Perfect Your Push Up For Better Fitness

Ultimate fitness is the goal of every healthy woman. At WHP and Hatha Yoga and Fitness we believe in a blended balance of yoga, fitness, biking, and your favorite sports activity! So optimizing the workout and perfecting the techniques of training is a key ingredient to being fit. What would it take to do the perfect push up: should you build the most muscle, have the right stretch to your joints, or enhance your cardiovascular fitness so you can do many push ups? This is really a question to be answered about every fitness strategy.

Today I slugged through my routine wondering, if I was slouching during squats and arching my back with the push up. The other day I watched, out of the corner of my eye, a young woman spend 45 minutes on a short bench workout that was truly varied and pretty remarkable, and she did a lot a lot a lot of push ups. I was thinking about my push up abilities, and it led me to realized I needed some additional coaching. There are many good hints for the physical attainment of the perfect push up, here’s one :

http://www.webmd.com/fitness-exercise/features/doing-the-perfect-push-up
And the article is very good. But it doesn’t start with the: get into work out mode, warm up, wear the right clothing the right shoes, get your gyno to check your pelvic tilt, make sure you don’t have and your posture…

Lets say you got all that accomplished before you worked out and were still looking for that perfect push up. They had a six point conclusion I’d like to slightly modify:

1. The authors advocate to make small changes in your routine: I say start by tracking your routine. There is really nothing like cold hard facts to reason with when you are trying to judge progress; before you figure out what to change.
2. It is also important to get in proper stretching. Most experts say to do this at the end of your exercises so your muscles are warm and injuries are less likely. Proper stretching is important to avoid injury.
3. They talk about turning to look at body position in a mirror being the alternative to one’s trainer, but trust me, this leads to slippage, go with any old judge.
4. I’d say try incline push ups first. The perfect push up clan goes for that “touch your chest to the floor first” rule, well, I’m here to tell you, if you aren’t in enough shape the floor may become…well lets just say, those mats are really more comfy than they look.
5. If you have to resort to wall standing push ups, that should really be called a push out, and I wouldn’t count it as a push up, or even bother to grade the form.
6. I’m still thinking about the more reps lower weight load vs fewer reps higher weight load, generally I’m thinking often it’s few reps and low weight unless you go back to point 1. and check the list for what you are really aiming at. Try to improve.
7. I also go with: there is no one perfect exercise for all things, variety is the spice of life and in the exercise world, even more critical!

Want more fitness advice? Log on to Hatha Yoga and Fitness to get a trainer, or call Women’s Health Practice for a gyno check up!