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Suspension Push Up and Progressions
The suspension push up is a challenging upper body exercise that increases strength and stability in the shoulders, arms and chest. The exercise is performed using a suspension trainer (such as TRX or rings) that can be anchored to a wall or doorway. The use of gravity and instability during the exercise forces the muscles to engage more, recruiting other stabilizer muscles in order to control movement.The exercise can be progressed in difficulty by manipulating the body position, grip and type of suspension trainer used
Transcript
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This is Brent of the Brookbush Institute
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...blank
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going over progressions for that pushing,
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or chest movement pattern that we're
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all so familiar with in our resistance
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training programs. Specifically, we're
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going to go over push-up progressions
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using a suspension trainer. So, I'm going
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to have my friend, Melissa, come out. She's
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going to help me demonstrate the
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variations and progressions that we do.
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Alright, let's see it, lets see which we
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get started with. And right off the bat, I
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want to make this point. I see this way
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too often with suspension training.
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People go into a push-up, and rather than
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the suspension trainer being in line
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with their arms, they get out here. This
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creates a force vector into flexion,
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which causes them to need to use some of
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those extensors and internal rotators of
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their shoulder to maintain this in this
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position. They're actually pulling down
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against this. I have noted that this can
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cause problems over time and lead to
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some tightness in potentially the
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subscapularis, teres major, maybe even
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teres minor and some shoulder issues
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long-term. So, let's make sure we we stay
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down here. Now beyond that, this is still
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a push-up. We're still going to use the
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same form cues, the same postural cues,
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the same kinetic chain checkpoints we've
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used for every other exercise we've ever
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done. Melissa's head's going to be back
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and her chin's tucked so that she has that
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nice lordosis in her cervical spine.
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She's going to be drawn in. I'm going to
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have her tuck under a little bit, because
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I know Melissa has a tendency to go into
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an anterior pelvic tilt. I actually
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want her to protract.
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Another mistake I often see in push-ups
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is people get a little little lazy in
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their scapula and fall back into
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retraction. I actually want protraction
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at the end here. Quads locked out. She's
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on the balls of her feet, so not on her
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toes, but on the balls of her feet. Alright,
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you ready? Let's see it. Good, and as
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I'm kind of lining things up here,
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guys, I also want to see her hands,
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her forearms stay roughly parallel to
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each other. Her hands are kind of even
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with her elbows- she's not getting
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crunched in here. One of the things I
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do like about the True Fit is it's two
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independent suspension trainers as
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opposed to having a a pivot point that
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would be right back here and pull her in.
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I like having that ability to adjust
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out this way. These are also little
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softer straps. They don't leave marks on
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people's skin and there's no big bulky
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hinge. How does that feel? Good. You know
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what I think when a client or a patient
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says, "Good" to me? I'm thinking- not hard
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enough. So, let's talk about how to
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progress this exercise. Let's start with
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our load progressions. Load
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progressions are fairly simple. We just
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need to figure out how to get Melissa's
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body more horizontal. The more horizontal,
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the longer the moment arm, the more force
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is going to be on her arms. So what I
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could do is just have her start by
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getting her feet further back. Alright,
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step out.
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Go ahead and go.
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That's as opposed to if she brought her
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feet out a little bit, you guys can see
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she's closer to vertical. The closer she
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is to vertical, the less force.
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If that wasn't enough, moving her
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feet back wasn't enough, I could make
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these longer. Making these longer will allow
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her to get more horizontal.
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Push all the way out for me- still not
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thinking that's hard enough though.
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So, the next thing I could do is-
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she's kind of letting the the straps
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fall away this way, let's go ahead and
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flip her around so that the straps are
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more up and down. This will get her even
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closer to horizontal. I see
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that's looking pretty tough. That's
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looking pretty tough, and if all I wanted
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to do is use a suspension trainer as the
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unstable environment, that's as
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unstable as I wanted to go, and I wanted to
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progress load as far as I could, this
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would be a good progression for her. I could
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take this one step farther and actually
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raise her feet up, getting her totally
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horizontal, maybe putting her feet up on
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a bench. That's something for you guys to
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experiment with, definitely very tough.
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Definitely be careful who you try that
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progression with, obviously, because once
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their feet are up, you don't want their
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face to become the first thing that ends
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up on the floor. So, now we get to try our
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stability progressions. One of the
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reasons I like suspension training is it
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has brought some attention back to
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stability training. Everybody loves power.
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Everybody loves max strength. Everybody
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loves power lifting and Olympic lifts.
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They've become very popular right now,
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but we can't forget about our stability
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endurance and strength endurance
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training. You can't lift more than you
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can stabilize, and it seems like one of
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the few modalities in that stability
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endurance, strength endurance phase that
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people get really excited about is
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suspension training. The question just
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becomes what progressions are we trying
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to do? What adaptations are we trying
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to get? It's important that we get a
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little bit of practice getting people to
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the stability progression that will lead
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to an adaptation over a training period.
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Melissa is going to help me
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demonstrate not just load progressions
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here which would just showed you, but now
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we're going to start thinking about how
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can I make this
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as unstable as Melissa can handle. We
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started with- let's just start with that
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two-handed variation again.
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Alright, so we see this is fairly stable
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for Melissa. If I wasn't going to
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increase load, but I was actually looking
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to increase her stability and
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neuromuscular control, I'm going to have to
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find a way to make this less stable. Why
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don't we try one foot? I have to warn you
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guys, unlike the row progression, if
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you've already watched that video, these
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little changes in this exercise
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progress really far, really fast. So,
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two legs to one leg is a huge progression on
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a suspension trainer. How many of you
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guys have ever wanted to try a single
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arm push-up? I think that's
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coming next. I think that's coming next.
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The nice thing about a suspension
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trainer though is -think about what I
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was saying about load. The more
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horizontal you are, the more load. The
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more vertical you are, the less load. So,
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you can actually start off fairly
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vertical, fairly vertical and work on
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your one-arm push-up with a fairly small
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percentage of your body weight. And what
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I like about this is you'll notice
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huge, huge forces trying to keep you from
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rotating, or trying to make you rotate. It
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takes a lot of core stability just to do
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some single arm stuff even at an almost
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vertical trajectory. Pretty tough?
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You want to try one arm, one leg? No. I have
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to admit, guys, we have tried one arm, one
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leg, but Melissa and I were both fooling
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around before we took this video, and neither
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one of us could even come close to one
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arm, one leg. So, my challenge to you: if
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you can do one arm, one leg suspension
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push-ups, even fairly close to vertical, I
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want to see you. Can you just throw that
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on your iPhone, throw that on your iPad
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throw that on your Android device, throw
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it up on YouTube, send it to me on
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Facebook, post it on Facebook on my page?
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I would love to see that, because that
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progression is crazy. Now, a real
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progression- let's just go
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back and show one more thing we can do
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here. We're going to get these pretty close
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to even. We could, of course, add our
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Airex pad. So, just going from two foot
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to one foot unstable, or even two feet
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unstable with one arm is going to be a
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pretty big progression. So, Melissa
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is going to try one foot on the Airex
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pad using both arms. It's really, really tough,
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and I'm kind of wondering if we might
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have surpassed her ability here. Well,
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maybe not. Remember, guys, you
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want to keep somebody with perfect
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posture for 12 to 20 repetitions at a
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slow tempo when we're working in that
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stability endurance or strength
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endurance phase, and they have to remain,
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they have to have perfect form throughout
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the entire rep range throughout the
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entire set. That actually looks pretty
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good for Melissa. That's pretty intense.
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You want to try two feet one arm? This is
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going to be tough. This is going to be
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really tough, especially if she brings
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your feet pretty close together. Oh, good
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call. I would think that the biggest
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mistake here is progressing too
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fast on this one arm variation and not
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using a full range of motion, or allowing
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some rotation to happen at the core and
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pelvis, which we also don't want. So, let's
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back this all up. Alright, go ahead and
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relax, Melissa. Let's back this up and
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organize this. We had all of our
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variations in load progressions, so don't
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forget that the more horizontal somebody
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is, chances are the more load on their
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arms. The more vertical they are, the less
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load. We talked about some ways of easily
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changing that, like moving the feet back
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to make somebody more horizontal, or
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making the the True Fit straps here
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longer, or flipping somebody around so
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that the True Fit straps are totally
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vertical and then their bodies more
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horizontal, and then of course we talked
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about that last
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load progression of bringing some of
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these feet up and making them totally
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horizontal. Then we had all of our
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stability progressions. A little
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warning when it comes to your pushing
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progressions: the jumps are a little
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larger than some of our other suspension
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exercises. So when we go from two feet to
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one foot on a push motion like this, it's
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a big jump, and it's going to be very
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challenging to go from two feet, two arms
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to two feet, one arm- huge challenge. But
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if you've ever wanted to work on your
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single arm push-up, suspension training
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is one of those things where you can
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take the percentage of your own
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body weight that you using and bring it
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way down. And then, of course, we talked
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about adding the Airex pad. As I've
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talked about in several other videos and
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talked about earlier in this video, guys,
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don't forget to practice your stability
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endurance, strength endurance training.
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You can't lift more than you can
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stabilize, and I think a lot of people
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skip this phase of training, that 12 to
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20 reps where we work on coordination
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and more complex exercises, because they
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think it's not exciting. But really, the
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only person keeping it from being
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exciting is us as professionals. We have
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to practice. We have to come up with new
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ideas. We have to come up with new
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routines to challenge our athletes, to
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challenge our clients, to challenge our
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patients so they'll stick with this, keep
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working on stability, and hopefully over time
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reduce their risk of injury, increasing
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their neuromuscular control. I hope you
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guys enjoy these progressions. I hope
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they are a huge challenge. I hope to
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get a few videos of the single arm,
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single leg push-up. That would be awesome.
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Send those to me on Facebook. I'll talk
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with you guys soon.
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