One of our Twitter followers recently asked us if there were any tips to get better at doing push-ups, since she noted that her form deteriorated after just a couple of push-ups. It’s ironic that she posed the question, because one thing that our clients consistently ask about, regardless of age, gender, physical ability, or fitness goals, are push-ups. How to do them properly, how to make them better, and how to do more and more as the clients gets stronger.
The first thing we must stress is that in our workouts, push-ups must be done with absolute, pristine, picture-perfect technique – or they do not count. That means your abs are braced tightly like you are about to be punched, your back is flat, your hips are linear to your head and feet (no sagging or ‘A-framing’), your hands are at your side and the elbows are tucked in at 45 degrees (not flaring out at 90 degrees). Your chest and your hips lower and touch the ground at the same rate. The reverse motion must happen on the way up as well. If you do not do this, you are not doing push-ups.
Believe it or not, the majority of average adults do not posses the upper body or core strength to do a perfect set of just ten push-ups. When done properly, perfect push-ups are a lot harder to do than most people think. They are also one of the absolute best muscle building exercises around and should be part of every lean muscle building exercise regimen. Not many other upper body pushing exercises recruit as many muscle groups as the push-up does, and thus, do not provide as much bang for your buck.
What we typically suggest is that beginners do push-ups as frequently as six days per week. This will work for quite some time (months) and you will improve your repetitions as you go. Eventually, however, you will burn out; when you reach a more advanced stage, we recommend that you cut your push-ups down to two or three times per week. Here, you can alternate between heavy and light days. One day you will go heavy and add resistance to your pushups, via plates on your back, a resistance band or weighted vest, or different styles of push-ups (see below), and do an average of 5-8 reps on each set. The other day, which will come 72 hours later, should be a repetition max day where you will simply do as many repetitions, with just body weight resistance, as possible.
For the heavy day, 2-4 sets will be more than enough. On the repetition day, you probably won’t need more than two all-out sets. If you are really advanced you could cycle three different pushup days wherein you go heavy, light and explosive on day three. For the explosive day you will want to do plyometric pushups (i.e., jumping or clapping push-ups), depth pushups, or medicine ball throws. The reps should be kept at 3-5 on this day for a total of 5-8 sets.
One mistake most people make when trying to improve their pushups is that they do the exact same type of pushups every single time. You need to add some variety to your push-ups, which can include: Hindu push-ups, Dive Bomber push-ups, Spider Man push-ups, Medicine Ball push-ups, Clap push-ups, Decline push-ups, Stability Ball push-ups, Prison push-ups, Scorpion push-ups, and more. Don’t get stuck doing only the most basic form of push-ups or you will burn out sooner than later and be more likely to develop over use injuries.
