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  • What's up, guys?

  • Jeff Cavaliere, ATHLEANX.com.

  • Today we're going to talk about the pushup.

  • One of the most common exercises performed in the gym.

  • However, it's also one of the most commonly mis-performed exercises.

  • I feel that what happens with this exercise is we don't pay it the same attention as

  • we do, say, the bench-press.

  • That's ironic because we're going to cover both exercises side by side, creating a checklist

  • so you can see the commonalities between the two exercises, therefore hopefully better

  • understanding the cues that you're looking to integrate and make sure you follow them

  • when you perform this exercise.

  • So, you make sure you get the most out of it.

  • Are you ready?

  • As I mentioned in the opening, if you're looking at the two exercises, they are very

  • much the same exercise.

  • One is being done with a barbell and one is utilizing your own bodyweight as the resistance.

  • If I were to lift my knees up onto a pair of dumbbells to try and equate the torso positioning

  • here, you can see the mechanics of the 'pushing' portion of the exercise is the same.

  • We want to make sure we're doing the same thing across the board, utilizing the same

  • mechanics and focusing the same attention to get the most out of it.

  • We start at the top here and work our way down.

  • That is with the head and neck.

  • Where do you want your head and neck to be?

  • Well, we don't want them to do this.

  • If you were doing a bench-press you would never try to push your head back into the

  • bench.

  • Although, that is a common flaw.

  • As people try and generate more force away from their body, they do everything they can

  • to produce force from the opposite direction.

  • Often times, pushing with the back of their head.

  • That not only creates neck strain most often, but it's also taking away from the mechanics

  • of the exercise and how to do it properly.

  • What we want to do is make sure, if anything, we keep our chin down and tucked in, so we

  • prevent that from happening.

  • With the pushup it's the same thing.

  • We're not trying to bend our head all the way back or flex our head all the way down

  • toward the ground, sometimes creating the illusion that our eyes and body are getting

  • closer to the ground before it actually does.

  • That's why we do that.

  • What we want to do is keep it in neutral and maintain that position from the very first

  • rep, to the last.

  • The next thing we want to do is look at the shoulders.

  • The most important thing you can do here is un-shrug them.

  • What do I mean?

  • If you look at a bench-press, one of the most common flaws people make is, in an effort

  • to create that tightness or retraction that they hear we should have on the exercise,

  • they pull up into this shrug.

  • That's not what we want.

  • As a matter of fact, we want the exact opposite.

  • We want the shoulders together, but we also want them down.

  • We can do that by consciously un-shrugging the shoulders here.

  • The secondary effect of this is that it's going to put the elbows in a better position

  • as we perform the press.

  • Why?

  • Because as we shrug up the clavicle is going to change its angle, dragging the scapula

  • along with it.

  • As those two go together we know the relationship between it and the shoulder joint itself,

  • you're going to change the mechanics of the shoulder joint.

  • Mostly elevating it inside the socket, creating a higher elbow angle as you go down into the

  • press.

  • We're going to cover that in depth as we get down here.

  • But the most important thing you can do is start by initiating a conscious un-shrugging

  • of the shoulder.

  • It doesn't just apply for the bench-press, obviously.

  • It does the same thing here in the pushup.

  • Before you even descend into a single rep, consciously pull your shoulders down and back.

  • We'll get into the specifics of what you want to do with your scapula next, but the

  • most important thing you could do here, before you do anything else, is un-shrug those shoulders.

  • Moving onto the upper back, the most important thing you could do here is create stability

  • and tightness through here.

  • Why?

  • Because it's what provides the stable base from which you will press off.

  • Whether you're doing a pushup or a bench-press.

  • Let me explain.

  • When people tell you to retract your shoulder blades what they're trying to do is tell

  • you to create tightness there.

  • Why?

  • Because the bar will start and end over this base, if you're doing this exercise properly,

  • and we're going to talk about this more when we talk about bar path later on.

  • The fact is this: you have your most force and power when you can push off something

  • stable.

  • If I were to give you one opportunity to produce your highest vertical jump ever and I give

  • you two chances to do it would you rather do it off sand, or off this hard floor here

  • in the gym?

  • Most likely, if you're smart enough, you'd be choosing the hard floor in this gym because

  • you know you could generate the most force into that floor to push off in the opposite

  • direction.

  • The same thing applies here in both the bench-press and the pushup.

  • You want to make sure you consciously pull your shoulder blades together and make them

  • tight.

  • Create as much tightness as you can right through that shoulder girdle.

  • Realize that's where you're going to be pushing off and generating force in the opposite

  • direction.

  • If you get this right, guys, I promise you, not only will the pushup become easier, but

  • the bench-press will as well.

  • The next part is one that catches some people by surprise.

  • That is activation of the glutes.

  • We know that your body's ability to perform any exercise is infinitely made better if

  • you can involve, not just the upper body, but the lower body as well, where some of

  • the strongest muscles in your body reside.

  • When you're looking at a bench-press you actively want to contract your glutes.

  • This provides additional strength and force in that opposite direction from the ground

  • up.

  • As I push the bar away, I can drive my feet down, creating these equal and opposite force

  • here, to allow me to do that with more efficiency.

  • We can do the same thing here when we do the pushup.

  • I want to make sure that I'm not lazily hanging out in the pushup position, but I'm

  • actively contracting my glutes.

  • The second I do thiswe call this 'plugging the energy leaks'.

  • You create more total body tightness.

  • You create more efficiency from the top down throughout the entire kinetic chain.

  • So, when I do a single rep, I'm not losing it and having the force dissipate from what

  • I'm generating, pushing into the floor throughout the weak spots of my body.

  • Tightening the glutes alone will give you an instant fix, and an instant plug of that

  • common energy leak, allowing you to do this exercise better.

  • An additional benefit to not only getting your upper back tightness and your glute activation

  • in place is that you'll also fix the positioning of your thoracic spine.

  • Why?

  • As we tighten from below and tighten from the top the thoracic spine will follow.

  • We'll get proper extension.

  • We'll give ourselves a chance to allow the chest to get out in front, as opposed to letting

  • the shoulders get out in front.

  • This is an important distinction to make when we're trying to press safely.

  • We know if the shoulders tend to dominate the movement, not only will we have an underdeveloped

  • chest from doing the exercises, but we're also putting ourselves in a position of a

  • likely impingement and damage in that joint over time.

  • By fixing the upper back and by fixing the glutes we're correcting the thoracic spine's

  • positioning as an additional benefit.

  • Up to this point, all the items in our checklist were things you could change or modify before

  • you even did a single repetition.

  • But at some point, we've got to get going.

  • When we do, we need to make sure we focus first and foremost on what's happening here

  • in our elbows.

  • When we perform the bench-press what we do not want to do is allow the elbows to travel

  • high because we know how dangerous that could be for the safety of your shoulders.

  • Especially considering the fact that these are both exercises that you're likely to

  • rack up lots of repetitions on over the course of your training in your lifetime.

  • So, what we want to do is create a little more subacromial space by allowing our elbows

  • to drift downward, about 30 degrees off the horizontal.

  • Beyond that, we know it's further reinforcing what we talked about in the very beginning.

  • That is to decompress those shoulders, to pull those traps down.

  • The third thing we know it does is, we know it allows us to push with more force.

  • If I were to ask you right now to push me away from you, the thing you would probably

  • do is keep your elbows in the position here.

  • It's a natural position for your elbows to generate the most amount of force.

  • You would not try to flare your elbows and push me from here because you just turned

  • a chest, shoulder, and tricep movement into a simple tricep extension movement that doesn't

  • have nearly the same force generation capabilities.

  • You want to make sure you get this right.

  • Again, it carries over here to the pushup as well.

  • You don't allow your elbows to drift all the way up here.

  • The same things that were problematic for your shoulder in the bench-press would be

  • problematic here as well.

  • Just because you're not using the same amount of weight doesn't mean it's still not

  • biomechanically bad for your shoulders.

  • So, get those elbows tucked down and focus on maintaining this position from the first

  • rep to the last, to not only keep those shoulders safe, but to get much more out of the exercise.

  • Whether you're doing the bench-press or the pushup.

  • So, we talked about the proper performance of the bench-press, we talk about the bar

  • path being critical to that because we want an efficient movement pattern here.

  • We can generate that by having a straight bar path.

  • But straight doesn't necessarily mean straight up and down.

  • It means straight at an angle.

  • We go from that position of power that we talked about up here with the upper back.

  • From this position of stability, it travels down because we know the elbows are taking

  • us in that direction to align lower across your chest.

  • From there we want to get back to that position of stability.

  • We know if we press straight out from there, we're going to create much more strain and

  • stress on the front delt than we want.

  • We want to get it back to that position of stability, which is straight up over our shoulder

  • blades, and up over that stable base.

  • So, the bar path is going to be angled.

  • So how do we do this on a pushup?

  • Well, we can't move a bar in space like we can on a bench-press.

  • But what we can do is manipulate our body in space.

  • So, as I go down into a rep, I want to allow my body to drift a little bit forward into

  • my hands, so my hands are lined up along that lower chest line at the bottom of the repetition.

  • From here, as I press up, I simply allow my body to drift back just a little bit, so my

  • hands come back up to a position like they started, above that stable base of my shoulder

  • blades.

  • There's a slight rocking component to this.

  • It's very, very subtle, but very important to make sure you're maintaining those same

  • mechanics.

  • Nothing changes between the bench-press and the pushup.

  • You still want to have that same path, whether it be with a bar or your body, if you want

  • to maintain efficiency, and you want the greatest power output.

  • Lastly, guys, one of the things that drives me crazy about any exercise is when people

  • bastardize the form in an effort to just perform the exercise.

  • It's more important to do it right.

  • So, we don't want to bounce any bar off our chest just to lift more weight.

  • What we want to do is convince ourselves that it was our muscles that did the work and not

  • the momentum.

  • So, when you get down to the bottom of a bench-press, pause.

  • Hold the bar against your chest for a split second and then push back from there.

  • There's not difference with a pushup either.

  • Guys, there's nothing stopping you from turning this pushup into a much more difficult

  • version of a pushup by weighting is.

  • The fact of the matter is, everything would still stay the same.

  • When I get to the bottom, I want that brief pause because I want to know when I initiate

  • the descent from that pushup, I'm doing it with the work of my muscles, and not simply

  • bouncing off the ground, or bouncing the bar off my chest.

  • There you have it, guys.

  • A complete checklist to make sure you're not only getting the pushup right, but you're

  • also seeing the correlation between it and the bench-press, so you can get all of them

  • right.

  • Guys, the mechanics of every exercise you do are important.

  • The details matter.

  • If you're looking for a program that puts the science back in strength, that realizes

  • everything you do in the gym matters, and you need to pay attention to it; head over

  • to ATHLEANX.com and get one of our ATHLEANX programs.

  • In the meantime, if you've found the video helpful leave your comments and thumbs up

  • below.

  • Let me know what else you want me to cover and I'll do my best to do that for you in

  • the days and weeks ahead.

  • And finally, guys, if you haven't already done so, please subscribe and turn on your

  • notifications so you never miss a video when we do it.

  • All right, guys, I'll see you soon.

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