The Noble Push Up

The push up. Quite possibly the first ‘proper exercise’ many of us experienced at primary school, after school sports, or if we thought it was the way we could transform ourselves into Batman. The push up (or ‘press up’ for our US friends) is so ingrained in our cultural psyche as a part of ‘physical preparation’ that it appears in training montages from Rocky, to Tim Burton’s Batman, to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, through Rocky again, Christopher Nolan’s Batman and most TV shows where the protagonist has to be shown to ‘get serious’ to face the coming challenge.

Here are a few simple points on training the push up.

1. No push ups on knees!

• It’s very difficult to ensure correct alignment of the shoulders, hips and knees – even harder than doing the correct starting position for full push ups.
• Which leads us to the issue that the poor alignment makes it harder to engage the core muscles to their full potential.
• That leads us to the fact that if you only ever do push ups on your knees with poor alignment, you’ll most likely only ever be able to do push ups on your knees with poor alignment. Just say no!
• If it takes time to learn the correct ‘girl push up’ posture, why not just spend that time learning to do ‘proper’ push ups (and reap the rewards!).

2. No one cares how many push ups you can do poorly

• Correct technique can make exercises ‘harder’ but this is one of the instances where harder is better.
• Poor technique, over time, will be punished by injury. This isn’t a threat, but your body can only take the abuse for so long before it will let you know you’re doing it wrong the hard way.
• When technique breaks/fails, that’s an indicator that it’s time for something else.

3. Developing strength is its own reward

• Great strength equals a greater metabolic cost. In English this means you’ll consume more calories. So if you follow a sensible food plan you’ll be leaner, fitter, faster, sexier and smarter (ok, I’m maybe exaggerating on one or two of those).
• The core strength required for a true push up may help prevent sore backs (a lot of back pain issues come down to a lack of core strength/stability).

4. Anywhere, anytime

• No barbell means no deadlifts, squats or presses.
• No kettlebell means no swings, Turkish get ups or snatches.
• It is very rare where you will not have access to a floor and some gravity (International Space Station or a Toilet Attendant may be the only exceptions)

5. It’s ‘functional/tactical/sports specific’

• Most people, at some point, have to get off of the ground… how is that not ‘functional’?

6. Variable intensity

• Generally exercises in which you can only perform a few reps would be strength training. High reps would be for endurance training. The push up can be easily scaled to the individual’s requirement e.g incline push ups, clapping push ups, one armed push ups, handstand whilst supporting a child on each foot push ups, etc.

If you can’t perform regular push ups well or at all, there are a variety of exercises at our disposal to get you there.