Started by Marcelo Lara, February 13, 2010 · 11 Replies · 8,195 Views
Today I've finished the construction of my parallets. When I was testing my work with some push ups, my brother watched me and told me "if you do more than 90 degrees in a push up, then you are doing useless effort". This is so strange and confusing, because I do a push up and my chest is almost touching the floor.
What can you tell me about this?
regards! And sorry for my english (is the entire text correctly spelled?)
All depends on what you want to work.
A decline 90 degree pushup with feet higher than shoulders is a step towards HSPU.
I recommend ignoring him.
And what about if I work in the floor, with my feet lower than my shoulders?
Then you just leveraged your position to make the pushup easier.
I'm not even sure what you are referring to as a "90 degree pushup."
trianglechoke7 said:I'm not even sure what you are referring to as a "90 degree pushup."
I'm so sorry, I didn't explained it.
When you do a push-up, your arms will not pass from a 90 degrees angle, like in the photo (without taking in consideration the "parallets"...):
I have heard the same argument from people in the US Army as their pushup standard is elbows horizontal/90 degrees vs chest to deck.
Honestly, it sounded lame then and still does.
As well, the pushup clearance for the US Army varies at times from the width of a hand between chest and deck, horizontal elbows, width of a fist, etc. You'll also hear the US Army pushup vs the US Marine Corps pullup and the situp versus a crunch.
Blairbob said:I have heard the same argument from people in the US Army as their pushup standard is elbows horizontal/90 degrees vs chest to deck.Honestly, it sounded lame then and still does.
As well, the pushup clearance for the US Army varies at times from the width of a hand between chest and deck, horizontal elbows, width of a fist, etc. You'll also hear the US Army pushup vs the US Marine Corps pullup and the situp versus a crunch.
Different opinions and methods of training confuse me and make me doubt.
If you don't have enough knowledge about human physiology to make your own judgments about the truth of training methods, then you should look for "credibility indicators."
Who is your brother? What does he know about exercise? Where did he get the information from? Can he give you any reasons for his claims besides, "that's what I heard?"
The reason you brother is wrong is that strength is specific to joint angles. You get stronger at the joint angles you train at plus 15 degrees on either side. So, by going past 90 degrees in the pushup you will gain strength at joint angles not trained by stopping at 90 degrees. That would be one benefit.
If don't know anything about physiology, for all you know I just made that up. However, I'll bet your brother can't give an actual reason why he thinks what he does, in which case it's probably more rational to take my word for it.
A true right angle push up would have your hands near your waist and forearms perfectly vertical, with upper arms nicely along the sides. This is could be called a pseudo-planche style push up, which will take a fair amount of strength to hold. Very often in coming down below 90 degrees trainees will totally collapse the shoulder girdle and therefore not only lose the strengthening benefits but set up conditions leading to injury.
If you can maintain shoulder girdle stability all the way down to the ground than going past 90 is very good as trianglebob points out. If you are collapsing then it may be best to pause at 90 and develop that first.
Just some thoughts.
trianglechoke7 said:Who is your brother? What does he know about exercise? Where did he get the information from? Can he give you any reasons for his claims besides, "that's what I heard?"
No, probably he couldn't. In fact, he gave me a reason, but I didn't understand it and it put me in a doubt
Marcelo Lara said:Blairbob said:I have heard the same argument from people in the US Army as their pushup standard is elbows horizontal/90 degrees vs chest to deck.Honestly, it sounded lame then and still does.
As well, the pushup clearance for the US Army varies at times from the width of a hand between chest and deck, horizontal elbows, width of a fist, etc. You'll also hear the US Army pushup vs the US Marine Corps pullup and the situp versus a crunch.
Different opinions and methods of training confuse me and make me doubt.
do the right way: learn by doing 