push up beginner

gagomes

I am beginner who wants to do push ups, though have been doing fitness for a few months now, but nowhere near being able to push up my body yet. I'm 6'8 and slightly overweight, I haven't been able to do a push up properly since ever. I was wondering what would be the best workout exercises to build up the necessary muscles in order to be able to start doing push ups? I'm guessing once I can do 2-3, the push ups become the work out itself, but right now I can't do a single one.

The_Honeybadger

Do kneeling push-ups or stair push ups until you have the strength to do a full one. I used an app at one stage that was very good, it took you from 0 to 5 x 20 over 10 weeks. It kept me progressing steadily but it did get very hard towards the end.

LincolnHawk

Start with negatives

Can you do kneeling pushups halfway. Start there and do a few following some progression plan. Ie do them for a couple weeks or whatever until you could do 10-20. Move on to kneeling chest to floor ones. Then when you've got on top of those, full pushups half depth, then finally full ones.

Tenigate

Hi op. Googled it for you, because I heard before you shouldn't do kneeling pushups. Do an elevated pushup with your hands on a bench.

https://breakingmuscle.com/fitness/why-knee-push-ups-wont-make-you-any-stronger

Im not saying the kneeling pushup isn't popular or effective.. rather it may be easier to go from elevated to a full pushup, than from kneeling to full. Also, you're a tall guy and a kneeling pushup could put pressure on your back. Yea.. another "expert" opinion being passed on. But there might be some truth in it.

A good option is to get a trainer to show you. I thought i was doing great pushups til i went to a personal trainer and he noticed my elbows were sticking out too much, which was a wasted effort and stopping me from targeting my chest, instead putting pressure on shoulders and elbows.

And, edit: another site criticised incline pushups. So really, do what works for you. Personally, half-depth pushups aren't a bad shout. At least thats what i do in classes when im too wrecked for a full one

Mellor

Tenigate wrote: »

Hi op. Googled it for you, because I heard before you shouldn't do kneeling pushups. Do an elevated pushup with your hands on a bench.

https://breakingmuscle.com/fitness/why-knee-push-ups-wont-make-you-any-stronger

That's not a great critic of the movement imo. True, there's less activation in hip stablisers. But that pesky mean than none of the muscles involved will get stonger, especially the actually target muscles.
It's really easy to counter the missing midline stability by doing them alonesude planks.
The example pic of the kneeling push up is awful. There's no way that who just did a solid push-up can't do it properly.

Don't get me wrong, they aren't perfect and they're are better options. But saying they won't make you any stronger is complete hyperbole.

freemenfitness

I agree with Mellor said raised pushups will help but what I have used and tends to be the most effective is build up to doing these.

Start in a plank (top of the push up) - lower down slowly - let your knees come down - do a kneeling push up - raise the knees off the floor back into the plank and repeat.

However, a lot of people focus too much on the push and not on the stability lifting a pole is a lot easier than a bag of sand.

A good tutorial and breakdown of the push up is here.

https://gmb.io/push-up/

gagomes

Excellent tips guys. I have decided to set myself the challenge of trying at least 3 times a day (the days I'm not working out in the gym) to do a negative push up.

I also started bench pressing yesterday immediately after making this post. I'll try to mix kneeling, lifted/stairs pushups (tried em in the past, but I seem to recall when overdoing it, it would give me some pain akin of tendonitis, which would put me off of doing it for a while)

I guess I may need to find a good set of warm ups as well.

freemenfitness

Dont do them so regularly at least not at the start stick to 3-4 sessions a week spread out and then after a few weeks when you are used to it then you can ramp it up if you have a history of tendonitis you want to avoid it flaring up and most of all best of luck and keep us posted.

LincolnHawk

I assumed you didn't have access to a bench press.
Get your bench up and the press ups will follow no bother

gagomes

LincolnHawk wrote: »

I assumed you didn't have access to a bench press.
Get your bench up and the press ups will follow no bother

Right now my bench is just the barbell. I'm going to increase it by 10kg next visit (tomorrow morning, possibly) adding 5kg to each side and then take it from there. I was doing some research on push ups and it appears, for a normal, well done push up, you're lifting 70% of your bodyweight. That's 95 kg for myself. The barbell is 20kg. It will be a while, I guess.

LincolnHawk

Those figures don't add up to me but who knows.
Just keep working hard anyway. You'll have that strict push up before the year is out anyway

Tenigate

gagomes wrote: »

I was doing some research on push ups and it appears, for a normal, well done push up, you're lifting 70% of your bodyweight. That's 95 kg for myself. The barbell is 20kg. It will be a while, I guess.

It's not the same.

Mellor

LincolnHawk wrote: »

Those figures don't add up to me but who knows.

Which figures don't add up? The 70%?
I t would depend on body shape but I'd guess it'd be around there.

I got into push up position and put my hands on my scale. Weight showing was about 68-70%.

Very scientific approach:p

LincolnHawk

Mellor wrote: »

Which figures don't add up? The 70%?
I t would depend on body shape but I'd guess it'd be around there.

I don't think he will need a 95kg bench press to do a single push up
...but sure we'll see

freemenfitness

You can have a great bench which will help with your push but the push in a bench is different to a good push up and you are not working on your core stability either. It will help for sure but BW exercises are not the same as weighted.

Mellor

LincolnHawk wrote: »

I don't think he will need a 95kg bench press to do a single push up
...but sure we'll see

He's 6'8" tall and presumably about 136kg. He'll need a significantly higher bench compared to an average sized man.
Relatively speaking, 95kg is not a high target.

freemenfitness wrote: »

You can have a great bench which will help with your push but the push in a bench is different to a good push up and you are not working on your core stability either. It will help for sure but BW exercises are not the same as weighted.

You should be firing your core in bench press also. Some people might do them badly and lift arms only of course, but that applies to badly done press ups too I guess.
They aren't indentical movements obviously. But they have more similarities than dissimilarities imo.

gagomes

Mellor wrote: »

He's 6'8" tall and presumably about 136kg. He'll need a significantly higher bench compared to an average sized man.
Relatively speaking, 95kg is not a high target.

You got it @mellor