Ok, so last week I went on a mini-rant about how using push ups and pull ups as a litmus test for fitness is a bad idea - especially for women.

And I was reminded of this yesterday when, while taking a boxing class for the first time, a fellow female classmate looked terrified when we were asked, as a class, to mix push ups in with our heavy bag hits and squats.

“Um….” She looked terrified. “I can’t even do a push up.”

I waved her over to a stack of giant tires.

“Not many females can - let’s use the tire.”

I took a minute after the class to give her what has become my soap box talk on push ups - the one I gave all of you last week. Click here if you missed it.

Push ups are an incredible exercise and even better than that - make for the perfect performance goal. Remember that setting a performance goal can be a helpful way of guiding your training. (In other words, you want to lose 20 pounds, but if you focus on working your way up to a push up, there's a good chance you'll see some weight loss as a by-product of training your strength.)

If you want to work your way up to a push up, here are a few strategies you can work in to your routine.

1. Elevated push ups

Doing what used to be known as "girl push ups" or push ups from your knees, actually only makes you better at doing one thing - push ups from your knees. Core strength is a crucial component to performing push ups, and if you want to work your way to doing this exercise correctly, you'll need to keep your core involved.

2. Negative push ups (with a positive attitude :-)

Also known as eccentric push ups (no, not push ups with flair), this style of exercise means that you are going to spend more time under tension - blah, blah, blah science. I can just tell you that this style of training will do two things - get you to your goal quickly, and make you sore as hell the next day.

Start in a high plank position and lower yourself down as slowly as possible - when you can't hold yourself up any longer, drop to your knees. Use your knees to raise back up to the high plank position (remember, this movement is only about going down) and repeat.

Technique tips:

Don't let your core sag - you want to keep your body in a straight line, and there is a tendency to keep the shoulders away from the floor while your hips and lower back sag. If possible, balance a PVC pipe on your back or record yourself for form. I used to do five sets of five in my office back when I had an office job.

With the door locked...

Slow is the name of the game here.

3. Push ups to a stack of cones

Similar to the elevated push ups, training yourself to a stack of cones can be a helpful way to gauge your progress once you've been training for a month or two. In the video below, I've got a stack of 13 cones. Once I can hit 10 reps, I take off a cone and train until I can hit 10 reps to the cone. My goal is to get down to one cone. 

On an almost weekly basis, I hear clients or strangers at dinner parties make the following statement:

I mean I can’t even do a push up. Or a pull up!

They’re often surprised at my response.

It took me a year to work my way up to a push up from the floor, and I can’t do a pull up….yet. (Keep that mind open.)

Yesterday I put up a social media post about push ups - and one of the comments I received was perhaps the most telling:

"I hate push ups....they make me feel so defeated."

I’m not exactly sure why so many people, women in particular, use those two exercises as the gold standard of fitness, but I’m going to blame it on Dwight Eisenhower, and his implementation of the holy terror that was known as the President’s Physical Fitness test.

My memories of this torturous misery largely revolve around trying to run a mile in jeans when I was eight years old. (Chaffing. So. Much. Chaffing.)

There was also the goal of climbing a rope without using your legs.

As an athletic kid, I learned two important lessons from this challenge - running was God’s punishment for not listening to my mother and I didn’t know much about Ronald Reagan, but hated him for making me do distinctly not fun things in gym class.

While doing push ups wasn’t part of the President’s challenge, it was still a measure of fitness prescribed to many of us by well-intended coaches and gym teachers. I remember my college lacrosse coach telling us to do 25 push ups at the end of many sprints - and there I’d be trying my damndest to do some measure of push ups from my knees and wishing that we could just switch to the 50 sit ups already.

Between these coaches and the media’s portrayal of the push ups in many sports movies (Remember Rocky doing one armed push ups??) we are mostly made to feel that an inability to perform a push up from the floor means that we’re weak.

When really it means that we are just human.

That's because, according to MRI's, females have 40% less upper body mass than men. So yeah, not many females are going to just drop to the floor and bang out 25 push ups, despite our experiences with gym class and even some sport preparation.

Now don’t get me wrong, if you are looking for a performance goal to strive for - the push up is an incredible place to start. The exericse requires core strength and can help improve muscular endurance with the upper body. But what nobody tells us, is that being able to perform a push up with proper depth and proper form takes time and hard work. And a lot of both.

So how can you train your way to a proper push ups?

Check back for part II and I’ll give you a couple of exercises to help you build towards that goal.

Happy Wednesday. 

Just another Wacky Wednesday here at the gym, and I'm dressed as Dolly Parton.

Nothing like working out to "Jolene."

I have noticed that push ups got a little bit trickier today for some reason...

In my Bail on the Scale challenge* we’ve talked a lot about focusing on performance goals as a way to shift the focus from the number on the scale towards something performance related. This might be deadlifting a certain amount, just flat out performing a deadlift, working on a full chin up, or for most females, working up to a push up from the floor.

Full confession here, I thought I was doing just fine with push ups until I worked with a coach. Once he cleaned up my technique, I realized that push ups were actually much more difficult than I thought they were, and it took me close to a year to work my way up to (or I should say down) to a push up from the floor. 

Push ups from the knees make you better at doing push ups from the knees. And bigger boobs make it...well...different....

When I was in high school and college we were taught to perform “girl push ups” - with knees on the floor. (See below). That technique takes your core entirely out of the equation and makes you better at doing push ups from your knees.

Check out the video below for more details: