By Tim Rigby, M.A., NSCA-CPT
How many push-ups can you perform in a row – 10? 15? 20?What would you say to INSTANTLY adding 5 (yes, FIVE) more push-ups to your maximum set, without even intensifying your effort? It’s remarkably simple! Break away from the roughly 90% of people who perform this exercise incorrectly. Just use 3 simple technique tweaks to correct your current push-up into the highly sought-after POWER POSITION. Let’s go!
1. LOWER YOUR HANDS
We often see individuals place their hands on the floor in the same plane as their collarbone, thinking the straight line across is an advantage – it isn’t. Lower your hands to the plane of your lower pecs. After all, you don’t bench press with the bar in line with your collarbone, do you? Of course not.
2. KEEP YOUR ELBOWS ABOVE YOUR WRISTS
Another extremely common flaw is people tend to flare their elbows outward, which puts a lot of undue strain on them and will cause you to run out of strength sooner than you should. Keep your elbows closer to your torso, and if you can sustain a straight line with your wrists, you’ll be in a great power position.
3. SWIVEL YOUR HANDS OUTWARD
Once again, the vast majority of people perform push-ups with their hands rotated internally (the right hand to the left of square; the left hand to the right of square). Bad move! Keep your hands at the very least in a square position. Better still, swivel them outward to line up beautifully from a biomechanical point of view.
Give these three tips a try today – they’re so easy, it’s cray cray!
And like everything you read here on fitdeals.ca, what you’ll get are GAINS ALL DAY.
