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Elbow movement during pushups


nilnip
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I have noticed that the elbows can either move outwards or backwards when doing pushups. May I know which way of doing pushups is correct or preferable? Or are they equal?

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Michael Miskelly

I don't believe there is a preferable way, just whatever you feel works the best for you. I used to do them elbows out which seems to work the chest more. They were too easy so I now do elbows back and tucked close to my side, this way puts more focus on the triceps for pushing and I also feel it on my anterior deltoids more when doing high reps.

Simply put if you wish to work triceps more use elbows in, pecs more elbows out. Thats how I see it anyway.

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Joshua Naterman

The wider your elbows are the more you will be stressing the shoulder capsule. For shoulder health purposes you would never want your upper arm more than 45 degrees away from the body, just like bench press. Wider hands shorten the range of motion somewhat and do not involve the triceps as much, as has been mentioned.

Ideally, just like pull ups you would want to use a variety of hand positions because this stimulates and emphasizes each muscle somewhat differently.

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I think of elbows at sides as the standard PU, and elbows wide to use Coach's terminology as Bulgarian.

If you know why Bulgarian anything is more difficult the same reasoning will apply here.

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  • 4 weeks later...

I think standards vary. Elbows-out is transverse flexion and elbows-in is normal flexion. My guess is it might be nice to pick a happy medium of 45 degrees, that way we avoid extreme internal rotation and armpit chafing alike.

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Does your position change in any way when doing more explosive movements like hopping or clapping pushups?

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Joshua Naterman

A little bit. In real life you are pretty much never going to be doing wide arm explosive movements because they are inefficient. You always want your hands directly under the shoulders or darn close to it! That allows maximum force transfer and also protects the more delicate structures of the joint by giving the best leverage possible. Since it is not possible to finely control the force production during explosive work, and since you are working with multiples of your bodyweight or whatever load you are using, it is not intelligent to introduce a second multiplier.

Example: The wider you place your arms in an explosive push up the more force you place on the pecs and rotator cuff muscles, particularly infraspinatus, teres minor, and subscapularis (which in turn puts more stress on infra and teres). When you catch yourself during a hopping or clapping push up you are actually receiving a multiple of your body weight. We can use simple physics to give a simplified set of numbers. During push ups you are holding 60-70% of your bodyweight because of the angles and the tripod base. All of that force is going through the shoulders.

The numbers: Let's say you weight 75 kilos (155 lbs, a pretty average weight)

you are only supporting 50kg of weight in the push up position. If you are able to push yourself just 30cm or about 1 foot in the air during a clapping push up and you catch yourself with about 10cm or 4 inches of flex in your arms (meaning that from the moment you impact the ground your body only moves about 4 inches as you flex your arms to absorb the impact) which is something most everyone here can do I am betting, your impact force is 163 kg. That's 360 lbs.

That is over a 3x multiplier. So, all by itself that creates pretty large forces. Why on earth would you want to multiply that again with a wide hand position? Even if it's "only" a 30% multiplier, which would be a really low multiplier and not representative of a terribly wide hand stance, you still just kicked the impact force up to almost 500 lbs as far as those muscles are concerned. That's a LOT of impact for small muscles to instantaneously absorb. Don't forget there will be less favorable angles across the elbows and wrists as well. There is a high potential for muscle strain(tear) all over the place.

Using that as a simple example, I feel comfortable saying that no it is not very safe to use wide arm positions for high velocity motions. Outside of the forces being multiplied you are also applying these forces to an inherently less stable shoulder, which again multiplies the danger of injury. To me that's dumb training.

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Nice analysis Slizz.

When i was a kid there was only one kind of push up, wide arm. I was astounded when i learned the close arm version via yoga, where its called Chatarunga Dandasana. It was always touted as being so much healthier for the shoulders.

In the progression of pushups, i'd have to put it as number one, if you can't do it with good form then you have no business going wider.

Adding the dynamic element to the equation, makes it all the more clear.

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Alexander Moreen
A little bit. In real life you are pretty much never going to be doing wide arm explosive movements because they are inefficient. You always want your hands directly under the shoulders or darn close to it! That allows maximum force transfer and also protects the more delicate structures of the joint by giving the best leverage possible. Since it is not possible to finely control the force production during explosive work, and since you are working with multiples of your bodyweight or whatever load you are using, it is not intelligent to introduce a second multiplier.

Example: The wider you place your arms in an explosive push up the more force you place on the pecs and rotator cuff muscles, particularly infraspinatus, teres minor, and subscapularis (which in turn puts more stress on infra and teres). When you catch yourself during a hopping or clapping push up you are actually receiving a multiple of your body weight. We can use simple physics to give a simplified set of numbers. During push ups you are holding 60-70% of your bodyweight because of the angles and the tripod base. All of that force is going through the shoulders.

The numbers: Let's say you weight 75 kilos (155 lbs, a pretty average weight)

you are only supporting 50kg of weight in the push up position. If you are able to push yourself just 30cm or about 1 foot in the air during a clapping push up and you catch yourself with about 10cm or 4 inches of flex in your arms (meaning that from the moment you impact the ground your body only moves about 4 inches as you flex your arms to absorb the impact) which is something most everyone here can do I am betting, your impact force is 163 kg. That's 360 lbs.

That is over a 3x multiplier. So, all by itself that creates pretty large forces. Why on earth would you want to multiply that again with a wide hand position? Even if it's "only" a 30% multiplier, which would be a really low multiplier and not representative of a terribly wide hand stance, you still just kicked the impact force up to almost 500 lbs as far as those muscles are concerned. That's a LOT of impact for small muscles to instantaneously absorb. Don't forget there will be less favorable angles across the elbows and wrists as well. There is a high potential for muscle strain(tear) all over the place.

Using that as a simple example, I feel comfortable saying that no it is not very safe to use wide arm positions for high velocity motions. Outside of the forces being multiplied you are also applying these forces to an inherently less stable shoulder, which again multiplies the danger of injury. To me that's dumb training.

While this is all true(as far as I know anyways hah), its also true that you aren't really going to get to choose your elbow placement during maximal force plyometric work like a hopping/clapping pushup. Your body is just going to use the position where you generate the most force naturally.

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Joshua Naterman

That's true, I am just putting all that out there so that no one tries to perform a super wide clapping push up for whatever reason lol!

I thought that putting some numbers out there might make it easier to understand why my opinion is what it is.

What do you think, unnecessary info or an ok idea? That's a serious question, not some kind of snide remark.

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Alexander Moreen

Don't stop man, I love reading your posts! Knowing the why of something is fascinating and enlightening, my post was just supposed to be more of a results only type response.

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Joshua Naterman

Ok, cool! I am trying to make sure that I am writing posts that people want to hear. Thanks!

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I'm going to concur with Lavastine. I definitely enjoy reading your posts Slizz, since it's usually from perspective I rarely think from.

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... In the progression of pushups, i'd have to put it as number one, if you can't do it with good form then you have no business going wider ...

Very good advice. Most injuries are the result of attempting to go too far, too fast.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

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  • 2 years later...

I know that shoulder impingement can occur in overhead abduction (wide HSPU, flared elbows), but could this also happen in overhead elbow flexion (HSPU elbows tucked)?

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