The Lemon Fool

Having battled and puffed my way through 54 sessions of Joe Wicks 9am morning video on bringing the nation together to do keep fit, I have realised that an inability to do a correct form pushup is a bit of a problem.

If I could do a proper strong pushup then the following drills would be a lot easier: mountain climbers, burpees, squat thrusts, squat jacks, up-down plank, straight arm plank, shoulder tap, to name just a few.

In fact any time I need to support my horizontal body on two arms or one arm, then I need to have a lot more strength and crucially, correct hand positioning.

So I have studied some videos and discovered what to do! When the arms are straight and supporting the body then the arms must be absolutely vertical which means that the hands must be under the body with elbows pointing back, not flying out to the side. This feels rather strange and I lack strength in this position - at the moment. However, I am working on it and expect a breakthrough with many drills any time soon!

Push up are great and with a little practise they become much easier.

I did a three month programme a couple of years ago to get to 100 push ups and it was very useful.

As to position of hands, it is my understanding that different hand positions work different muscle groups and there is no right or wrong position, it just depends which muscles you wish to work.

So some push ups are done with the hands actually together under the body which works the triceps more while further apart works the pecs.

No doubt there is an optimum position for the balance between those extremes which may be as you describe.

I must admit that my "normal "press up" position is with hands further apart than you describe.

I will try it and see what the difference is.

John