first off i'm sorry if this has been covered in your faq's i looked as much as i could but couldn't seem to find the answer. i just need some advice on how to increase the number of push ups i can do. I'm getting better at all the other painful things (situps, squats etc) but seem to be struggling with the press ups. I tend to do them girlie style (on my knees not my toes) mainly because i can't do them on my toes and because occasionly one of our visiting sensis makes me (i'm a girl it puts pressure on the lower abdoman or something.. i don't really believe that but i just smile and say yes sensi!) I was wondering would it be a good idea just to keep practising my push ups and hope i can start to beable to do more or to start a weights program to help me beable to do more? I don't really want beefy arms i just don't want to be the only one in my class who keep up with the push up excerises. :cry: :cry: any advice would be welcome thank you!
Just keep doing it - make sure you're doing a full press-up and not stopping short. I had the same problem when i started, then I realised that I wasn't lowereing to the ground far enough - harder at frist but it soon improved drastically. Do you put your knees down straight from the normal press-up position, or go straight to you knees? If you're not keeping your back straight it will reduce the effectiveness of the press-up (or so I'm told - probably more informed people here than me), so we always tell beginners to go to the normal position then drop the knees to keep the right posture.
i keep my back straight and do the start of in the normal position then drop to my knees. think the answer is just do more and go down lower. *sigh* no magic potion thank you
Im a guy, but i used to not be able to do pushups at all. I started doing them on my knees until i got good and den done them on my toes, even if i could only do 1! i alos started doing bech pressing which helped alot! Just stick with it and keep tryin!
Don't get caught in the trap of sacraficing your form to get more repetitions. It's very easy to cheat on push ups. Keep your back straight and go down at least half way. Oh, and even when you keep your back straight your tail bone can still be bent... this puts alot of pressure on it so straighten up. You won't get big pipes on you from a regular bodyweight push up exercise. If you want proof just look at a gymnist. Oh, and I've never heard of push ups being "hard" on a womens abdomen... seems like a bunch of bullshido to me!
I don't know if you have access to a bench, but something interesting- benching will help increase the amount of push ups you can do, but push ups will not increase the amount of weight you can bench.
push-ups ahh push ups i know how you feel just stick with it and keep em up ok try curling a dumbell that you can curl 10 times and then doin pushups 10 pushups then curl again pushups curl pushups curl, I know at first it will be hard but trust me itll get better by doin this you strenghthin the muscles used in the pushup form by tiring them also you wont build beefy muscles but long endurance fit muscles which is what we want just keep training good luck
Sorry, just have to chip in on this one...I'm -pretty- sure that that's simply not true. Bicep exercises should have virtually no effect on your ability to do push-ups, which concentrate primarily on the pectorals and triceps. That's not to say the bicep curls are necessarily a bad idea (although most people would recommend chin-ups or assisted chin-ups as a superior alternatives), but just that any gains from this method won't be from the bicep curls. ^_^ Take care, Stalks
By doing the curls, pushups etc, you are effectively increasing strength in the biceps and endurance in the triceps. So you'll end up like one of the gym freaks who goes to the gym to do curls - Big biceps and small triceps.
Well...true. Although I think for this exact case, it's not really an issue just yet. If the push-ups are still at the low-rep stage, and the bicep curls are unlikely to be that demanding either, I don't think it would develop a huge imabalance for now. But...since we're effectively agreeing anyway, I'm not going to ramble on any more. In short, do a lot of push-ups with good form, and you'll improve remarkably quickly. Honest. ^_^ Another alternative that I've tried that works quite well is to break the press-ups down into different muscle groups. i.e. 1. Diamond Push-ups (Triceps) - Place your thumb and index fingers of both hands together to form a kind of diamond shape. Then try and do push-ups like that. Getting to be able to touch your chest to the floor like this will be hard, but this is a good way of focusing on the triceps. 2. Wide-grip Push-ups (Pectorals) - Move your hands out beyond shoulder width, to perhaps slightly over one and a half times your shoulder width. Push-ups here focus on the pectorals and tend to be slightly easier overall. 3. Normal Push-ups (Triceps & Pectorals) - Normal push-ups, arms placed at shoulder-width. A circuit of these three has worked pretty reliably for me in increasing my overall press-up ability. Your mileage may vary, but if you find your normal gains slowing with standard push-ups, you might want to change to something like that. Just a suggestion. ^_^ Take care, Stalks
If I may make a small addition, on the Body By Fish website, Scrapper suggests performing the diamond style pushups, but with the hands turned outwards while keeping the thumbs touching, to form a kind of 'W' shape with your hands. This keeps the elbows closer to the body and supposedly works the triceps even more (I say supposedly because I struggle with anything past 15 be they diamond or 'W' style).
