Pondering Push-Ups

Saturday morning I woke up and performed 100 push-ups, after my coffee, of course, in five sets of roughly 20 repetitions. I'm not sure why I did this. Maybe it was because all the lifting I'd done the previous day at work had infected my psyche, leaving my subconscious to believe that I needed to balance myself out with some push movements. Perhaps I was just taking full advantage of a little down time to jump-start the day in a decidedly healthy manner, as any weekend fitness blogger would, while also setting a positive example for my family. Or maybe this early morning burst of energy was more preemptive in nature, an innocent way of looking preoccupied so that I wouldn't be tasked with taking out the trash or wiping down the table before breakfast. Whatever the root cause, the fact of the matter is that push-ups have been on my mind this week, and I wanted to share with you now some of what I learned while researching this time-honored, closed chain compound exercise.

That's the first thing I learned: that because the body is in contact with the floor and more than one joint is involved at the same time, the push-up is considered a closed chain compound movement. Trivial, I know, but knowledge which could come in handy if you ever find yourself on Jeopardy. There are many varieties of the push-up, which I won't get into here, designed to place stress on different muscle groups and/or increase the difficulty of the movement. For example, I use push-up stands to increase the depth of the push-up, which makes the exercise more demanding.

Push-ups require moving about 66% of bodyweight. There are ways to cheat this, thereby defeating the sole purpose of performing push-ups, while at the same time safely maintaining a strong ego. Perhaps the most common way of cutting corners in the push-up is to simply avoid the bottom portion of the movement, or the most difficult part, by performing only partial reps. Allowing one's hips to sag fools an individual into thinking he is performing full range reps, as the hips will touch the ground before the chest. This also reduces the amount of bodyweight being lifted, obviously making the exercise much easier.

Hand position can also make a difference in the level of difficulty. High and wide hand placement makes for an easier push-up because it is easier to produce force from this position. Keeping the hands closer together with elbows tucked requires greater muscle activation in the pectoral muscles and triceps.

Former football great Herschel Walker set a record at the University of Georgia with a 375-pound bench press. Quite impressing, particularly given that he did not lift weights. Instead, Herschel relied on push-ups, performing up to 1,500 on a daily basis. Now, I can't perform this many push-ups in a day, nor would I want to even if I could. But because push-ups do build strength and muscle endurance, they should be included as part of an ongoing conditioning program. Most people will not build mass the way Mr. Walker did, but there are better, more efficient methods of accomplishing this (progressive overload bench press, for example) if this is your goal.

Like I said, push-ups are a great compliment to any strength routine. They can be used at the end of a session to really "finish off" the pecs and triceps, without fear of a loaded barbell crashing down upon you as you reach muscle failure. I recently began sandwiching my push-ups around the other exercises in my Tuesday night routine. Once a week, I will do two of sets of 20 at the onset of the workout and three sets of 20 at the conclusion for a 100 rep total. Before, I was performing sets in a contiguous fashion, satisfied with completing four sets for an 80 rep total. My new practice has increased my push-up total by 25% in the same amount of total workout time.

I'm not setting the world on fire, but this does represent progress for me. Achieve enough progress over time and the end result is success. And as transplant recipients, we all have a vested interest in achieving health success.


Sources accessed in composing this post:
http://www.livestrong.com/article/301242-5-facts-about-push-ups/
http://www.livestrong.com/article/294134-the-purpose-of-push-up-stands/
https://www.t-nation.com/free_online_article/most_recent/the_best_damn_pushups_article_period
http://hubpages.com/hub/The-Herschel-Walker-Workout-Pushups-for-Muscle-Mass
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herschel_Walker