Everything you need to know about Push-ups!

Uncategorized Apr 26, 2021

All you need to know about PUSH-UPS &

a 7 day Follow Along plan you can use to get stronger with them!

I personally LOVE push-ups! You don’t need any equipment to do them and it’s a great way to test your strength! NOT to mention by just changing your arm positioning in a slight way you can work different muscle groups!

But push-ups aren’t as easy as they look! So in this article & video we will go through EVERYTHING that you need to do/know in order to perfect them!

The Form

Plank Position: Making sure that your shoulders are directly over those wrist and hands are shoulder width apart (please note we are reviewing the classic push-up, other push-up variations you can change arm positioning). Your body should be completely level, so no sagging of the belly to the floor or butt way high in the air. A great way to help you stay in this position is to literally SQUEEZE the glutes and pretend that someone has poked you in the stomach lol.
Hand Position: Let’s also talk about the HANDS, you should be turning those elbows in and GRABBING onto the floor with your fingers and your palm. By doing this you will activate your muscles properly for the push-up AND help you to not have wrist pain
Elbow Position: When dropping down to the push-up your elbows should be 45 degrees from the body. This is how your body is naturally! If your elbows are pointed out horizontally it could eventually lead to elbow pain and issues and also make you tense up in the shoulders
Neck Position: Your Neck position should be Neutral, if you bring your neck up to high and look above you it can add extra strain there! So think about pretending you are holding a ball between your chin and chest!

Breathing: I know the FIRST thing you want to do is hold your breath when performing a movement like this ! But make sure you ARE focusing on your breath the entire time! Inhaling on the way down and exhaling on the way up.

Wrist Pain?

But maybe some of the reasons you’ve been staying away from push-ups is because you had a TON of wrist pain. This is super common because when we do a push-ups we are really testing that range of motion in our hands! So make sure you are doing a proper wrist warm-up before you start doing these!

Some QUICK fixes to wrist pain:

Doing the push-ups on Dumbbells to help keep your wrist neutral
Folding up your yoga mat and placing the palm/heel of your hand on it to again help your wrist so it doesn’t have to bend as much

Regressions?

Regressions on push-ups get a bad rep...but honestly it is SOO important to do regressions so that you can build up strength and make sure you are doing the movement properly! No matter what...you are still working the same muscle groups even if you are doing the regression version

Incline: Hands will be on an elevated service! You can slowly start to bring the level of this down as you get stronger and stronger
Dropping to Knees: making sure you drop to the knees AFTER you are in a plank to make sure body position is correct! REALLY make sure your body position is where it needs to be if you do it on your knees! A great thing to do is video yourself to double check! I make my clients in Strong Feels Good video their movements all the time so that we can review them. I know some trainers are NOT a fan of knee push-ups! I personally DO like knee push-ups but ONLY if you feel like you can do the form properly! If not stick, to incline push-ups until you build this up!

Wider Stance with Feet: Another great thing you can do is to widen your stance for the push-up! This creates a larger surface area and allows push-ups to feel a bit easier as you are building up strength!

How can YOU get stronger with push-ups?

Practice is obvious BUT what you should really think about doing is working on negative push-ups and working at the hardest point of the push-up which is the bottom! Working on SLOW (negative push-ups) is actually proven to help you develop the muscle and strength for your push-up and working on holding at the bottom of your push-up will help you to dominate this “hard” part of the push-up so that you can just crank them out like they are nothing!

Test your Push-up Strength

One of the Strength Tests I have my Strong Feels Good Members complete is a 1 minute as MANY push-ups as you can do. Pick a variation you feel best with and let us know how you did! If you ACTUALLY want to get better at push-ups its so important to practice, stay consistent, test and evaluate!

I would LOVE to know more about

YOUR goals!

We are opening up LIMITED spots to my Summer Shred Series in May! If you would like to be the FIRST to know when spots open and get early bird pricing be sure to add your name to the list below and FILL OUT the form so I can learn more about YOU and what goals you are trying to achieve!

Link here: https://www.angela-gargano.com/shred-optin

Oh… and before I forget! Here is a 7day Push-up Plan you can follow to improve your push-ups

Video explaining this plan:

https://www.loom.com/share/edfac5c92c2b4a9fb6f2645e1949cf19