Warm Up Push Ups: By the Numbers

If you just trained twice a week in July, you would have done two hundred push ups before you even begin to count a single one in training. That’s just counting the twenty push ups found in the general warm up. Training three times a week? Add another hundred.

The push up is still the reigning champion for most commonly known and universally faulted movement in fitness history. Considering the upside (skill transfer, pain free shoulders, functional strength, etc), one would assume that these two or three hundred warm up reps or so per month would be captured as a “freebie” of fitness improvement. Oddly, I just don’t see it. I don’t think there’s an understanding of the magnitude of these practice repetitions. Sometimes, for what ever reason, it seems as though the juice isn’t worth the squeeze for some students when it comes to expression of a full range of motion or mechanically organizing the shoulders.

The argument that “good push ups are harder” crumbles as soon as you look at the scalable options available. It isn’t more difficult, it’s attention to detail.

Let me tell you. At a rate of 3000+ push ups alone in the warm up per year, the volume will either take you to new heights or make your poor habit more permanent. Here’s a challenge: Don’t ever do a half range, elbows flared, arched back push up again.

It sounds crazy, but considering you know what things you’re wanting to happen in a push up and you’ve got tools to make these possible at any fitness level, why would you choose any other strategy?

 

 

Logan Gelbrich

@functionalcoach