJ]

I'd say do your best to keep good form and like kosho said go to your knees if you have too.

Jeff

 

[rutherford]

There's a couple of points we should cover here.

First, to answer your question, always do the full range of motion. If you don't do the whole push up, it doesn't count.

Next, check your form. If you're not loading your structure properly, you're not only working too hard, you're also not getting the proper training effect and might cause a repetitive stress injury.

Make sure your shoulder joints are packed down into the socket and not floating up. Your hand position is going to determine the ratio of work being done by your arms to chest. Move this about as much as you like. I can perform best with my hands spread, but it's about as useful as bench pressing. As your hands come inside of shoulder width, you need to point your elbows out. The closest position is the diamond with your index fingertip and thumb tip touching and is a tremendous triceps exercise. Slightly outside shoulder width is pretty standard.

The speed at which you do push ups will work different attributes. Go fast, up to clapping push ups, to work on your explosiveness. Go slowly and for maximum reps to work on your endurance.

Finally, the push up will only take you so far. At some point you may want to look into screw-ups, quad hops, and other push up sophistications.

Have fun!

 

[Jonathan]

Hey Rutherford!

Yeah, we do several variations- the 'diamond cutter' (what you described with the thumb and index finger touching; the Marines taught me a variant called the 'diamond scorpion', which is the same, but one leg is held up and curled over your back) is pretty common.

Wide-arm push ups and 'standard' push ups are also differentiated in class.

We also have fingertip pushups (which, surprisingly, I can actually do fairly well); knuckle pushups, both at 'normal width', and with arms tucked in close to the body.

I used to be able to do 'clapping pushups', but again, it's not the form that bothers me, it's the speed of reps. I can do the pushups, it's just working up to the pace our instructor keeps.

I didn't think just doing a 'half pushup' really helped anything at all, I just wanted to make sure.

 

[SFC JeffJ]

Just a quick point about the "diamond" pushups. The Army stopped having you touch your index fingers a while ago to keep wrist injuries down. Just touch your thumbs and let your hands be natural.

 

[zDom]

I agree with the above advice: go with full motion rather than try to keep a faster pace. Build long muscles.

Instead of dropping to knees, you might try this: when you can't do any more pushups, just hold yourself in the "up" position.

Our basic warmup in hapkido includes 100 pushups:

20 standard pushups
10 "swing thru" pushups
20 judo pushups
10 swing thrus
10 standard
10 swing thrus
10 judos
10 swing thrus

By changing the types of pushups and shuffling the workload off to slightly different muscles, you can "rest" some areas while still building your overall endurance.

So you might want to try shifting your hand position around after sets of 10 or 20 (wide, narrow, diamond, wide, narrow, diamond) or something along those lines.

Another method of building pushup strength is do 10 sets of 20, but with other activity in between. Do another set every 5 or 10 minutes until you've got all 10 sets in.

 

[Jonathan]

Hey zDom, I'm pretty sure I understand what you mean by 'swing through' (I call them 'cradle' pushups); it's where you kind of raise your butt into the air, then swing down and forward, then arch up into it, right?

So what's a judo pushup?

 

[exile]

I have a somewhat different take on this. Pushups are basically a pectoral (chest muscle) exercise; if you want to do better pushups, then you need to train your pecs, and pushups aren't themselves the best way to do this because you're limited to your own body weight. There are far more effective pec exercises; the catch is that you need equipment—a power rack and a dipping stand—that you're going to have to belong to a gym to get access to, probably. But if you can get access to these, the following are top exercises for pecs (and will make it possible for you to knock out as many pushups as you like, at pretty much any pace):

Weighted Dips: get a chain weight belt (any barbell/weight-training store will have them, around $25 or so) and wrap the chain around, say, a 50lb dumbbell. Get in the dipping stand, face inward, with your hands gripping the arms of the stand on either side of you (not in front or behind), push yourself up into your strongest range position and do short reps, quickly. Do not do a full range of motion; this does not help at all. The reason is that the degree of muscle growth in response to stress is strictly conditioned by the overload, and you cannot carry anything like as great a load if you move out of your strongest range. Keep your reps short and fast, so that you cover the same amount of distance in a given unit of time that you would doing a slower `full range' rep; that way, your workload will be much greater (because you're carrying way more weight over that distance) and the power (work per unit time) you're generating will also be much greater (because you're moving that much greater weight the same distance in the same timespan). My `cruising' weight for this exercise is a 120lb dumbbell over a very short range of motion, and believe me, this gives your pecs a tremendous workout! Give yourself a long recovery on this exercise—start off with once a week, then once every two weeks. When you start lifting three figures on top of your own body weight, you have to allow a lot of recovery time in between sessions or you'll lose condition; muscle growth only happens after recovery, and recovery from high intensity weight training isn't like recovering from most common training regimes with moderate weights and high reps.

Short-range Bench Press: By restricting your benches to short ranges of motion in a power rack, you can add around 100lbs to your current bench right off the back. Set up the power rack so the weight rests are about an inch above the pins, and so that when you lift the weight off the pins, you get at most three inches or so of extension. The deal is the same as with weighted dips—short, rapid reps at increasingly heavy weights. Over the course of about three years I worked my way up to a max of 405lb short range benches, and I'm pretty much the classic hardgaining ectomorph. If it worked for me it'll work for anyone!

If you do these exercises, with proper recovery, for a few months, you will find that you can get down on the floor and blast out a hundred pushups any time you like, any pace you like. They'll seem almost trivial, and they are, compared with what you have to do on the weighted dips and benches. Your chest muscles will get dramatically stronger. Just keep your workouts short and very high intensity, with lots of rest in between sessions. People who've used this Mike Mentzer/Power Factor style of weight training get very strong relatively quickly, but the down side is that the nature of the training requires you to be in a kind of aggressive mind set every workout. If you're doing things right, you should be prepared to increase your weights and maybe your reps at the same time or less than the previous workout. It's easy to become intimidated at the thought of what tomorrow's workout routine will consist of; you just have to resist that line of thinking and tell yourself that the iron is an opponent you can defeat....

 

[zDom]

Hey zDom, I'm pretty sure I understand what you mean by 'swing through' (I call them 'cradle' pushups); it's where you kind of raise your butt into the air, then swing down and forward, then arch up into it, right?

So what's a judo pushup?

Swing thrus: feet and hands are placed pretty much like regular pushups. Arms and legs stay straight during the exercise. Start/up position is butt up in the air, heels pushed to the ground. Down position is drop hips/thighs to the ground and look up at the ceiling.

Judo pushups: feet are wide and and not as far back. Start by rocking backward, then swing forward, first touching chin and then lapels to the mat, finishing by pushing up, looking up at ceiling, and arching back with hips still low.

 

[Ninjamom]

I think we call those 'dive bomber' pushups. Is that the same?

 

[zDom]

I think we call those 'dive bomber' pushups. Is that the same?

Probably.

Vids would help, I'm sure. Descriptions don't always do the trick.

 

[Jonathan]

Probably.

Vids would help, I'm sure. Descriptions don't always do the trick.

... yeah. I'm a little unsure about the swingthrus, but the judo pushups are what I had called the cradle pushups.