Pulling Is "easier" Than Pushing?

Does anyone find it odd that a significant amount of people that excel in pulling exercises (FL/BL/MU) and even people with solid HS & HSPU & Bowers & press variations struggle with what I consider "advanced" pushing exercises (FP & FPPU)? Why does pulling appear to be "easier" than pushing?

Of course some pulling exercises can be harder than some pushing exercises such as OAC compared to One arm push up, but OAC to OAHS Push up is a different story.

ngoachoi said:

The story about some people never being able to achieve a full planche was quoted from a book called "overcoming Gravity" its not that i thought i was some wise man and just made it up.

Sai, is this is the quote from the book Overcoming Gravity?:

"Planche may not be attainable for everyone, but I am confident with proper sleep. nutrition, training, and other factors that everyone can accomplish a full back lever, full front lever, straddle planche, and possibly one arm chins and iron crosses." (p. 106 - 107)

Well, the muscles in your back are bigger and stronger than the muscles in your chest/shoulders - maybe that's why?

Well maybe because hspu and oapu has a element that oac dnt have. Which is balancing? But yea pushing should be a bit harder because the muscles are smaller too.

Btw yes that is the quote paolo

I agree that the muscles of the back are probably bigger and thus stronger on the average/non-trained person. However, if we look to the Olympic rings specialists, we see that essentially all of the high scoring positions are pushes (planche, maltese, inverted cross, etc.). Only a few people in the world are even capable of doing a victorian cross - a high level pushing movement. So perhaps it's just a matter of training...

Oops - typo, meant to say that victorians are pulling movements!

The high scoring positions are rated higher because they are in more disadvantaged positions.

Depending on how you look at it, and how the specific individual executes it, like most static elements the Victorian cross can be considered push or pull. There are definitely a lot of pushing muscles involved in a Victorian, but the triceps for instance are used more as a support muscle group for stabilizing and assisting in the pull, similarly to a straight arm row. The triceps aren't necessarily prime movers, the pecs and lats will be doing a lot of the active work in a Victorian. It is a prime example of adduction AND internal rotation, both of which typically would be considered 'pulling' articulations.

When working the victorian I use the image not of pressing my arms behind my back (as in shoulder extension ) but pulling my palms towards my hips and buttocks. It's as if you're fighting to bring your arms into your body while in a supine position. I may be splitting hairs but the Maltese and Victorian are the most advanced levers, and kind of in a grey area between pulling and pressing.

red1392 said:

Well, the muscles in your back are bigger and stronger than the muscles in your chest/shoulders - maybe that's why?

A.J. said:

I agree that the muscles of the back are probably bigger and thus stronger on the average/non-trained person. However, if we look to the Olympic rings specialists, we see that essential all of the high scoring positions are pushes (planche, maltese, inverted cross, etc.). Only a few people in the world are even capable of doing a victorian cross - a high level pushing movement. So perhaps it's just a matter of training...

Oh I see! Well, I'm not really familiar with human anatomy, so thanks for enlightening me!

pinoyako said:

Oh I see! Well, I'm not really familiar with human anatomy, so thanks for enlightening me!

Sorry I had a typo in my original post - victorian is a pulling movement (at least how I define it)...

Don't get too worked about saying that the advanced strength moves are strictly push or pull movements. They aren't.

Victorian involves a lot of pushing. Coach S commented on this once regarding Alan.

Blairbob said:

Don't get too worked about saying that the advanced strength moves are strictly push or pull movements. They aren't.

Victorian involves a lot of pushing. Coach S commented on this once regarding Alan.

Do you know the URL to this thread?

mirroredrain said:

...It is a prime example of adduction AND internal rotation, both of which typically would be considered 'pulling' articulations.

Victorian isn't adduction, it is shoulder extension. Adduction is bringing the arms or legs closer to the sagittal plane of the body which would be for the iron cross.

mirroredrain said:

I may be splitting hairs but the Maltese and Victorian are the most advanced levers, and kind of in a grey area between pulling and pressing.

Well said!

Weird that you consider FL BL (which i consider a push by the way) and muscle up as advanced pulling exercises and the advanced pushing exercises are full planche and full planche pushup, seems to be a huge disparity in difficulty in my opinion. However I typically feel that people tend to be good at one or the other, not saying that you can't be good at both but i think most people have a preference. I've always found planche, HSPU, Press HS to be easier than things like front lever and OAC for me. But I have friends who are the complete opposite who front lever easily but their HSPU and Planche are comparatively crap

B1214N said:

Victorian isn't adduction, it is shoulder extension. Adduction is bringing the arms or legs closer to the sagittal plane of the body which would be for the iron cross.

Well said!

Adduction is bringing a limb towards the midline of the body so correct me if I'm wrong, but it is adduction (depending on how you train it, like I said.) I don't view it as shoulder extension as much. Danny Rodrigues executes it a little more in a shoulder extension style (with less internally rotated humerus and triceps bearing more load.)When I work the VC, my elbows face mostly in towards my body and my biceps seem to bear at least close to the same load as my tri's. I dont actively push back with my arms when i train it, rather I imagine myself pulling my arms towards my body.

When I train inverted planche (mainly as a supplementary exercise) this is the epitome of shoulder extension. And I do agree that IC is a great example of adduction but the VC, when trained this way, is also isn't it? It sort of is a mix of adduction and extension I think, considering it has both pull and press elements. Am I wrong?

mirroredrain said:

Adduction is bringing a limb towards the midline of the body so correct me if I'm wrong, but it is adduction (depending on how you train it, like I said.) I don't view it as shoulder extension as much. Danny Rodrigues executes it a little more in a shoulder extension style (with less internally rotated humerus and triceps bearing more load.)When I work the VC, my elbows face mostly in towards my body and my biceps seem to bear at least close to the same load as my tri's. I dont actively push back with my arms when i train it, rather I imagine myself pulling my arms towards my body.

When I train inverted planche (mainly as a supplementary exercise) this is the epitome of shoulder extension. And I do agree that IC is a great example of adduction but the VC, when trained this way, is also isn't it? It sort of is a mix of adduction and extension I think, considering it has both pull and press elements. Am I wrong?

It sounds like you're adducting to generate tension? I don't know because I haven't trained victorian, so maybe you're right, but I don't see how you can just adduct to keep your body up without shoulder extension. I believe shoulder extension is the main thing that keeps your body up and maybe your adduction is just to create tension to help you stay in the victorian or assist shoulder extension? I don't see any force that tries to abduct your arms causing you to actively adduct to resist it such as in the case of the iron cross. I know gravity would force your arms up and body down in a victorian so that is why you need to extend the shoulders to resist it.

Nope you're probably right. Any adduction is probably for tension, that sounds about right. Shoulder extension first and adduction second I think.

I guess my point was that I think Victorian, in its nature, is less pressing than most people think. Not so black and white.

mirroredrain said:

I guess my point was that I think Victorian, in its nature, is less pressing than most people think. Not so black and white.

[end of quote]

 

You are correct! The victorian and also the maltese are not strictly push or pull, but rather both, neither, or in between. Both shoulder flexion and shoulder extension can either be considered pushing or pulling depending on what range the shoulders/arms are positioned in, for instance, shoulder flexion can be considered a pull if the shoulders are in hyperextension (behind the back) since you are trying to bring the arms forward towards your body like in back lever and it is a push if the shoulders are in the flexion range (in front of body) where you are trying to bring your arms forward away from your body like in planche. The maltese is where the shoulders are positioned neutral in between flexion and hyperextension thus it cannot be strictly considered only as a push or pull. Similarly, front lever would be a pulling exercise, victorian is somewhere in between, and manna/inverted planche a pushing exercise. It is mentioned in "Overcoming Gravity" that the maltese and victorian are full tension exercises requiring muscles from both the front and back to work very hard together.

Adduction is aways a pull though.

Guys, you're trying to put a cilinder in a square hole. At this point you're just working on the definitions of pushing and pulling to come to a conclusion whether the victorian is pulling or pushing. Pushing/pulling is supposed to make things easier, not harder. If you have need for a more complex definition set, the common anatomical names suffice.

Well actually if you read my above posts, I was trying to do the exact opposite. I was attempting to explain to some people that advanced moves like the VC are rarely black and white (push or pull) but a mix of the two. B1214N and I were trying to determine whether the VC was more of one or the other, and how ones training approach would change that.

Consider that you are pulling your center of gravity towards your hands and not pushing it away.

In my opinion, this is one of the more ridiculous conversations I've read, but hey have fun!

Joshua Naterman said:

Consider that you are pulling your center of gravity towards your hands and not pushing it away.

 

In my opinion, this is one of the more ridiculous conversations I've read, but hey have fun!

I guess this is a more clear version of the point that I was originally trying to make about pulling my hands towards my buttocks. And hey! When it comes to the VC I'll entertain some ridiculous back and forth my friend!

I would like to take back the comment I made about the victorian and maltese being both, neither, or in between pulling and pressing because gravity tries to force your COM away from your hands in both the victorian and maltese and in a perfect victorian and maltese, the arms are supposed to be on the same horizontal plane as the COG so you would actually be strictly pulling to stay in perfect position for both the victorian and maltese. Correct me if I'm wrong, please. Why did people say there are pressing elements in the victorian? Regardless, all victorians I've seen including Danny Rodrigues's are pulling anyways since their shoulders are in the flexion range and their COG are being pushed away by gravity.

I've also heard of many people thinking back levers are push oriented because the anterior muscles (front delts and pecs) are used, but it really isn't a push since the shoulders are hyperextended and you're isometrically trying to bring your arms toward your body/COG which would technically make the BL pull oriented. Muscle recruitment for shoulder flexion and extension would also be different at different shoulder ranges like the lats would be used in shoulder flexion when the shoulders are in hyperextension which BL are a prime example of and lat usage is weaker or non-existent in shoulder extension when the shoulders are in hyperextension like in a manna/inverted planche and is probably why the inverted planche is impossible.

Question for mirroredrain: Do you also try to adduct for the narrow PB victorians and do part of your arms ever touch the side of your body in either PB or rings victorian?

I don't ever let my arms touch cause that would be cheating! And no I don't try to actively adduct, or pull my arms to my body anyway. I don't work the non-rings VC much and I don't understand the mechanics behind it as well.

Think of it this way, you know the pb Russian dips in BtGB? At the bottom of the rep your forearms are in contact with the bar. Think of it like this but with a strong grip on the bar (with the knuckles pointing more or less outward) and at the end of the bars. Simply lean back attempting to keep the scapulae retracted and bring your body up in a hollow position.

Obviously both sides of the upper arms will do a ton of work, with the biceps pulling strongly and the triceps pressing to keep the arms more or less straight. So the pbar VC might be a bit more shoulder extension than the rings one idk.

Yeah, the narrow PB victorian is strange. I originally thought doing them that way was harder or impossible because it seems like your COG is moved further back. Do you suppose the narrow arm victorian is possible on rings?

The Russian dips technically shouldn't have the forearms touching the bar instead they have the upper arm resting on it, but it can be done that way too. 

Both have shoulder extension, but I believe the lats can exert more force with the narrow arm placement of the PB victorian and the wider rings victorian would start to rely more on the rear delts to shoulder extend/pull because the lats get weaker with wider hand placement.

mirroredrain said:

I guess this is a more clear version of the point that I was originally trying to make about pulling my hands towards my buttocks. And hey! When it comes to the VC I'll entertain some ridiculous back and forth my friend!

Indeed! It's all good, I've had fun reading and still am

B1214:

To me, in a maltese you're trying to keep the COG from moving forward in the saggital plane, whereas in a victorian you're trying to keep it from moving backwards. To me, this former is pressing and the latter is pulling. That's how I categorize these two movements, because if we are talking about what muscles do then everything is a pull. Muscles can't push. It would be like trying to push something with a rope... the rope just gets all floppy on you, but when you pull things move.