You’re Probably Doing Push-ups Wrong. How to Fix Them (with Video)

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For most people, the push-up seems like the simplest movement of all. You get down in the prone position and use your hands to push yourself away from the ground, then lower yourself until the chest touches, and repeat. Not everyone has the strength or technique to do them, but everyone pretty much knows what a push-up looks like. There’s no real mystery around it.

How To Do the Basic Pushup

1. Assume the pushup position: elbows locked; hands about shoulder width apart, flat against the ground; toes on the ground; torso and legs straight, core tight; body parallel to the floor.
2. Lower yourself to the ground, touching your chest to it.
3. Push yourself back up, squeezing your pectoral muscles and completing the full range of motion.
4. At the top, continue until your elbows are completely locked and your shoulder blades are fully protracted.
5. Repeat.

But here’s the thing: most people are doing them wrong. Doing them wrong doesn’t just shortchange your results. It can also increase your risk of injury.

If you want to get the most out of your push-ups and come out of them stronger, healthier, and fitter, read on for some form fixes.

Be a stiff lever.

When you’re doing a push-up, you’re a single cohesive slab of human. You are a plank. You are a lever, and your toes are the fulcrum. To be a good lever, you have to tighten up everything: abs (all trunk muscles, in fact), lumbar muscles, glutes, quads. Everything. Make sure you maintain a tight, rigid body. Think of your legs, hips, and torso as if they formed a straight line (they should). Maintain that plank throughout the exercise; maintain the lever.

If you don’t stay tight throughout the movement, you’ll shortchange your results. You won’t generate as much power. Imagine trying to use a floppy crowbar to pry off a baseboard. It just wouldn’t work as well.

Mind your head position.

Rather than looking ahead, you should be looking down at the ground right in front of you. This places your neck in a neutral position and maintains the straight line from head to foot.

Don’t look ahead. Look down.

Elbows in, not flared out.

Flaring out your elbows places your shoulders in an internally-rotated position, which is a major cause of shoulder pain during the exercise. Your average person who claims “push-ups hurt my shoulders” is doing them with flared elbows and severe internal rotation.

Check your hand position.

A good cue for maintaining proper shoulder and elbow position is to externally rotate your hands when you place them on the floor so that your thumbs are pointing straight ahead and your fingers are pointing out to the sides. This forces your elbows to stay in against your body and protects your shoulders.

Protract your shoulder blades at the top.

At the top of the push-up, your shoulder blades should be fully protracted—moving your shoulder blades away from the spine. As you descend, they will retract—moving your shoulders blades closer to the spine, or “packed in” against the spine. This ensures full range of motion (and, again, healthy shoulders).

This is different from the bench press, where your shoulder blades stay retracted throughout the entire movement.

Quality over quantity.

Hammer this into your head until it becomes like breathing: Technique is more important than speed. Form begets function. The major problem people run into with push-ups is they’re chasing a number rather than chasing quality.

I’d take 10 good, hard, perfect push-ups over 40 sloppy, rushed, easy push-ups. The former will get you stronger. The latter will get you injured.

If you’re interested in making push-ups even harder, try thinking of your toes as a passive fulcrum:

Instead of “going down,” you rotate your body toward the ground around the fulcrum of your toes. This is a pretty subtle change, but it places an incredible amount of weight on your chest, triceps, and shoulders. It will feel like you’re “leaning forward” and your hands will feel “farther back” than usual. If you need another cue, imagine touching your shoulders to the ground.

Everything else still applies: stay in rigid plank formation (you’re a lever, remember?), press fully up, don’t do half reps, keep your elbows in, control your shoulder blades and move them mindfully.

The result is a legitimately difficult upper body exercise. You might not be able to bang out 50 pushups like this on a whim, and you’ll probably end up doing these more slowly than before, but I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised with the results.

Another benefit is they feel easier on the joints.

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Filed under: Fitness