Fitness Friday: How to Do a Push-up

Heyyyy ladies! Do you constantly tell yourself that you're "not strong enough" to do push-ups? Let's dive a little deeper into that. I'm here to tell you that you are 100% capable of doing pushups, with a little bit of practice and work. 

Last week we talked about the queen of workouts, the squat. Today, I want to dig into the king of workouts - the pushup. Together, these two moves are total body transformers. If you're in our FRBFit program, you know that many of our exercises are focused on squats and push-ups, and there's a reason for that. Like the squat, the pushup engages multiple muscle groups, making it a super efficient full body workout. 

DO NOT let this exercise intimidate you. You got this, babe! 

Here's how to do a pushup correctly. 

1. Start in a High Plank 

Begin in a high plank position. Your hands should be directly beneath your shoulders, fingers facing straight forward, with your weight dispersed evenly across your hands. 

When in high plank, your body should form a generally straight line from the top of your head to your heel. Think of an invisible piece of string stretching from the crown of your head, through your heels, and at an angle through the floor behind you. When you're in high plank, you should feel your abs engage as you think of rolling your shoulders back and creating distance between your shoulders and ears. You should think of drawing your bellybutton to your spine (while keeping your back straight). 

2. Lower Yourself Down

As you lower towards the ground, your elbows should naturally point to about a 30-45 degree angle outside your body. A really simple way to think of pushups is doing a "moving plank" - keeping that straight line concept throughout the movement. The bottom of the movement should be a few inches from the ground. 

3. Push up!

Think of pushing the floor away through your hands on your way up. You should also exhale, and of course keep your core engaged on the way back up to the starting position. 

Watch this video demonstration for a little more clarity.