Those Dreaded Push-Ups

[k4karate]

i'm having trouble executing a solid set of push-ups during my warm-up.

 

i can't get in any more than 3 female push-ups.

 

my warm-up requires 25 military push-ups and 25 chinese push-ups

 

(sometimes more). does anyone know which muscles are lagging to prevent the push-ups from happening?

 

is there anyway to make them stronger?

 

PS why so many push ups in karate warm-up?

[AngelaG]

my warm-up requires 25 military push-ups and 25 chinese push-ups

 

Excuse my ignorance but could you define a military push up and a chinese push up.

[Jussi Häkkinen]

Don't do "female push-ups". There's no such thing - really.

 

25 push-ups is generally a good warm up routine - not too hard for most, hard enough for those who lack the basic endurance (and strength).

 

To make the muscles (chest, shoulders, extensors) stronger, I suggest going to gym and doing some bench press. Some machines are also excellent for that task.

 

Don't keep your knees to ground. Do a proper push-up - even one, if you can't do more.

 

At home, do as many as you can. Have a 2-3 minute break. Then, again, as many as you can. Do 4-5 of these "as many as you can" -sets and have a 2-3 minute rest in between of them. Do that daily, every morning and every evening.

 

Eventually your performance will rise. You'll get to the amounts of 20+ in no time (i.e. in a few months).

[Ironberg]

Yep, good points.

 

To me, a military push-up is done with the knuckles against the floor, not the palms. A chinese push-up is done with the palms about a shoulder-width ABOVE the head (I think).

[WapCaplet]

Funny the discussion of push-ups has come up. Our senior instructor was just showing us the other day how he does push-ups. Nothing to do with the method, but he doesn knuckle push-ups. At first I thought "Yeah, so, don't most martial artists do knuckle push-ups at one point or another?" But then he showed me how I've been doing knuckle push-ups wrong.

 

Instead of putting the weight on the back three knuckles of your fist (which is the most natural way to do it) you instead rock your fist forward so that you are only using the first TWO knuckles (the striking knuckles) of the first. Maybe everyone else here already knew this. Anyway, it's HARD and painful and really emphasizes which part of the first should be conditioned.

 

He also likes to do the same thing, but rotates his fists inward as he reaches the apex of each push-up and then rotates the fists back again as he goes down. Try it. On hardwood flooring. Ouch.

 

Sometimes he does a little hop at the apex of his push-up, so he rises into the air a few inches and then slams back down on his knuckles (again, just the first two).

 

Really interesting. Good for conditioning I suppose. And really entertaining to hear the rest of the class try it (ouch, arrrghh, OWWW, that hurts!, owwiieeee, grrrrrrrrrrrr). Sensei just laughs.

 

Wap

[Vito]

keep doing them, youll get stronger.

[Kaos666]

i have three types of push-ups that i do:

 

1. Knuckles parallel to my body, shoulder width appart, positioned around end of ribcage along the body. I do these by dropping the shoulders slowly and then rising up to extended arms as fast as possible. The work the arms, especially biceps.

 

2. Knuckles perpendicular to the body, 1.5 times shoulder width apart, chest level along the body. I do thse my lowering the whole body to just above ground and them rising as fast as possible. Best for chest.

 

3. Palms forming a diamond directly below the chest. Once again, slowly down, fast up. Works tricep real good.

 

there are also finger push ups, but i can only do around 10 at most on all fingers, around 4 max on 3 fingers... i hope to incorparate these in my workout routine soon though...

[Red Triangle student]

Just try really hard.

[Toored]

those darn pushup's. I have the same problem. Plus I can do 200 crunches if I want to but I can barely do 10 pushup's. Just practice everyday and you will get better.

[markusan]

if you want to build up the number of push-ups you can do the trick is to do lots of sets. If you can only do one good pushup, do it ten times during the day.

 

Then next day try two, but do 2, ten times during the day. Do them during the ad breaks while your watching tv whenever, but do them every day and every now and then add one more.