How to do push-ups?

Hi there, 

Do you want to know how to do perfect push-ups to build up your pectoral muscles and avoid injury? You've come to the right place, you'll manage to perform it like a real pro at the end of this article! 🔥

Push-ups, a symbolic, even universal exercise. Everyone knows what they are, but the execution often leaves something to be desired.

In this article, we'll take a look at this famous pump and give you the best recipe for it. We'll look at different ways of simplifying or complicating this muscle-building exercise. 

The importance of warming up your muscles!

The only real critical point is probably the wrists. Don't hesitate to warm them up sufficiently beforehand, for example with some mobility movements on the floor and a few windmills . You can do the same for your shoulders.

Now here's how the perfect floor pump works, in detail and in pictures :

How to do push-ups? Perfect positioning.

Let's start with the most important part, the initial positioning:

 

First of all, you'll need to position your hand at shoulder width or just slightly wider. Since you're going to push with your palm and fingers, you want your shoulders directly over the center of your hand, where you're going to put the weight, which means not having your arms perpendicular to the ground, but leaning slightly forward. 

Then, very important, the shoulders in which we do not want to fall, on the contrary, we will want to push them forward as much as possible, then down.

You can also turn your arms so that the inside of your elbows face forward, and you can stretch them 99%.

The rest of the body is just as important. Specifically, it needs to be straight and contracted from the shoulders to the heels. To achieve this, you need a retro version of the pelvis, which will prevent the lower back from digging in or falling out.

This will also help you voluntarily contract your abs and glutes. All that's left are your legs, which you'll need to squeeze, tighten and contract, while standing firmly on tiptoe.

And voilà, you'll find yourself in a solid sheathing position, with almost every muscle in your body engaged, ready to string your push-ups together and nail them.

How to do push-ups? The perfect execution

Go down until your pectoral muscles lightly touch the floor, then climb back up until your arms are almost fully extended.

Use your muscles to maintain control for 100% of each repetition, don't let yourself fall. At the top of the movement, the upper back should form an arc, as the shoulder blades are pushed outwards.

On the downstroke, on the other hand, they will come together in the middle of the back, before returning to their respective sides again. This is more important than it sounds, and helps to avoid the common mistake of constantly having a hollowed upper back.

As for the rest of the body, nothing changes: it must remain straight from start to finish, like a bar that can neither bend nor break. So, pay attention to the hips. The head remains neutral.

Last but not least: As with any exercise, you need to breathe in on the way down and exhale on the way up. ascent.

Here are some exercise variations if push-ups are still too difficult: 

 Inclined pumps

Inclined push-ups are a great way to get your first taste of push-ups. You'll find the perfect height for your level. The higher the support, the easier the exercise.

Another very effective and useful method is to do negative push-ups . Concentrate on slowing down on the way down, maintaining a good body position, before coming back up as best you can.

This is a great way to learn any exercise in general.

Negative pumps

Finally, you can also do push-ups on the knees, but in this case, be very careful, because there's too often a tendency to bend at the hips when you're starting out, whereas the important points of execution should be the same as for the normal push-up.  

Pump on the knees

Now, when the classic pump becomes too easy for you, if you want to continue gaining strength and muscle as well as endurance, you're going to have to make the exercise more complicated.

There are a number of ways to do this: simply play with the inclination, this time by raising your feet, but make sure that your shoulders aren't the only ones working!

What's more, you can do deeper and deeper push-ups using parallel bars or much more unstable ones like on gym rings. 

Finally, you can aim for the one-arm version, making the pump increasingly one-sided.

Single arm pump

 

Avoid injury: get the right equipment!

Push-ups tend to be painful for the wrists. An excellent way to preserve them is to perform them on push-up handles:

If you liked this article and now know how to do push-ups, don't hesitate to share it or comment.

You'll also find a video on the subject: right here. 

To equip yourself, you'll find everything you need in our store 💪

In the meantime, work well and take care of yourself!

See you soon,

Eric Flag