Tiger Pushup

Hi Philip or anyone?

I didn't want to hijack the muscleup transition thread but Philip mentioned a "tiger pushup" where you go down on your elbows from a pushup position. I believe these are also similar to upper arm pushups that were in a WOD once. My question is how do you do these exactly? I've googled it and saw two different ways.

1) lower yourself into the bottom portion of pushup then shift your weight back almost kind of piking a little as you lower onto the elbows and then shift the elbows back up from the ground and then push back up. ( i tried these and they are challenging but manageable)

2) start in a pushup support and lower down all the way to your elbow as you go down while keeping the hands directly under the shoulder with no piking or shifting of weight backwards, then reverse the movement back up. ( I tried these and my elbows screamed and cracked. Very Hard!)

I'm thinking that eventually the second one is what i should be striving for and that the first one is a stepping stone to that. Either way both seem like a good progresssion to a russian dip which i'm not even close to doing. Any ideas are appreciated

Thanks

Phil

Cool name! . The first one is a little easier and as you get stronger, move onto doing the second one with no shifting of the weight. You can also do them elevated or in a straddle to modify the difficulty.

Just a helpful hint for anyone working up to these, if they're hurting your elbow in a bad way, start with diamond pushups. Continually work toward getting your elbows further away from the diamond your hand is making. Eventually, they'll be able to withstand the strain of tiger push ups.

Then comes work to the tiger bend...(Tiger pushup in a handstand)

Same cool name, now if i can build up to the same strength as you i'd be good!

Thanks for the quick reply. I'm going to give the elbows back diamond pushups a try. Between those and the easier version of tiger pushups i'll have something to work with to get my elbows stronger for the harder variations. Think these will be my new substitute for russian dips in the WOD.

Haha keep up the work and the strength gains will come almost too fast!

That's usually how it works. Pushups, then dips, then hspus. Same thing with tiger pushups. I'm working on them in a handstand and it is hard!

I honestly would just use some self spotting rig for the russian dips instead. A band system preferably.

It's a neat thing to do, maybe fun but I've never thought of them as being that difficult. I remember back in 04 I would do pushups this way with the gymnastics girls and 2 of my fellow coaches were impressed. Both were from yoga backgrounds (though one was an Elite national turned collegiate gymnast while the other was a collegiate gymnast).

In 04, I wasnt as strong as I had been but I still had some ability to do dips so I figured that is what allowed me to do them.

Cool drill, I'll be sure to try them a little! I'd like to do PB russian dips too, but how would you do them without PB? at home I have chairs, but they're kinda too low for these any tips?

Anyway, do the tiger push up looks like these? (Is this the easy version?)

Charlie

Do them on chairs while sitting piked.

charlieborro said:

Anyway, do the tiger push up looks like these? (Is this the easy version?)

Charlie

Yes, that is the easier version. As you get better, remove the piking. Blairbob's idea of russian dips on chairs is good too. A bit more stable than rings and an easier transition from pushups to dips if you don't have parallel bars.

I am not a huge fan of using band for movements because of how the bands help more at the bottom and less at the top which alters the force curve. They're better for statics though like crosses.

And then when you get really strong you progress to the Tiger Bend

Well, Phillip, ideally you would have your own spotter/coach but when you're on your own, ya don't.

Blairbob said:

Well, Phillip, ideally you would have your own spotter/coach but when you're on your own, ya don't.

True. Which is how pushups help until you're strong enough for negatives. I would have to test it to see if it would work on another person too.