This article is a transcribed edited summary of a video Bob and Brad recorded in June of 2024. For the original video go to https://youtu.be/ZeuxTYGv0g4
Mike: We recently released a video on how to do a pull-up for beginners or older adults, and we thought it'd be a good idea to make one on how to do a pushup if you haven't done them before.
Brad: So, if you want to do push-ups and never could, or you have wrist or shoulder pain and it limits you from doing push-ups, this will help.
Mike: So we're going to go through a three-step routine to do real push-ups, and hopefully, this progression will keep you motivated to keep doing them.
Brad: That's right. The goal is to do 10 quality push-ups with good posture, and no pain. They're going to be the way they should be done. Alright, we're going to go through some of the mechanics, the posture so that you can do pushups without the pain starting on the wall. Mike, go ahead.
Mike: So, you want to be a few feet away from the wall. The further you are the more challenging it may become. Also, you don't want to have your hands out too wide, this is going to be problematic on your shoulders. Pick an angle closer to your body. You can go right next to your body with your elbows, or if you're slightly out at a 45-degree angle, whatever is more comfortable for you. Also, you want to make sure you try to have a straight back while doing this. Obviously, as I get close to the wall my nose is going to touch it so my head might move back a little bit. You just don't want to have a weak trunk with an exaggerated spine, because this isn't doing very much.
Brad: That's right. So I want to emphasize, don't let your elbows go out. We do not want to have that stress on our shoulders and create pain. Alright, let's go to the next step. Now, if you've done this and you're doing your push-ups at the wall, and you can do 10 but it's difficult, or you're unable to do 10 and you're a beginner, then you're going to continue to do your push-ups on the wall. When you get to 10 easily, then you can go to the next step. If this is really easy and option two is easy, then you're going to go to the final push-ups on the ground, the GI push-up. Mike, do you want to show step number two and the progression?
Mike: All right, so at home you could do this on a countertop, preferably not on your mattress because it's probably too soft and your arms might fall off of it. So, what you want to do is, again, get in a plank-like position. Do not have too rounded of a spine or too duped in like this.
Mike: Have a nice straight core. Then you're going to go down, hold for a second, and come back up. You don't want to just push around like this and fly around your push-ups, just go nice, slow, and controlled. Try to do 10 of them. Again, your foot position may change how easy or hard it is. The closer I am, the easier it is. The further out I am the harder it becomes. Again, watch your elbow position. Nice straight core. Make sure to breathe while you're doing this.
Brad: Yes, the breathing is critical that you don't tense up. Tighten the core. Personally, when I do them, I like to have my head up looking straight ahead. I'll show you on the ground. And whatever you do you do not want to let your head droop.
Mike: That puts your head right into the countertop, that won't feel very good.
Brad: You can cause a traumatic brain injury or a neck strain at the very least. So, if you can do 10 of these, you're ready to go to the next step. We'll go to it shortly. All right, now the GI push-up, which is what I call them, is on the floor. Now the first step is you're going to do them on your knees. You can skip this step if you'd like, but what you're going to do, and really focus on your posture, it's a good idea to have another person observe you because it's easy to get your butt too high like this, and do them like that, or like Mike demonstrated before, arched back and doing this, or your head sagged down.
Brad: You should be straight. And then hands in the same position as before. Tighten the stomach muscles, and do your pushups nice and straight. I like looking head up, as I mentioned.
Brad: Now, if you're on your knees, it really is helpful, at least for me, to use a cushion, a pillow, something to help your knees, particularly on a hard floor. Now, if you're fine with that you can do 10 easy. We're going to go to the standard GI push-up. And here we go. We want to get straight, not arched. And start doing them, and do them slowly. Make sure you breathe, I like to breathe in on the way down and exhale on the way out. Full extension.
Brad: Avoid doing this, where you just kind of do a little baby push-up that's only a partial range of motion. Down and up.
Brad: Now when I go down, I go down until I almost touch the floor with my chin, and I come back up. Mike, do you want to demonstrate, any tips that you do? Because you do more pushups than I do, I think.
Mike: So, just get in your normal position, and go with what shoulder width is comfortable for you. The wider you are the more challenging or strain it might put on it. If you feel comfortable that way because you have some sort of injury it's perfectly fine. But, again, go down. I kind of look up sometimes a little bit so I don't put my face into the ground. But, yes, hold down like Brad was saying. You know, when you see the people going through very fast, it's more the military that has to do 100 pushups because they get yelled at. So go nice, slow, and controlled and back up. Now, if you have some injuries of sorts, whether it's shoulder pain or maybe wrist pain, we're going to show some options here.
Brad: There you go. Now, something that directly affects me is wrist pain when I do pushups. So I take these, they're called perfect push-up devices. And it keeps your wrist in a neutral position. It also increases your grip strength a little bit as well so it gets two birds with one stone so to speak. There is a way, if you don't want to buy these, but you happen to have some dumbbells, these can work as well. You have to have dumbbells that have a wide enough diameter so you can hold on to them. I'm only doing it with one so I can show you what it is. This one is a little bit too small for me. I could do it, but my knuckles are getting squished a little bit, not too bad. On the carpet, it would probably be okay. So if you have a dumbbell with a wider diameter you can use these instead of the push-up devices.
Brad: The big advantage to the push-up devices is they actually rotate which can take stress off your wrist, as well as your shoulders.
Mike: Now they also sell just basic push-up handles that don't rotate, and if that's comfortable for you that's fine. They're typically less expensive than these ones. I have a pair like these at home. I like them because you can actually get a little bit deeper into it if you have that range of motion. If you don't have the range of motion, you have pain, just go to what's comfortable for you, and then come back up. That's perfectly acceptable, but I know a lot of people have had wrist injuries, or they're older and have arthritis, so this is a good option.
Brad: That's right. One more little trick that I like to do, if you're doing these, and you're having a hard time getting to 10, what you can do is take a soft squishy ball if you have one lying around, or otherwise go take one from the kids, or the neighbor kids at the park. Put that right there. The bigger the ball, the easier it is. If you have a smaller ball you can progress to that. This is optional, but I like it because of one thing, it gives you a target for going down. You're not going as far but you're not ready for that yet, so that's a good idea. And you can actually kind of use it as a little push-off to get you back up, because this is the hardest part of the push-up at this point, taking the momentum, and changing it from going down to back up. This can give that little bounce to make that quite a bit easier. And there you go.
Brad: When that's too easy use a smaller ball. Oh yeah, that's definitely a little harder, but it gives you a little target so you don't have to go down and touch your chin on the floor. And it's very consistent. Works well.
Brad: I hope we gave you some good advice on how to progress to doing push-ups. You should be able to get to 10 hopefully within a couple of weeks if you're a beginner. Otherwise, keep working at it, you'll get stronger. Keep the shoulders, the wrists, and all those arthritic pains under control so they don't get flared up. And we also have another video, what is that for, Mike?
Mike: If you're still having shoulder pain with your push-ups, maybe you need to do some other exercises, so you can check out our video "Why & How "Hanging" STOPS Shoulder Pain & Surgery." It's how hanging from a pull-up bar can actually stop your shoulder pain.
Brad: That's right. Actually it's a very good one by a surgeon who wrote a book about the whole situation, and it works well. My brother was just looking at it.
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