Push ups are fantastic exercises that allow you to workout practically anywhere. One challenge that many people face with regards to mastering this exercise is not getting set up well to start. Doing push ups from different elevations or on your knees can make it even more difficult to always get set up properly. In this article I’ll show you how to get yourself set up in the perfect starting position for a push up every time no matter what kind of push ups you choose to do.
Getting into a proper starting position for push ups each time will help you generate tension from your arms and shoulders, through your core and down through your legs. This starting position is essentially a plank. A proper setup position ensures that you’ll be able to generate more force and do your push ups with better form for better results.
Setting Up For Push Ups To The Ground
In the “Guide Do Doing Your First Push Up” I discussed having a push up set up ritual. The reason I called it a ritual is this routine should become so ingrained that it helps you prepare mentally for every set of push ups you do.
The push up set up ritual should begin on your hands and knees. Place your hands directly under your shoulders with your thumbs just outside your chest. Keep your arms straight and pressed down into the ground through your palms and fingertips. You should feel this create tension in your armpits and across your upper back.
Once you feel this tension reach back with one leg and plant your toes so that you keep your chest directly over the hands. Squeeze the muscles of your extended leg and brace your abs as if somebody were about to hit you in the stomach.
Continue pushing your arms into the floor. Keeping your body tight, lift the other leg and extend it back to plant the toes. With both legs extended and tight you should feel your glutes tighten, the abs tighten, and your arms continuing to press and create tension down into the ground.
Inhale, brace your core and you're ready to do your first push up. This routine will ensure you’re in the proper push up position to lower your chest down to the floor between your thumbs every time.
Elevated Push Up Setup
Doing push ups with your hands elevated is an important step for progressing down to doing push ups on the ground. By doing the push ups from an elevated hand position you’re able to reduce the amount of force required by the arms, but still able to practice maintaining a neutral position through the midsection.
Many people have a hard time determining how far away from the elevated surface to plant their feet so that the chest still comes down between the hands. Feet too close and you’ll be pushing your belly away. If the feet are too far away, the elbows will flare way out as you lower your neck and collar bones down between your hands.
With a couple of modifications you can use a similar push up set up ritual as described before for push ups to the ground.
Start by placing your hands on top of the surface you’ll be doing your push ups to with the heel of your palm at the edge and your thumb on top. Do not place your thumb down under the side of the surface you plan to do push ups against. This will cause you to rotate your shoulders inward and flare the elbows out wide.
Once your hands are in position, crouch or bend down to place your chest to the wall where it feels comfortable between your hands. Reach back with one leg and plant the toes so that the leg is straight. Use the other leg and your arms to lift yourself up away from the surface so that your arms and leg are straight and able to support you.
Make flex the muscles of your extended leg, brace through your midsection, and press through your arms and shoulders to support yourself. Now place the other leg back beside the other.
Take a breath and you’re ready to lower yourself down for perfect elevated push ups.
Perfect Push Ups From Your Knees
While I prefer to have people do push ups with their knees off the ground, sometimes it just makes more sense to do them from a kneeling position. There are plenty of benefits to doing push from your knees aside from just making them easier. The kneeling position when set up correctly can help you learn how to better keep your core braced and back neutral for push ups with your knees off the ground.
The errors in the starting position for push ups on your knees can be a lot like the elevated push ups. It’s very easy to place your hands either too far forward so that you lower your face between your hands, or too close to your knees so your belly comes between the hands.
One other major error when setting up for push ups on your knees is that many people will keep their hips over their knees and bend over from the hips instead of pivoting on the knees. This eliminates the need to brace the abdominal muscles well and doesn’t teach a good plank position for other push up progressions.
This may be the largest reason why many people can never progress from push ups on their knees. By bending at the hips instead of pivoting at the knees, they are never able to practice the appropriate bracing of the midsection when bending over from the hips this way.
Luckily getting set up for a fantastic push up from the knees is almost as simple as “Child’s Pose” from a yoga routine.
Begin by getting down on to your hands and knees with your knees close together and your hands shoulder width apart. Rock back so that your hips are as close to your ankles as possible.
Now reach your arms and hands as far overhead as you can, keeping your hands shoulder width apart.
Rock forward, keeping your arms straight and pushing into the ground. Move forward while bracing your midsection so that your hip bones are positioned in front of the knees and your chest is over the hands.
Tighten your midsection so the hip bones and ribs get a smidge closer together and your lower back is flat. If you’re not great at planking already, this will really engage your core.
Stay tight, take a breath and you’re ready to lower your chest down right between your hands for push ups on your knees.
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Use All The Push Up Variations
Each of these push up positions have their merits for people at a variety of strength levels. You may be working toward doing your first full push up and doing push ups with your hands elevated. Someone that can already do multiple push ups may be practicing push ups on the knees because they have a sprained ankle.
It’s always good to be able to get set up for any of these positions. These push up set up routines can help you ensure that you get into a good position every time so that you get the most from your push up practice. Now let’s do some celebratory push ups.