- Hey guys, Steve Kamb from nerdfitness.com here.
And I wanted to shoot a quick video for you
while we're here at Camp Nerd Fitness,
to talk about some of the mistakes that I often see
when people are doing a regular push-up.
You might think you're doing them right,
but we're gonna walk you through some
of the mistakes that we see
and how to actually do them properly.
So, I'm joined here by team members of Nerd Fitness,
Jim Bathurst and Staci Artisan,
and we're going to walk you through
what some of those mistakes are,
and how to do it correctly.
(electronic music)
Jim, what do you see when people are doing push-ups?
- Alright, let's get Staci in a position for a push-up.
First off, placing the hands down,
so she can rest on her knees for the moment.
So, hands down like this.
We want them about shoulder width apart.
A lot of times people will place their hands too wide.
That will set us up for future errors in the motion.
So again, get your hands underneath your shoulders,
right about shoulder width apart like that.
Now, once we get ourselves set up in a position,
what we wanna think about is keeping a nice good solid line
from the shoulders to hips, knees, and feet.
A lot of times people will drop their hips too low.
You can see the issues we have:
lower back is too arched,
also issues up in the shoulders and neck.
So, we want to raise it up in line.
Now of course people will also do the opposite.
They'll over-correct if I tell them to lift their hips up.
And that will be too high, okay?
So we want to get more in a line like that.
- You've heard it called stripper butt at some point.
- You got it, yeah.
- I'm just going ahead and throwing that out there.
- Many people have said it, we're not gonna say that
'cause we're better than that.
But I'm just saying that some people
might've called it that at some point.
- Here at Camp Nerd Fitness
we keep it classier than that, so.
- Yeah, we keep it classier in here, exactly.
- I'm Ron Bergundy?
- So, the other thing as well too with the line,
we want to keep the head in line, okay?
A lot of times people will jut their chin forward
like a chicken in a feed yard,
so we make sure it's all in line
with the shoulders and hips.
Once we are ready, and Staci I know is ready
to do a push-up right now.
- I'll do push-ups for him.
- She's gonna bend her arms, lower all the way down,
why don't you stop on the ground here like this.
Now, we're resting here just to point out a couple things.
One, the shoulders are in a good position.
They're not rounded forward a bit,
so if you could round your shoulders forward
just a touch like that.
This, we've lost, again, we lost tension in the back.
That's why the shoulders are rounded forward.
So if she keeps the back tight,
and doesn't just go loose in the bottom,
keeps the mid-section, hips tight,
she'll be ready to then push right back up to the top.
So, push up.
And let's do it one more at a normal speed.
So, down, keeping it tight in the back and mid-section,
right up, boom, looks fantastic.
- [Steve] Nailed it.
- We'll put the knees down and give her a little rest.
Another thing that we see, so, her arms and her elbows
are moving in a good direction to keep the shoulders
and back in a good line.
If she starts to either have her hands wide,
or flare her elbows out, that's also a common error.
So let's take a look at this.
- That's the one I see more than anybody,
is the arms way out wide.
- Yeah, so there they are popping way out like this.
And again, it's not gonna be very strong at all.
It actually surprises a lot of people
when you move their hands in a bit
and move their elbows in a little bit.
The elbows don't need to be squeezed in directly
by the side,
but we want the upper arms somewhere
around a 45 degree angle to the body.
Let's try it again.
So again, watching the elbows,
they're tucked in just slightly,
all the way down, back's nice and tight,
mid-section's tight, good solid line from top to bottom.
- I got $3 says I can do five push-ups.
- Okay, let's go, five good ones. Come here.
- We'll show another common error,
which is usually the worm,
which is losing tension once we hit the bottom, okay?
The worm is fun at a wedding,
not fun when we're doing push-ups.
So, we drop down to the bottom,
and then the shoulders lift up,
but the hips stay down too low.
So, worm again.
That's not what we want.
Correction for this, so drop all the way to the ground,
is to keep the mid-section nice and tight,
so that everything raises up, boom, in one solid unit.
If you find that too challenging to do,
that's why you have the other variations.
Stevie, throw me that mat.
- [Steve] Sir, yes sir.
- Yup, you got it.
So we can do the knee push-ups.
This of course, just to pad the knees down as we need to.
So, if Staci has her knees on the mat,
hands out in front,
so hands are the same exact cues we had
for the regular push-up.
Now, the line that we want is gonna be
shoulders, hips and knees, okay?
So we no longer have the feet involved.
But still the same thing with the head,
still the same thing with the back and shoulders.
And you can see, let's try it again,
let's drop on down, keep everything nice and tight,
and right on up like this.
Let's see the worm in the knee push-up position.
So this is incorrect.
See again, you can see the shoulders lifting up too fast,
and we want instead, body lifting up.
So let's go one more correctly.
Keeping the mid-section tight.
Boom, and everything is a nice, good, solid line.
So that's a knee push-up,
of course a great variation if the regular push-up
gets a little too crazy.
We also have incline push-ups.
This is another great variation that we'll do.
With the incline push-ups,
think in the same exact line from shoulders to feet,
so everything's in a solid line,
you of course are just using an elevated surface.
Lower on down and right back up.
It's actually exactly what she did.
I'll correct you, don't worry.
(laughs)
Make sure that you have your feet at a proper distance,
so that that object or that bar that you're lowering down to
is hitting somewhere around mid to lower chest.
A lot of times people will move too far forward,
so just take a couple steps, yeah,
and hitting down to the belly button
is obviously very awkward.
Or of course, what people will do is move back too far,
so that you're coming down more
toward your upper chest or face.
So you can see already the elbows are flaring out.
This is just way too far from the box.
So adjust, play around with it until again,
you get the edge of that box, or that bar,
whatever you're doing the push-up to,
'til you get it hitting around mid to lower chest.
That's gonna have the best chance of success
for keeping your back tight,
keeping your arms and elbows in a good solid position.
Cool, great job.
- So, our next video is how to do the worm at a wedding?
- Oh absolutely, yeah, yeah.
That's at the Glow Party later in the week, so it'll be fun.
(laughs)
- Thanks, guys.
- No hands.
(playful electronic music)