Common Mistakes! — Push-Ups

Continuing from last week’s blog post on how to do a proper push-up, this week’s blog is addressing the common mistakes that people make while doing push-ups.  Keep your eye open for them – now you have the knowledge to do them better!

1. Rotated Hand Position: Placing your hands on the ground incorrectly causes undue strain on the wrists and puts the elbow in an unstable position.

• Solution: Hands should be straight but slightly bent in elbows (even at the top position), fingers pointing straight ahead.

2. POOR HEAD POSITION: A lot of people unintentionally or (intentionally) reach down with their head. This puts their neck in a strained position.

• Solution: Try to imagine a tennis ball space between your chin and upper chest(or you can hold a real one), which will align your spine and relieve pressure from your neck muscles.

3. You’re holding your breath: This one is obvious, but quite often the most overlooked. You won’t be able to do many when you run out of oxygen.

• Solution: Just breathe normally. We like to exhale on the way up and inhale on the way down.

4. Improper elbow position: Lots of people place their hands too far forward, so their elbows flare out to a 90º angle related to their torso, which puts a lot of strain on the shoulder joints.

• Solution: Position your hands so they run across your chest and not your shoulders. When lowering, the angle of your elbows relative to your torso should be roughly around 45º.

5. Your butt sticks up: Push-ups are a great ab exercise, but a raised butt means that you’re not engaging your core.

• Solution: Engage your gluteus muscles (butt) by squeezing the cheeks together. This will help lower your butt and extend your hip down so your knee (for knee push-ups) and shoulder forms a straight line.

6. Your back looks more like a hammock: Your body should form a straight line from your shoulders to your heels but you’ve hyper-extended your trunk and have not engaged your core.

• Solution: Raise your low back, and flex your abs, until your lower back is neutral, then maintain that posture throughout the movement.

Q&A

Q: I can’t come back up when I reach the bottom – how do do the push-ups then?

A: It’s possible that your current strength level cannot support your bodyweight. You can train up  your push-ups by doing ‘half-push-ups’ or ‘half-knee-push-ups’. By going down only halfway, you can gradually improve your push-up strength until you can go lower and lower. Be sure to keep pushing your limits as you won’t get stronger if you don’t extend beyond your boundaries.

Q: What other exercises can I do to supplement?

A: Try wide-grip push-ups, and do some dips to improve your strength in your chest & triceps.

 Diagrams taken from Bodyweight Strength Training Anatomy