Many of you come into CrossFit RVA unable to do push-ups and pull-ups. Through routine exposure in classes, there’s a good chance you’ve reached the point where you could do these movements unassisted. But, it’s very common for this progress to take a long time, and for some, it seems like the day may never come when you can knock out push-ups and pull-ups with ease.
Let’s change that.
Setting Up
You can’t build on top of a foundation of bad movement. Most noticeably in the push-up, we regularly see extremely sloppy plank positions.
Your push-up should be initiated with a slightly hollowed plank position. Feet together, quads/glutes/abs turned on, and hips neutral or slightly “tucked” under to create a flat lumbar spine.
Solid starting position.
Neck and head should be neutral. Many tend to tuck their chins, and these are also the folks that usually sag their hips and can’t get full range of motion. Look a few inches in front of your hands, arching your neck up isn’t good either.
Sad plank positions. Don’t let this be you.
Place your hands slightly outside the shoulders, so that arms form approx. a 45 degree angle at the bottom of the movement.
Planks
Sets for near-max time, keeping hollow the entire time, is a great way to develop the hollow position. You can work in variations from your hands, elbows, and even outstretched arms (“Superman Planks”), and do these 2-3x/week.
Raised Hands
Start with a 30” box. Set up so that at the bottom of the movement, hands are slightly outside the shoulders, and the box is hitting center of the chest.
Touch the box, and immediately come up. Don’t let your elbows flare out – keep them stacked over your hands.
Correct position for scaled box push-up.
Bands
If you’re somewhere in between a 20” box and the floor, you can try a small band, strung between two low j-cups setup in a rack. Do push-ups over the band, so that you get a little support at the bottom, typically the most challenging part.
Bands for push-up scaling.
Negatives
Set yourself up in your now awesome plank position. Lower yourself as slowly as you can to the bottom of a full range of motion push-up. Keep your hollowed plank position, neutral neck, and good elbow positions. Rinse and repeat. This will build up strength in your push-ups, and good practice remaining tight.
Not so great options
Reducing range of motion: Strength is fairly specific to joint angle. Working limited range of motion won’t readily get you strong through the full movement.
Going to the knees: This may make things easier, but largely, we’re doing so by creating a shorter lever (your body), which isn’t working the trunk musculature like we need it to in order to do a great push-up.
Next Up
Next week, we’ll address some options to keep your pull-ups improving, and very importantly, a simple progression to work these movements in and improve your push-ups AND pull-ups.