Improve Push Up Form with 3 Simple Techniques!

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Want to improve your push ups? This video teaches proper push up form using three techniques: proper tempo, proper arm positioning and correct body alignment.
There are 3 big mistakes I see a lot of people making when doing pushups. First, they like to rep out push ups too fast. This doesn't help build strength or muscle mass. Second, a lot of folks tend to flare the elbows way out to the sides, which is suboptimal for performance and can lead to injury. And third, they sag at the hips.
All three of these mistakes can easily be corrected and the video explains exactly how to do that. Proper push up from mainly comes from body alignment and that's explained in detail, but arm positioning and tempo are critical too.
This video not only explains how to correct your push up form, but also includes a full tutorial of push up progressions for the complete beginner. Starting with push ups against the wall, then down to incline push ups of varying heights, and finally to the floor.
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[@draunt7]

1:04 : He just remembered there's a sale at the supermaket.

[@pratyushraj2441]

Oh the reference lmao

[@martindoyle5505]

Thank you . This is exactly the kind of channel I needed. My nearest gym is an hour drive and I'm not interested in spending two hours in a car plus whatever time in the gym. This gets me out of the blocks in my own home.

[@terryzuniga2473]

Don't mind the cats. They are just here to make this a certified KZbin video.

[@terryzuniga2473]

omafawkingod... i care🥺

[@jb-lu4vo]

You are one of the few KZbinrs who have correctly explained how to do properly Push Ups and it is a great help for everyone. Thanks for the video and take care.

[@jayadama1301]

Push ups we love it

[@rayane0104]

Thanks for the advice, I think the only mistake I've been making was letting momentum carry me. I'll try to do my best to improve that now. Have a nice day!

[@wlovett4]

Great presentation. Clear, well organized and easily understood. Kudos.

[@lando_calrizzian47]

This was really helpful. Thanks!

[@abelpalafax9730]

Great video bro 😎 helping me out alot n getting back into shape .

[@tarabeeeeee]

Very helpful! I’m totally struggling with my push-ups and I’m going to try this.

[@MinusTheGym]

Awesome! Thanks for the feedback, Tierra. Definitely focus on the progressions to gradually make your way down to the floor. You'll be doing perfect push ups in no time.

[@sampetrino]

Very usefull video.

[@TurtlesCanBeFun]

Thanks!

[@frankhuey1725]

Very informative, protect those soldiers

[@shamanbeartwo3819]

Thank you!! I can't even knock off two pushups anymore because of the left shoulder. But I keep wondering every time I get on the floor if my hands are even in the right place to begin with let alone the elbows. Thanks for covering that. And even I can handle those wall pushups so I no longer have any excuses, do I? :)) I started doing those two squat exercises you showed in another video and while I can't get down to anything worthy of adding weights, my balance has gotten much better. Every time I go make a cup of coffee and I'm waiting for it to warm up, its time for those exercises. And where I couldn't hardly touch my toes a month ago, now this old guy is just about able to put my fists on the floor every time. Still have tight days but the toes are easy. Great site.

[@Vsauce00]

I'm new to your content but I'm loving it and did already watch many other videos and subscribed. I thought that I was able to do 50 straight continuous but did never take these possible mistakes into consideration. I think it's time to rerevisit my push up form, I'm going to record my self to evaluate it. I've been trying to do a harder variation of it, the typewriter push up, but my shoulders hurt a bit. I have another problem which is I start shaking even if I'm comfortable with the exercise. Any advice? And thanks for the good content man.

[@manzoorelahi3846]

Subscribed 👍

[@user-zo7ww2mh2e]

nice

[@joseliz8762]

Hi, Are you able to do a video detailing the many different ways to do assisted workouts. For example, push-ups are a type of exercise that i struggle with. What are some assisted way for me to do them? The same for sit-ups and other exercises. Im starting my calisthenics journey and fortunately, i was able to find your channel and get great guidance. thanks for sharing your content.

[@MinusTheGym]

Jose Liz thanks for the video idea! I added it to the list. Glad you're finding my channel useful :)

[@MariusOiaga]

Hey, great video man! Just out of curiosity, during a push up your shoulders should be protracted or retracted, and why? Thank you in advance for your response!

[@1L2R]

what's your opinion of modified push ups on your knees ?

[@lukeh21]

Hi when reaching the bottom do you pull your shoulders back as much as possible?

[@cooperj7604]

How much should shoulder blades retract while going down? On calimoves and other guides they show full retraction which I have difficulty with. It seems my shoulder blades retract about as much as yours maybe slightly less but I don't know if I should restart my progression to include full retraction but it makes it very hard to maintain ab engagement for me

[@IIbg21]

I see that hip mistake a lot and i always say “push the earth don’t fuck it”

[@MinusTheGym]

king 2999 😂 that's one way to say it!

[@SabzBlackCamelProductions]

Nice flex on the fancy master bathroom

[@TheAlpineShepherdBoy]

Any tips for keeping your elbows tucked into your body? No matter how hard I try, I always feel like my elbows want to flare out and honestly I can't even tell if they are... I can manage to do 10-15 normal push ups in one set but I feel like my only chance to correct this potentially bad form is by going through your push up progressions, starting with the wall push ups and going from there. Is this a good idea? If so, how long should I stick with each type of push up? I don't know but I feel like I am going for some sort of muscle memory to correct my form and if that's the case, I have no idea how long it will take to achieve that. Thanks to anyone who can help me with this issue! p.s. new subscriber here, and very much enjoying the videos thus far!

[@MinusTheGym]

Richard Meyer first off, try recording yourself with your phone camera to see if the elbows are flaring (and if so, how much). if you get the right angle you should be able to tell. If your elbows are 45 degrees or less from your torso, you're in good shape. No need to worry about it much. If your elbows are greater than 45 degrees from your torso? You could wind up risking injury to your shoulder in the future. In that case I'd recommend identifying what's causing it. I can't say for certain because I'm not training you 1-on-1, but in most cases I've seen, the internal rotators are tight. This tightness leads to a natural tendency to want to rotate the arms inwards at the shoulder during pushups, resulting in elbows flaring out. The solution to this is to stretch the chest and shoulder (and thus the internal rotators) but it will be a gradual improvement. Not something that happens overnight. Google various chest/shoulder opening stretches and do them daily. My personal favorite is when you stand in a doorway, raise one arm with a 90-degree bend in the elbow (upper arm is horizontal, forearm is vertical) and place your hand and forearm on the door frame. Lean into it gently til you feel a stretch in your chest, anterior deltoid and possibly neck if you're very tight. Make sure to do both sides 2 or 3 times per evening. You'll see improvement after several weeks of this if it's your internal rotators.

[@TheAlpineShepherdBoy]

@@MinusTheGym Thank you for the response! I'm glad I asked because I feel now like I was just completely blind to some very obvious solutions. I'm going to record myself with my phone and see if I can determine if there actually is a problem or not and I'll go from there. I didn't even consider tightness and that very well could be my issue. I'm going to look into those stretches for sure! Thanks again! You have lifted the veil! at least partially haha

[@tommytulpe1747]

@@TheAlpineShepherdBoy hi, the reason to start with wall push ups and other easy steps for Beginners is to improve the joints and tendons ! A muscle develops very fast in 1 or 2 weeks but the tendons need more time at least 2 or 3 months to adapt to the weight and movement.

[@FringeWizard2]

Here is my advice. Forget about reps. Stop counting them at all. I only do one single push up every day, as slow as possible, and after two months of this (just one rep a day as slow and difficult as possible) I tried testing myself to see how many reps I could do and I was able to bang out tons of reps. You won't get stronger doing 10-15 push ups a day, you'll get way stronger doing 1 push up (once to at most 5 times a day each one spread out a few hours, but usually only I do once or twice) where each push up is as slow as possible. In two months (from October through November) I progressed to one arm push ups doing this lazy ass slow push ups. I ascribe to a philosophy of Wu Wei you can get stronger without wasting energy. I got these ideas originally from reading Hatha Yoga by Wiliam Walker Atkinson (under one his pseudonyms, Yogi Ramacharaka). Try applying his advice for exercise and breathing and see how you get results without even trying. I have too much excess energy in fact that I sometimes do things to intentionally waste it like sprinting in order to try and go to sleep though it seems a hopeless thing to ever tire myself out.

[@FringeWizard2]

Another thing. If you have to take rest days you've overdone it. You need to try to do it where every single morning you wake up stronger and ready to do it again. Physiotherapists recommend you don't exercise so hard that your soreness remains longer than 2 days but I don't think this is as good or efficient as trying to get things right to where you make a full recovery every night and are ready to go again the next day. Sometimes I overdo it and have to avoid working out a certain muscle like one time I did too many very difficult and slow squats and then found myself limping on my right leg the next day but I was okay after that. I should add also though everything depends on your genetics this is just what works for me a Dutch male with rapid-metabolism genes and a couple of injuries and insomnia (I barely sleep).

[@FringeWizard2]

I can do superman push ups but I found this out by accident because I thought one day I'll try going fast but normally every single push up I do is WAY slower than what he does in this video, each one being like 20 seconds long.

[@neversate]

ryan what about push ups with bent knees?

[@MinusTheGym]

Sagnik Chakraborty you can use knee pushups if you want, but I prefer taking my clients through the progressions that are based on angle of leverage. So (1) standing facing the wall, then (2) high incline, (3) low incline and then (4) flat on the floor. This way they're always learning the push-up with their body straight and core, glutes and thighs engaged. Knee pushups can work, but it's not quite the same, so the client may not learn proper core engagement from knee push-ups.

[@foff2246]

@@MinusTheGym true

[@FringeWizard2]

@@MinusTheGym I thought about this myself when thinking about how to help my sister and decided not to even bother with telling her about knee push ups and I see you got the same idea. Just do them again the wall, then again a banister, then slightly elevated on the floor, then flat with the floor, then with elevation on the floor, then with your legs elevated, then back to level and go up with both arms and see if you can lower slowly with one arm, then both lower and pushing up with one arm. What are your thoughts on superman push ups and clapping push ups are they just a waste of energy or do you get some appreciable gains doing those?

[@FringeWizard2]

Nothing wrong with piking your push ups it just works out different muscles and prepares you for hand stand push ups.

[@micvanreijen]

Hey Ryan. Thanks for another great one. I'm just getting into calisthenics and your content stands out from the rest in that it focusses on the form and prevention of injury rather than 'getting shredded in 2 days' or 'lose 30 pounds in a week' or something, which is to me not at all what it's about. I follow your pointers and when picking up a new exercise spend some time making sure I do it right before upping the reps. Anyway, question about the progression you explain here. Another approach I saw somewhere is that you can do pushups from the knee instead of your toes. For me this is the perfect approach at the moment, I can do about 10 of those with my almost 90 kilos (200 pounds). Is there a reason for not mentioning this approach? Should I rather not do this?

[@MinusTheGym]

Thanks! I’m glad you like my content. Kneeling push-ups are typically a stepping stone between incline push ups and standard push ups on the floor. One way to go about it is to gradually use lower and lower inclines. For example, hands on a table, then the fourth step of a staircase, then a porch step or fireplace mantle, then the floor. Lowering gradually can get you from the wall down to the floor without needing to do kneeling push-ups. But if you want to incorporate kneeling push ups instead of low incline, go for it. There’s no reason not to. I just keep it simple: wall, inclines, floor.

[@sulimandarwish105]

💙💙

[@guillermolopez1377]

wow I think my back problems are because I'm working out wrong thanks 👍

[@gappuma7883]

Convict conditioning

[@arunrdas2472]

Thanks , I am going to work on it :) New to this..... And do we have to keep an eye on the scapula Contraction ?

[@MinusTheGym]

Arun yes, the scapular movement across the rib cage is important and a great benefit of proper push-ups. You want your scapula to move together (retract) on the way down to the floor, then move away from each other (protract) as you press back up to the top. Good question!

[@DoughnutDragon]

Okay but how do you keep your elbows back?

[@PixelogistFacts]

Can I use momentum if I do some explosive push-up? Like clapping push-up?

[@MinusTheGym]

Yeah, with plyometric (explosive) variations then momentum is a key part of the execution. I was only focused on standard push ups in that video.

[@PixelogistFacts]

@@MinusTheGym Thank you sir, I've learn a lot from your videos. (Lose some weight too!)

[@hughiedoherty4914]

Is it ok to do push ups everyday ? And thanks for all the education.

[@MinusTheGym]

Glad I can help 😊 And yes, you can do push ups every day, but if you do then make sure you don’t go to your max. You should do submaximal sets if you train every day, typically around 50-75% of max. So for example, if your max push up reps is 8, practice sets of 4-6 reps rather than going to failure with 8.

[@hughiedoherty4914]

@@MinusTheGym Thanks sooo much for responding This may sound silly but I'm little confused on how to engage my core 😅 Do we push it out so out stomach hardens or do we hold it in pushing towards our spine like a vacuum? And thanks . Absolutely love your videos

[@FringeWizard2]

@@MinusTheGym This is solid advice.

[@FringeWizard2]

@@hughiedoherty4914 Stiffen like a board imagine someone was trying to place you across two chairs either facing down or facing up either way you must remain stiff as a board.

[@agarpizza]

I tried tucking my elbows in more and my wrists hurt when I do the push-ups

[@shaydboss1481]

How many reps should I build up to before I switch to a more difficult progression?

[@FringeWizard2]

10 reps perfect form is what AthleanX has people do, but I think that 5 reps but done very slow is better, just do a slow motion push up once every few hours until you've done it 5 times throughout your day, and if that was too easy then do a harder variation or do it even slower with lots of pauses that make it like you are planking, or add a weight blanket (you can put it in a backpack or use a belt to get it around you) or vest.

[@kharismachandrasatrio3157]

Crossfit always use the third mistakes

[@bdubzdrumz]

Thoughts on using Push Up bars?

[@MinusTheGym]

Good question! I think they're great, especially for people with previous wrist injuries or ongoing wrist problems. The neutral grip (palms facing inward) is much easier on the wrists than standard push ups on the floor. The grips also give you more height, which can lend to an increased range of motion when you get more advanced. So yeah, I'm a fan of grips! I use gymnastics parallettes as push up grips now and then.

[@bdubzdrumz]

Thanks! I use those almost exclusively due to a previous wrist injury, plus the added benefit of the deeper/harder rep’s. I would like to advance to the side to side motion push ups that you demonstrate at the end, but taking baby steps! 👊💪💪

[@MinusTheGym]

Regarding the "side-to-side" push ups - I just uploaded a video called "Archer Push Ups Tutorial" that will teach you how to progress to those from the basic push up ;)

[@R0yL33]

Tucking in the elbows really helps with shoulder pain. After some cardio and a set of knee push-ups to warm up, I do 3 sets of 10 regular push ups. I do this twice a week. How frequently do you recommend push ups?

[@kittymcpaws4862]

the frequency depends on your individual fitness level. 3 sets of 10 is very low generally, it's barely a warm up for basic fitness and you can do it everyday. Assuming you are struggling with that and looking to improve, then twice a week is fine but you have to increase your sets, reps, variations difficulty over the course of time. You will feel when is the right time to progress because it will feel easier.

[@poshboybeatz]

I notice you don't touch the ground with your chest. Is there a reason? Does it put too much strain on your shoulders?

[@MinusTheGym]

I can touch my chest to the floor, but I typically don’t go that far down. I only go down until full scapular retraction (when shoulder blades touch) and then press up.

[@poshboybeatz]

@@MinusTheGym thanks, that's a great cue actually

[@remcotevreden1228]

I have hit a ceiling after doing pushups for 9 weeks. I start with 30 knee pushups as a warming up, and then 4 sets of 11 normal pushups, I do them slowly with good form....but I struggle with the last rep, and just dont get any progression anymore. I also do cardio and HIT training these last 9 weeks. Any tips?

[@MinusTheGym]

Remco Tevreden I recommend advancing to a new variation of push up or working on dips. Once you're doing more than 8 reps per set, the focus shifts from strength to hypertrophy. Changing up the exercise will shock your body into further adaption (slight changes are typically good in your workout every 4 to 6 weeks) and choosing an exercise more challenging that gets you into the 5-8 rep range should trigger more strength gains.

[@KKhhoorrnniittee]

The cats are OK. We all have seen the cat door in many of your videos (-;