The Problem With Some Push-ups

The push-up, along with a pull-up, in my opinion, is one of the most beneficial upper body movements one can do. The combination of upper body and core muscles this movement hits in one shot is hard to top.

A push-up should be a staple in any serious exercise routine for men and women.

However, to get the full benefit of it, you really need to do a full range of motion. The problem I see with a lot of push-ups, and this is mostly done by men, is that they sacrifice a full range of motion in order to crank out more reps, or to finish more quickly.

Specifically, when one does a regular push-up, they should lower their chest almost to the ground, but not actually touch the ground, then push themselves all the way back up. I see too many men doing short, choppy push-ups, barely pushing themselves back up at all. These are called 'pulses' and they have their place in certain routines, but a pulse is more of a vibration. A full, regular push-up is with the full range of motion, and it should be done this way to get the full benefit. One should be pushing up at least until their tricep muscle (the "horseshoe muscle") is fully flexed.

I've seen several push-up "contests", where the object is to crank out as many push-ups as one can in a certain amount of time, and the push-ups in these contests are often done as pulses, ie-the guy is not pushing himself all the way back up. I've always had a slight problem with these contests because the guy is not doing a full push-up. He's more or less vibrating, and barely going back up at all. You can spot these push-ups because they become hard to count or keep track of, because they blend into each other and the range of motion is so small.

One should be pushing themselves up almost all the way into a hand plank position. If you want to test this for yourself, your eye level in the 'down' position should be pretty different than your eye level in the 'up' position. If you find your eye level is not moving so much, or only inches, you need to push back up further.

You will get more bang for your buck doing it the proper way. And your "rep count" may suffer, but so what? It's better to do a less, full reps the correct way, then crank out more "pulse" reps the "almost correct way".

Once I see a contest where the range of motion is full, I will take that contest a little more seriously.:-)

But more importantly, fixing your form will be more beneficial to your fitness goals. And this really should be what it's all about.