Doing "Real" Push-Ups Without Pain? Ask the Trainers!

Lots of people, women in particular, would like to work up to "real" full-body push ups. They're a great upper body workout, and wouldn't it be cool to one day have such awesome upper body strength you get compliments like "wow, check out those guns?"

Er... OK. A tad too literal?

Well, as long as we're trolling around in public domain images (and hoping that Wikipedia is correct in asserting that an image which is "a work of a U.S. military employee, taken or made as part of that person's official duties" is indeed in the public domain, because who wants to piss off gals with guns?) lets just go with a classic.

There, that's better.

Anyway, despite the awesomeness of push-ups, many folks seem to have wrist or shoulder or other bio-mechanical issues that make them problematic.

We, (and by "we" I mean the entire imaginary Cranky Fitness Editorial Staff), asked four knowledgeable personal trainers for their advice.

How to do push ups without pain?

They also coughed up instructional pictures and videos, hooray!

And of course the least-expert fitness blogger on the planet had to weigh in at the end too. Let's start with the smart advice, shall we?

Push Ups and Pull Ups for Women, Too!

 

What, you can't do this wearing a weighted vest? What's wrong with you?

(Photo: Amber Karnes)

Finally--the updated 2011 women's guide to pull-ups, push-ups and/or press-ups has arrived!

If you landed here via search engine and are trying to figure how to do your first "real" pullup or pushup, congratulations, you've come to the right place.

But what if you're a regular at Cranky Fitness and saw a post covering very similar ground that I wrote a few years ago?  Well, no worries! If you're a typical Cranky Fitness reader, you have trouble remembering your own phone number. There's not a chance in hell you'll remember what that post said about push-ups and pull-ups, so you're good too.

As to the guys? Well, it's the same instructions, but there's a dude-friendly resource included too, so you won't die of estrogen poisoning trying to figure out how to do these exercises. 


Anyway, so what kind of moron says women can't do pull-ups and push-ups?

Well, I guess I did--the first time I wrote a post about this back in 2008.

Um, sorry about that.

In my defense, I was really only trying to say that women (or men for that matter) shouldn't have to do full-on "boys" push-ups or unassisted pull-ups in order to feel that they are fit and strong. After all, your ability to lift your own bodyweight depends on how heavy you are! There's no reason for someone on the big side to feel badly because they have more trouble defying gravity than someone who is naturally skinny.

Thing is though, there are a lot of female googlers who come here looking to learn how to build up to their first "boys" push-up or unassisted pull-up. Why should they have to wade through a long whiny post about how mean and unfair these exercises are? We want them to hang out here with us, where it's safe and warm and cozy, and not leave discouraged only to get caught up in some evil acai berry colon cleansing scam elsewhere on the interwebs.  So here is a new improved push up and pull up post: now with 50% more instructions and 90% less whining!

Let's get crackin', shall we?

First off, there's an Obvious Secret to mastering the push up and pull up.

(And yeah, I know an "obvious secret" is an oxymoron, sort of like "painless dentistry" but whatever.) Anyway, here's the secret: You have to build up to them gradually.

Well duh, right? That's what you do with any tough exercise. The problem is, both these exercises require lifting your body weight up off the ground. Just how are you supposed to do that gradually?  Start amputating various limbs and then sew them back on one at a time? That doesn't sound like much fun. The trick is, then, to find easier versions you can handle now and then build up to the "real" exercise.  (And no, sprawling on the couch reaching for a bag of Doritos does NOT count as an easier version!)

How to learn to do your first push up.

1. Step one: wall push-ups. Place your hands on a wall a bit more than shoulder width apart and do push ups from there. Find a height where you can just barely crank out 8-12 in a row. (And as with all varieties of push ups, keep your body straight and stable; don't bend over at the waist and stick your butt out, nor should you let your ass sag against gravity.  Your lower abs should be pulled in.)

(Note: should family members interrupt you as you are doing this, just explain that you thought you'd save money remodeling your house by knocking out a few walls the old fashioned way.)

For a great demonstration of these, MizFit, the most inspiring fitness blogger on the planet, is our go-to gal;



If you can do 3 sets of 12 with no problem, you need to get lower on the wall; if you're as low as you can go without risking a face plant then...

2.  Step two: Table top push ups.  Same as above, but put your hands on a table or counter top, stabilize your body, and do pushups from there.  Probably best not to do this at a fancy restaurant during dinner hour no matter how enthusiastic you're feeling. Once you've getting good at those...

3. You'll want to get lower still.  Do you have a staircase in your house you can do push-ups from? Keep choosing lower and lower stairs to put your hands on until you get to the bottom. Otherwise, have you got any heavy immobile objects in your home of varying heights, like armchairs, couches, teenagers, coffee tables?

4. So what about bent-knee "girls" pushups?  Well sure, throw these in the mix too for variety!  They are also explained in MizFit's video above.  But you'll get more core work (I think!) by doing the full extended version from higher up than doing bent knees off the ground. 

5. By the time you can do a bunch of almost-to-the-ground pushups, you'll be ready for your first "real" pushup. Do one and feel smug. And congratulations, you rock!

6. Do more.  And then some more! And then more after that!

How to learn to do your first pull up.

(Personal Aside: In my experience, these are really f#cking hard to do. However, you will feel so damn bad-ass when you get there, it will be worth all the pain, suffering, frustration, sobbing, exhaustion... wait, where are you all going? When I finally got up to 3 or 4 pull-ups, I managed to work this superhuman feat into every single conversation I had last summer, to the delight of all my friends and relatives, I'm sure. But then sadly, I got sidelined with surgery and a broken arm, so now I'm starting over myself. I stare up at that little steel bar above my head with equal mixture of loathing and yearning, and am working hard toward that joyous day when I will once again be able to claim mastery of the Unassisted Pull Up.  But enough about me...)

1. Step One: As with push-ups, you want to build up your strength with easier versions of the pullup.  You may want to vary your grip to include chin ups too--palms facing inward rather than outward.  Chin-ups are slightly easier that pull-ups, and help give you a cute little bicep bulge.

Also, you want to drop and retract your shoulder blades so that you can show off your boobs you can better engage your back muscles.

Easier pull-up alternatives include:

• A lat pull-down machine at the gym;
• A pull-up bar with a chair under it to put your legs on to support some body weight;
• An exercise band looped around a pullup bar to put your foot in and lighten the load;
• A friend, spouse, personal trainer, indentured servant, minion, or other cooperative mammal with opposable thumbs who can hold your legs and help hoist you up; or
•  One of those gravitron thingies at the gym. (The main option I used the first time; very helpful.) From the name it sounds like it should be able to launch you into outer space, but it's just this contraption that allows you to adjust how much help you need getting up to the top:

(Hey, what the heck, build one of these babies yourself! Couldn't be that hard, could it?)

(Image: Exercise and Leisure)

Step 2:  Negatives.  (These are aptly named, because that's the way you will feel about life while completing them. They are weirdly unsatisfying even as they are kicking your ass.  But they do work well).  To do these, use a chair (or if you're really fit, jump up) to start at the top position of the pull-up.   Lower yourself down slowly.  Start again at the top.  Repeat until exhaustion or suicidal thoughts, which ever comes first.

Step 3: Start "playing" with tiny real pull-ups while building up more fake assisted pull-ups and negatives. You can start at the top and lower yourself an inch or so and then heave (no not the barfy kind of heave, the muscle kind) your body back up. Or you can start at the bottom and inch yourself up as far as you can go and then repeat. Or, if you try that and don't go anywhere at all, you can hang for a while at the top, middle, or bottom, it's all good!

Step 4: At some point, possibly when you least expect it, execute your first pull-up! Personally, I plateaued for ages and ages, needing 30 lbs of assistance as seasons changed and time marched on and I about gave up. I have NO IDEA why all of a sudden one day I was up and over the top!

Advanced Versions of the Push Up and Pull Up

There are lots! But that's the subject of another post. Please check back at Cranky Fitness every two to three minutes for the next year or so to make sure you don't miss it. Or I suppose you could subscribe to the blog by feed reader or email on the left sidebar...

Additional Pull Up and Push Up resources, some with pictures and actual experts:

Experience Life: "Clear the Bar"--instructions on getting to your first pull-up.

Women's Health Magazine: Do 15 "real" pushups

NerdFitness: This one's more a more manly, rugged, dude-friendly guide to doing pull-ups.

Our pal Jody at Truth2Being Fit explains and shows what it means to drop and retract your shoulders.

Anyone trying to master the push up or pull up? Already there? Don't give a crap and just want to say hi or whine about something annoying? It's all good!

The Cranky Fitness Resistance Challenge!

Image credit: fouro

Any normal health blogger writing about a "fitness challenge" would first propose a laudable fitness goal, break it down into small steps, and then urge everyone to join along and see how much we can all accomplish together!

But hey, this is Cranky Fitness. Those of you expecting a sincere, helpful, motivational pep-talk about Striving and Achieving and a nudge towards Doing your Utmost--where the heck did you wander in from? Maybe you were googling "big fat ass," "flat belly diet," or "fitness porn?" (Three of our most popular search terms--we're so proud!)

Anyway, you may have noticed that there are a lot of fitness challenges out there in blogland. They've got the "Couch to 10-K" and the "100 Push-Ups Challenge" and the "Nine Zillion Sit-Ups Challenge" and whatever. From what I can tell, these things work really well for most people. Fitness challenges may seem grueling at times, and not everyone finishes, but the majority of y'all seem to get pretty pumped about taking them on and quite pleased about succeeding. (Our own Merry Sunshine, for example, triumphed over the 100 Push Up Challenge. Hooray!)

However, I am not Merry Sunshine. I too saw lots of posts about 100 push ups, but this did not motivate me to do 100 push ups. A hundred is a big number.

No, this is not Crabby, but it's exactly how the prospect of 100 push-ups makes her feel.
Photo: raggle

Most importantly, rigorous physical fitness challenges are prohibited by my religion, Crankyism.

I admit, it's tough to be a devout Crankyist. Crankyism requires the ritual wearing of Slankets, the consumption of virtuous but unappealing vegetables balanced by the enjoyment of celebratory cupcakes, and frequent attendance at the Church of The Most Holy Gymnasium.

Wanna join my religion? Order now, operators are standing by!

Crankyism also has demanding rules of conduct. Too much slacking is a sin! On the other hand, there is a strict prohibition against partaking in activities that sound exceptionally unpleasant. And a hundred push-ups, or 200 sit-ups, or 26 miles of running all in a row, rather than sensibly spread out over a couple of weeks? That would violate my religious principles.

However, even a devout Crankyist is sometimes tempted by cool-sounding challenges. What to do?

For anyone thinking of abandoning their cheerful go-get-'em approach to physical fitness and taking up Crankyism instead, you may need some guidance in situations like this. So I'm proposing a different sort of challenge...

The Cranky Fitness Resistance Challenge! No, this kind of "resistance training" had nothing to do with building your muscles by lifting big-ass heavy things. It simply calls for you to resist taking part in the next fitness challenge that comes along.

I did it; you can too. Peer inside the brain of Crabby McSlacker (acck! it's weird in there!) and discover the exact process by which I was able to resist a recent Fitness Challenge Temptation myself.


The temptation: The 100 Burpee Challenge. (What is a burpee? See the video below).

The temptress: Hoop, who commented on Merry's water cooler post and led me to the evil, evil Burpee Challenge site. But what should I expect from a woman who plays rugby and throws people out of widows? (Or perhaps that's not what she meant by 'defenestration?') Anyway, she sounds way too fit and fierce for me to be taking exercise advice from.

Why The Challenge is So Tempting:

1. I can do burpees! I even did some on our recent cross-country trip, at rest stops, to the amusement of squabbling families and truckers on their lunch breaks. (Note: bring gardening gloves if you want to seriously try this.)

2. I watched this video demonstration which convinced me that if I could just do more, better burpees, then I too would be muscular, fit, attractive and 20 years younger. (And watch the whole thing if you want to know why I really got jealous. I want to be able to do that cool ring thing!)





3. The challenge starts off with just one Burpee, and works day by day up to 100. So I got the first week or two nailed already!

4. Maybe I could turn it into a Blog Thing and get a bunch of us doing Burpees together. And then you guys would tell all your friends, and then some famous actress would google "Burpee Challenge" and get mine instead of the real one, and she'd tell Oprah about it, and pretty soon Cranky Fitness would be famous too and well on it's way to World Domination!

Oh my goodness, this is really starting to sound tempting now! What to do?

Hmm.... I know that doing "negatives" is really helpful trick in breaking through other sorts of "resistance" plateaus, like when you're struggling with pull-ups... let's try that concept here and see if going negative will help!

Bring it On!

There must lots of reasons not to try to do 100 Burpees. Yep, now that I'm properly negatively motivated, they're coming fast and furious.

1. After the first 3 or so, I hate burpees! I kinda forgot that. Do I seriously think that burpee number 67, for example, is going to be more fun than burpee number 4?

2. I will probably give up and fail anyway! Even cool people sometimes do. For example Shauna, the Amazing Diet Girl, failed the 100 Push-Up Challenge. True, she had a good reason, which was because she was already doing a bunch of other things like weight training and kickboxing classes. As she explained: "We always do heaps of push ups at kickboxing and I hated looking pissweak in class because I'd fried my arms the night before doing the Hundred Push Up Challenge."

(Note to self: must start working the expression "pissweak" into conversations, it's a winner!)

3. I still haven't accomplished the last challenge I set for myself, almost a year ago, which was to complete one freakin' unassisted pull-up. (I did one chin up though... before I started slacking on the cross-country trip and I can't even do that anymore). Ironically, the thing that's got me stalled with the damn pull-ups, in addition to general laziness, is that I hate negatives, which seem to be critical. Too bad I seem to embrace all things negative except actual negatives!

4. The Burpee Challenge participants themselves are making a great case for staying way the hell away. I mean, sure, there are some who are cruising through all empowered and shit, but a lot of them are dropping out from serious injuries or abject misery. (One of my favorite posts on that site is a break up letter to Burpees, but alas its author Frankie is not a Crankyist and apparently perseveres anyway.)

5. The 100 day challenge is almost over! No way in hell I'm jumping in on day 95 or whatever and trying to make up for lost time.

Whew! I feel so invigorated now! Success!!!! I have no residual desire to start doing daily burpees.

How about you folks, do you like fitness challenges? Do they motivate you? Or are there any other Crankyists out there who won't go near 'em?

Pull Ups and Push Ups: For Women Too?

[By Crabby]

(Photo by hrtmnstrfr)

So, you want to learn how to do push ups or pull ups? The 2011 update of this post on  Pull-Up and Push-Ups for Women is a much better resource. Sorry for the extra click--but it's got much more in the way of practical tips and much less in the way of whining!

Or, well, if you're feeling too lazy to relocate, here's the original version:

Who Changed The Rules?

Pull Ups and Push Ups: all of a sudden, it seems, we women are being urged to take 'em on.

If I'm not mistaken, we used to be considered exempt. We had a special easy kind of push-up just for us, the "girls" version, with knees down. And as to pull ups? Most guys can't do 'em either, and they have all that testosterone--only Super Fit Weightlifter Gals were supposed to be able to rise to the challenge. The rest of us could crank out a few lat pulls or hop on the Gravitron and call it a day.

But as women have gotten more empowered and stronger and started to take over the weight rooms and fitness magazines, the "bar," so to speak, has been raised.

Wait, you're still here?  Did you miss the link above?  Seems a shame you're reading this old post (which I'm a bit embarrassed about, honestly) when there's a newer updated post that has all the information in this one, plus more handy tips.  So let's try that again, shall we?  Here's the 2011 Cranky Fitness post on how to do push ups and pull ups.

Or not. Sigh. Whatever....

And so while I'm usually able to ignore Fit Bloggers who do Incredible Things (like Bunny Girl or Nitmos) the call to master these two forms of torture exercises is getting louder every day.

The New York Times was recently pushing push-ups. Geek Girl recently dissected the anatomy of a push up. Even bloggers we love such as MizFit and Stumptuous and Jen at Survival of the Fittest and Kelly at Fitness Fixation (and in the News) seem to be telling us: Push Ups and Pull Ups are great and you gals can all learn to do them too!

Well, my response to these beloved sources of inspiration?

Screw it, No We Can't!

(Disclaimer: actually, I can do 25ish full-body push-ups, if I have to. I actually prefer other machine-based forms of upper body exercise. But I'm a bazillion years from being able to do an unassisted pull-up. So I can totally relate to those who have Push Up issues, and I will count myself as an honorary member of your Tribe).

What's Wrong With Rising Expectations for Women's Fitness?
Nothing! I am generally on the other side of the argument on this stuff, urging women to do their strength training and railing against the use of teeny tiny pink weights.

But Push-Ups and Pull-Ups are Unfair and Mean!
These exercises are Unfair Benchmarks for fitness. The larger your body weight, the harder they are, even if you're really strong. There are some incredibly fit women who do not have lucky lean metabolisms. Should heavy fit people feel like failures because they can't do some arbitrary body-weight lifting exercise?

No!

So don't feel bad if you can't and won't ever to be able to do them. Keep getting stronger and set whatever goals motivate you.

That Said, I Really Really Want to be Able to Do Some Pull-Ups.
These gals are just a little too inspiring to ignore them entirely. I'm lean enough now that theoretically, pull-ups should be a possibility. On the other hand, I honestly think I'm (a) too old and (b) too lazy to do what it would take to get there.

But still, perhaps I'll try a little harder to get a little closer.

Some Resources if you want to Learn To do Push-Ups or Pull-Ups:

As common sense suggests, you need to approach it incrementally, but the gals above have creative ideas as to how to do that. More specifically:

• Jen and the folks at Experience Life have lots of suggestions to get you to your First Pull-up.
• Stumptuous tells you how to Mistress the Push-Up
• MizFit gives Push-Up lessons in a handy video.
• From Jen again, how to Do 15 Pull-Ups . (For you Hard Core Fit gals.)

Crabby Goes to the Gym!
Based on the above resources, it seemed like time for me to try some "negative" pull-ups. These involve starting from the top of a pull-up and lowering yourself down.

I started my pull-up remediation program last week and I learned several things:

1. Negative pull-ups are MUCH easier if you skim the article, ignore the part about "slowly" and just let gravity drop you down, then hop up again and drop down again, etc. in an entirely half-assed manner.

2. Even cheaty half-assed negatives can MAKE YOU SORE AS HELL FOR THREE DAYS AFTERWARDS.

3. If you go back and read the article, then return to the gym and do them right ("a slow three or four count per negative"), you may discover you can hardly do any. Hardly doing any still makes you SORE AS HELL for another couple days.

4. After years of slacky weight training, wherein the goal has been pretty much to maintain strength rather than increase it, feeling SORE AS HELL is actually kinda fun!

(However, check back in a few weeks when I'll probably have stopped doing negatives because they're too hard. Sorry, you weren't, um, coming to Cranky Fitness for inspiration, were you?)

Is anyone else trying to master/increase their push-ups or pull-ups, or do you not give a crap whether you can do them or not?