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This is Brent, President of B2C, talking about a push-up, a very versatile exercise that
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is great for the chest component of our resistance training progressions. I'm going to have
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Mike come out, a good friend of mine, demonstrate a push up for us. The first
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thing I want you to think about is that the push-up is nothing more than a
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dynamic plank. So I want to get Mike set up in the perfect plank position. The way we're going
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to do that is first align our kinetic chain checkpoints his feet are going to be hip
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width. I have Mike dorsiflexed here so that the balls of his feet touch the floor. The
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reason we do that is if we can get the balls of his feet to touch the floor he can then
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engage his quads and glutes and push the balls of his feet through the floor,
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reinforcing triple extension mechanics and getting his hips nice and
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stable. From there we can tuck him under a little bit, draw-in, and we've got a
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perfect plank. Now, the question is can he do it dynamically with a push-up. So
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let me go ahead and see a push-up Mike. You can see, he can keep that plank
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position. Now, let's talk about some things that happen in the upper body that
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might not be so great. First thing we usually see is sometimes people will come
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up, but they won't come up all of the way. Can I have you collapse - you're perfect. How many of
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you have seen this type of push up? We want to make sure that when people push up, they come all
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the way up into protraction. This is good. This increases serratus anterior strength,
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and stabilization of the scapula. The other thing I see is, I'm going to have Mike descend
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into a push-up, but show us the scapular elevation that's common with
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people who can't support their shoulder girdle. Good. We see a lot of that, a
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lot of people up here. Alright, obviously Mike can do a perfect pushup, so
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let's go ahead and show everybody what perfect pushup looks like. The next type of
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progression we'll talk about is our relative flexibility progression. So our
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relative flexibility progression is first, arms close to the side. So if he lets
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his elbows pass right by his side, this takes very little flexibility, it takes
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very little stability from the scapular stabilizers. Even somebody with upper
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body dysfunction, their arms fall forward during an overhead squat or they have a lot of
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tightness, that protracted shoulder girdle. Most can do an elbows close to
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the side, do one more for me, push up, without pain, without discomfort, without
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reinforcing that compensation pattern. As we work on that with our corrective
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exercise program, we'll then progress to a transverse plane push-up, or a wide grip push up.
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From there, if somebody gets optimal
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flexibility and stability in the upper body, then we can go into a push up with
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rotation. Push-ups with rotation have some great advantages, they increase serratus
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anterior strength, stability, as well as
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mobility as he opens up his whole chest. Now, if all of this is too hard, we need
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to decrease the amount of weight we use, all we have to do is drop down to the knees.
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All of those same progressions apply, save for push-up with rotation, it's a
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little awkward to do a push up with rotation on your knees. We could add
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stability to these exercises or add instable environments to these exercises
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by either - let me have you go back into a regular push-up - we can go to a push-up with one leg.
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Have people think about getting longer than high.
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If we really wanted to be mean to Mike we can have a stability ball under his legs
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or if we wanted to do really hard, under his hands.
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We can put
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medicine balls or Airex pads for people who are down on their knees. Don't get them up too high.