Improve your push-ups with this weekly strength routine

Weekly Push-up strength routine

Push-ups are one fo the most basic movements you see in a training program. Sports have used them for years as a means to develop upper body strength, and rightly so. They are a fundamental movement pattern and fantastic at developing upper body strength.

If you struggle to do push-ups for whatever reason, you will have trouble developing your upper body strength. So it is a great place to start. 

There are many ways to develop them, some are terrible, some are great.

Follow this routine 3 times per week to help you build you upper body strength and nail your push-ups

Warm-up (5 mins)

  • 2-3 mins stretching your chest, shoulders and upper back
  • 2-3 mins of dynamic movements – Focus on your wrists, elbows, shoulders and shoulder blades

Stability (10 mins)

  • 2 x 30s hard plank (60s rest)

**Start in a perfect plank position (neutral spine & elbows under shoulders), keep your forearms in a straight line to your elbows and your palms flat on the ground. Once you are up, brace as hard as possible by trying to pull your elbows and toes together. This will create an amazing amount of tension throughout your entire body. 

  • 2 x 45s Ring / TRX front support (60s rest)

**Start in a perfect plank position, but instead of being on your elbows, your hands should be on a set of rings or a TRX and you hold this position by pressing down into the rings and keeping your body as tight as you can with as little wobble as possible. The closer your hands are tot he ground, the harder this is. Make sure you choose the level that is right for you. 

  • 2 x 10 Scap push-ups (60s rest)

**If you have never done these before start standing with your arms outstretched and against the wall (just like a push-up position). With straight elbows and a little bit of weight leaning against the wall switch your lats on by trying to get your shoulder blades to move down and into your back pockets (make sure you don’t arch your back when you’re doing this). Once you are in position squeeze your shoulder blades together and then press them apart for 1 rep. As you get better, you can progress onto your knees, then into a full push-up position.

Strength (10 mins)

  • 3/4/5 sets of 10 push-ups at a level that you can perform the movement perfectly (60s rest)

**Your goal is to be in a tight plank position and not let your body change that position through the full range of motion (Elbows straight at the top, chest and thighs touch the ground at the bottom). Focus on keeping your lats on, like in the scap push-ups and your body tight like in the hard planks. use the tempo 3:1 (Down for 3 seconds, up for 1 second) If you are able to do 10 without a problem, you can increase the number or go to a deficit (Hands on plates, chest to ground). 

  • 3 x 20 Banded pull-aparts

Get to work.

This is a basic program that anyone can implement to improve their push-ups. 

The thing to take note on though, is it’s the little things that are the most important. 

So do the little things more often and your strength will fly.

2019-03-14T12:52:48+11:00

About the Author:

Denee Lalouette
A UFT PLAYground is a place that people of all shapes, sizes and ages learn to develop their movement abilities through an infinite learning and development program. UFT PLAYgrounds have been created to re-inspire our natural ability to move, create, adapt, re-act, connect, have fun and of course PLAY. PLAYgrounds have been developed to allow people to feel and explore their own abilities by utilising a multidimensional, infinite, creative and PLAYful approach to training. We live in a world full of specialists and obsessions. At an ever increasing rate, people are specialising more and more, in their jobs, in their businesses, in their sport and in their training. The result, is a backward step in human evolution. By specialising, we limit ourselves to thinking that 1 particular way of doing things is the right way, or the only way. We promote creativity, not only in movement and training methodologies but in thinking in general. A UFT PLAYground is created to provide the general public with an opportunity to PLAY across multiple styles of training and moving, to be able to progress in the training methods that they become passionate about or that excites them and to be a part of a community that promotes more than just fitness. The “fitness” industry above all others has brought about a need to specialise in order to achieve anything, and majority of what we do for “fitness” is for an aesthetically pleasing reason. We understand that aesthetics are nice and we too love to look and feel good. However a UFT PLAYground is developed to allow people to move better than ever before across a broad range of training methodologies and ideas. Aesthetics, therefore are a result not a goal of that system. We know that “If you train to look good, you will not always enjoy what you do, but if you PLAY a lot, and do the things that you love, you will ending up looking good”. Aesthetics should be a result not a goal. For years now, we have recognised that the best movers on the planet are children. They are flexible, mobile & fit, they have better relative strength than a typical adult (and even most adolescents), they are the best creators and innovators, they learn faster, the adapt better, they interact better with other people, they are more connected to nature and most importantly, they PLAY more than anyone else. As adults, we tend to believe that because we are taller and more experienced in “life”, we are better, and then we get to an age that says we are “too old to PLAY”. As we grow taller (and in a lot of cases rounder), we experience things that inhibit our ability to move, think and not think. We allow our experiences to limit our abilities as humans, whether it be a physical injury, a story that we heard or a youtube video that we watched. We also allow our emotions to control our behaviour because of our past experiences. Maybe it was the feeling of humiliation when we tried something new, regret when we failed or heart break when it was taken away from us. Because of this, we allow our experiences to control our future instead of learning from them and creating our own . This is what UFT PLAYground’s are built on. The understanding that we as humans need to go back to the way things were before our negative experiences took over our subconscious mind and body. A UFT PLAYground gives people the ability to re-learn what they have lost, as well as develop new sets of skills that will allow them to follow any particular passion that they uncover in PLAYtime. When we PLAY, we are simply, exploring. Through exploring we become curious and through curiosity we become obsessed or passionate about a particular thing. This is why in a PLAYground we allow people to PLAY across a broad range of training systems (minimum of 3), Through this system they are able to identify 1, their current limitations and be educated on how to overcome them, and 2, identify their passions and learn to develop, grow and excel in them. UFT PLAYgrounds are also a development centre for up and coming entrepreneurs in the fitness industry. Each PLAYground founder will have been trained and will be continuously trained in UFT’s Trainer Success System. This system allows personal trainers, coaches, teachers, instructors, etc. to continue to develop in their fields of specialty (as they play they will find it) and in the philosophy of PLAYtime. They will also be trained in the business systems of UFT in order to have their own successful and profitable business. See UFT Trainer Success System for more details.

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