women and push ups

I've been a bit frustrated with my push up progress (or lack of) lately. On a good day, that is, when I have had rest the day before, I can maybe do two sets of 10 (with quite a big gap between sets). Even if my muscles are even slightly sore, I have to do them from the knees.

I don't seem to be improving and would like to know how the women on this forum have improved their push up abilities.
I am told it is uncommon for women to do 'proper' press ups anyway, but as a martial artist they are kind of important.

Thanks for any advice

 

Sorry, I don't have any better advice but I suffer the same situation as you. I don't think we could ever be good in push up. It's not that guys are better but it seems my other senior training partners never seem to be good at it. I mean they have been doing it long before I become one of the fighters. They say its one of girl's problem. The technique was kind of created only for guys unless there's new invention of push up technique for us, girls. But for now we have to stick with it.

 

Good pushups require that you build some workable back muscles, arm muscles, chest, and arms. If your female, and you keep doing those wimpy knees on the floor pushups, you'll never build up those muscles. Maybe start with those, but you've got to move up to the regular ones.

 

Hang on - they're not wimpy! if it is all you can do, I think it is better to do them with good form (i.e straight back and a full range of motion) rather than struggle badly with a 'full' press up.

I know men a generally stronger than women in the upper body, so is it easier for them to build strength here than women? All the girls in my class struggle with push up, so I am wondering if it is genetics, or do we simply have to keep on practiceing.

 

I was thinking about this the other day...

i injured my foot a month or so back, and so couldnt do push-ups sometimes, so i tried the girly ones ( on my knees )
3 things i noticed:
i was more inclined to slide backwards on the floor after a while ( knees aint that good for gripping.)
it seemed to be working different muscles, (although this could have been from sliding.)
and they werent 'that' much easier than normal pushups, ( easier, sure, but i was expecting them to be really easy) i only managed a third to a half again as many as i can normally do.

on a random thought...
Also i think that woment are more likely to be 'top heavy' when doing pushups, and some of that weight will not be muscle, so the muslce/weight ratio is tipped against them.

I would suggest starting with normal pushups asap, i find it hard to believe that anyone cant do at least one standard pushup, and if it's so hard then surely you'll progress faster.

i know nothing about exercise, i just do what feels good, what seems to work, and what i can stick to.


-Qis

 

I was absolutley terrible at push-up's i blamed my arms, but i have got better, a lot better, but not as good as them the men who have been doing it the same length of time as myself.

 

I've had the same problem as you- I have had to work very hard to improve, compared with men I train with.

The key to it is that, as Qis points out, women's weight and muscle distibution is different to men's. When I was 12, I used to be able to do a couple of hundred push-ups, whereas after puberty that went down to well below 20!! Almost like starting from scratch.

I don't know if this works exactly the same for all women, as everybody has different body shapes. In fact, from observing classes, I think that some men find them harder than others too.

Like the others said, the ones on your knees don't really work the same parts as full ones. As you've realised, they are one of the best exercises you can do for MA's, so it's a shame to skip them.

One method to improve is to do lots of small sets. Work out the maximum you can do now without stopping, then do lots of small sets of 75% of that throughout the day. E.g. if your max is 10, do 7 each time. My favourite is to do this while you're watching telly- do one set every time the adverts come on. Alternatively you could do a set every time you go to the loo at work, although this can prompt funny looks if you get caught!!

If you are struggling a lot with full ones, you can also try doing them with your hands on a chair or bench, as this makes them easier, but still works roughly the same parts.

Good luck

 

Very good idea. There was another thread about this a couple of months ago and some of the suggestions were doing them on an incline (for example doing them on some stairs) to gradually build up the right muscles. Or even fix up some kind of incline bench or board and do it on them, gradually lowering the board until you are on the floor.

Even if you are doing push ups on your knees, at least you are exercising, so don't knock yourself for it

 

Remember American TV adverts are about every 5 minutes .

I'm pretty awful at pushups. Long, slender arms make for mechanical disadvantage.

Well worth doing proper ones. If you can do one today then soon you'll be doing 2 and soon after that 5.

I used to do 10 then got up to 20 and was stuck there. At that point, I invented my own method which was to start in the up position, lower halfway, go back up, lower all the way, go halfway up, lower again and finally go all the way up. Doing 5-10 of those as training got me to 40 pushups very quickly. At that point I got bored.

That was two years ago. I can do 25 now, which I do occasionally just for maintenance. Yeah, yeah, why didn't I do 40 for maintenance back then?

Rgds,
David

 

Exactly!!

Supreme efficiency is a difficult art to master, but you are almost there, couchPotatoMan

 

Many women simply never get to the point where their upper body is strong enough to do those straight-leg push-ups.

The bent knee push-up is very effective at strengthening the chest, triceps and shoulder muscles. Now staight legged push-ups will firm those areas faster, because you're resisting more body weight.

You can try doing one straight-legged push-up, then two bent-knee push-ups, alternating back and forth for a total of 15 to 20. Next time, go for two straight-legged push-ups to every bent-knee push-up. Eventually, you should be able to do all straight-legged push-ups.

What worked for me was weight training to build up my upper body strength.

Lots more advice here on pushups

*edited by the author of post .... "t" word was used for some ungodly reason...

 

Yes, I shouldn't have used the word wimpy,

 

Before I hurt my arm, I used to be able to do about 25 not-so-great pushups. Now I'm lucky if I can reach 8. There's a woman in my dojo who does pushups very well, with proper form (and not from the knees). She apparently has the necessary upper body strength; she got that way by lifting weights.

I understand that abdominal and back muscles also play a part in pushup performance, so those are other areas to concentrate on.

 

I don't think girls should be able to do as many push ups as guys, because they are heavier up-top, so doing 20 for girls would be like 30 for guys.

PL

 

more like 10 girls 50 guys. I havent seen many girls who can even do one proper pushup.

 

If people are getting into the girl guy push-up debate, I know the armed forces assume women having 40% the upperbody strength of men and for some test (don't remember which one) girls do 14 to guys 40.

Press-ups were a nightmare for me when I started training but my instructor encouraged me to do full pressups or I wouldn't ever build up enough strength and now on a good day I can do about 50. What I found worked for me was to work til my arms gave, then try and do it again, like doing 30 seconds or minute all out (depends how strong you are) have a 15 sec break then do it again and try to build up to doing 5 sets. Obviously don't do it too often cuz it knackers your arms but even if you don't do it that often I found the number I could do in isolation increased as a result. Probably goes against all sensible training ideas but it worked for me...

C xx

 

That doesn't mean they can't do it. Most girls don't care for strength, so they slack off when they are forced to do them. Least, it's been like that in all my PE classes.

PL

 

I presume you're talking about boobs when you say that women are heavier up top. There must be some big women in your class

Unless you're Pamela Anderson, I don't think the weight of your boobs is going to stop you doing pressups, it's more to do with muscle distribution. Otherwise, my other half wouldn't be able to do pressups, cos his chest is enormous!!

You're right when you say that a lot of women hold back on strength exercises, though. This is often because they think that if they do ten pressups every lesson they'll look like a female Arnie, which, as all of you who do weights know, is not very likely!!