Pushups seem like they’re one of the easiest and most basic exercises that a person can engage in. After all, you simply lie on the ground and push your body up with your hands, so how hard could it be?
The truth is that there are numerous factors that can prevent you from getting the most out of a pushup. In fact, not having the right technique or adequate strength in certain parts of your body can actually leave you open to injury. To make sure that doesn’t happen to you, consider the tips on hand from Men’s Fitness.
Where you place your hands will largely dictate the effectiveness of the pushup. Too many people either hold their hands out too far from their bodies or bring them in too close to the center.
Instead, you want to place your hands basically in line with your shoulders. To achieve this, kneel down and then stretch the upper half of your body on the ground until you’re lying completely unfurled. Put your hands just under your shoulders, but before you actually push yourself upward, splay your fingers out. If they’re too compacted with one another, your not getting all the muscles within your hand into the action. Spread your fingers and then push up on your body. If you’re doing this correctly, you should find that the number of pushups you’re capable of will increase.
But it’s not just your arms that are going to come into play when initiating a pushup. When a pushup is done correctly, legs will remain fully extended throughout the exercise. If a person’s knees bend while they’re pushing up, the entire exercise is undermined. It’s important to pay attention to the state of one’s knees while doing the exercise.
You can help your quads achieve the state they need to be in by working squats into your exercise regimen. Make sure as you do these that you’re putting the brunt of the weight-lifting on your quads and not your back. After you do this for awhile, you’ll likely find that your pushups get easier and that you can do more of them without your legs wobbling or your hips tilting into an awkward position.
A quick way to gauge how successful your exercise is going is how long you can hold yourself up in the middle of a pushup. To increase this time, you can engage in a type of exercise known as a plank. Basically, you push yourself up off the ground, leaving only your toes to hold up your lower body. Then, allow your elbows to hold the rest of your body up. Do a few of these in conjunction with pushups, making sure to keep your entire body straight, like a plank.
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