Push-ups are one of the best body weight exercises that can build an incredibly solid foundation. If done, without pushup mistakes, they will strengthen your upper body, and give you a great physique including solid chest and arms.
But I have noticed that the majority of people perform push-ups in a wrong manner. Most people do the same mistakes when they do push-ups.
Pushup Mistakes That You Might Be Making And How You Can Avoid Them
Here are 9 things you should know so as to avoid the pushup mistakes and do a perfect pushup in its correct form, read on!
Watch the video below, read the accompanying tips, and and learn how to do a perfect push-ups today!
# 1
Wrong Hands Placement
Majority of the people position their hands too wide and/or too far forward. This entails more stress on your shoulders, and you are unable execute pushups with your full strength.
Correct Form: Make sure that the heel of each palm is directly under each shoulder or just a little bit wider than shoulder-width apart. This ensures a solid support for the pushup without putting undue pressure on the shoulder joints.
# 2
Flaring Your Elbows Out Wide
This is an outcome of incorrectly placed hands. Some people have wrong notion that a pushup is supposed to form a “T” shape with your arms jutting out at 90-degree angles from the body. Flared elbows put additional pressure on the shoulders making them prone to dislocation.
Correct Form: Make sure your elbows are tucked in slightly. A way to check is that see when you drop into your traditional push-up, your upper arms are pointed back at your sides with about 45-degree angles from your body, turning your body shape into more of an arrow than a “T.”
# 3
Edging Out Your Hips Toward The Ceiling
Many people have the tendency to press their hips up toward the ceiling while doing push-ups, making a pyramid like structure. People tend to do it because it’s a cheat move that makes pushups easier by requiring less core engagement.
Correct Form:
You should move your body in a straight line while executing the pushups, without your body looking like an upside-down ‘V’.
# 4
Dropping Or Craning Your Head
This can happen in many ways, but the most commons are the tendency to drop rear your head. I notice this mistake quite often when people are deficient in pushup strength — they tend to drop their head to feel, as they’re getting closer to the ground. Actually, it can strain your neck, not helping in any way to gain upper body strength.
Correct Form: Focus on maintaining your neck entirely neutral, with your eyes looking toward the ground, to help avoid yourself from looking up.
# 5
Letting Your Lower Back Sag
When you don’t have core strength to execute standard pushups, your lower back tends to sag. And if let your lower back sag, this can lead to an unfortunate trigger of lower back pain.
Correct Form: If you have poor core strength, begin with doing inclined pushups and as your core strength builds-up – then progress to standard pushups.
And if your core strength is ok then you can fix this mistake by tightening your glutes and legs. Recruiting your glutes will help keep the lower back from sagging or arching during the move.
# 6
Not Doing A Full Range Of Motion (Full Rep)
This is another most common mistake! People often do incomplete pushup. They just hang out at top of the exercise, and performing little “pulses”, while believing they are executing full range pushups.
Correct Form: A perfect pushup full rep involves a perfect plank, and bending your arms to 90-degrees and straighten them back fully. Going all the way to the ground and making your chest touch the floor, and then straightening your elbows in a full plank is a full range pushup. Slow, full range of motion pushups increases your strength and stamina, and will benefit you far better than 50 small pulses.
# 7
Bang Out Reps Too Fast
Pumping out fast pushup reps, using as much momentum as possible is the wrong way. This makes you lose control in maintaining proper form of doing pushups.
Correct Form:Focus on quality than the speed. Keep control on the lowering phase, while breathing consistently throughout the full range of motion, and exhaling forcefully as you push yourself up.
# 8
Not Engaging Your Shoulders And Core
Thinking pushup is meant only for building chest and triceps strength is the wrong perception – meaning on the one hand you are not securing it’s full benefits and on the other exposing yourself to the risk of injury.
Correct Form: Pushup exercise needs to engage your entire anterior chain, from your quads & core to your shoulders & chest, and at the same time requiring additional involvement of your back & glutes to stabilize your body.
A major pushup problem is often people tend to lose control of their shoulder blades. You need to keep the shoulder wide to ensure that your shoulder blades neither stick up, nor wing out of their backs.
# 9
Holding Your Breath
While doing challenging exercises, people often tend to hold their breath in order to muster more strength. Holding your breath or breathing sporadically while doing pushups is not a right way to do them
Correct Form: Inhale as you lower your chest toward the floor then exhale while you push up. This keeps a steady supply of oxygen to fuel movement, which will help you execute the pushups to the best of your ability.
Watch this video to find out the most common mistakes that you might be making & how to fix them:
The Benefits Of Correct Form
It’s important that you perfect pushup form. A perfect pushup not only enable you gain the strength of your chest, shoulders, and triceps faster, but also make your core stronger because you need to hold perfect plank while executing each pushup.
Learn here the perfect form of standards pushup.
Go for quality with (correct form) over quantity. While chasing quantity, the form tends to suffer. As the bad form takes over, you stray away from effectively engaging the muscles the exercise is designed to recruit — and also increasing the risk of suffering an injury.
