Follow along to see how we coach our pushups and what we look for from our personal training clients!
Below is the transcript of our video showing exactly what we look in detail for in a pushup and how we can get anybody to start doing a pushup with the most regression possible.
“You probably never seen this kind of j- hooks for any kind of squat rack right what they’re going to do is they have a side that’s flat and a side that’s open
right we have a lot of Barber excise so this something to learn we’re going to always go out and then pull it in right
we have um labels and everything so what we do is label everything hey I want them to start at a level seven so that
means the hole goes in level seven and all the racks are labeled so you know where the holes are going to be right uh
we also have different labels for chest press for Squat and for incline press so it helps us understand and where the
holes are going to go if some the only thing that changes this is based on somebody that’s um uh like 5′ 7 if
you’re a little bit smaller than that you’re probably going to go one lower than anything right that’s that’s it
just helps us s Squad I incline bench press and then yeah exactly back squ and then C is chest press so like you’ll
probably be right these are old numbers so we’re going to erace that and make new ones you’ll probably be here for a squat right um okay so barbell chest
press so I on the assessment and on almost everything that we do for a bar chest press we we start with a push-up
from here just because it’s the easiest way to um understand how to do a push-up
correctly because you have to put less upper body into it right um so I’m going to start pretty high I’m
going to show you guys what we’re looking for okay okay so right now the bars are even
I have a straight bar what I always tell clients is hey you’re going to always grip the bar like this you’re never going to do suicide grip if you tell me
hey can I grip like this because my thumbs hurt I have arthritis that’s a different story I probably allow it but for the most part you almost want to
make sure you grip this way for safety reasons there’s no other reason than a safety reason right um from here I’m
going to make sure that I’m standing nice and tall and I’m tucking in my butt a lot of people start and they have
really really uh mobile ankles they’ll start with their heels flat so they’ll do this and it’s really hard for
somebody to understand how to make their body stiff if they keep their heels flat to the ground so we’re going to try to always ask so you’re going up squeeze
your butt go down and then push away right go down push away have to their
toes up that’s a good question um not always because when sometimes when they go on the tippy toes they also like over
over the bar too much right so we want to be more in the ball of the foot right like midfoot I would say or mid foot um
then after that this is where we can put the yoga block let me go ahead and get the yoga [Music]
block so what we do is somebody that doesn’t
know how to create stiffness and stiffness um a lot of time go uh you know what go ahead and k i why don’t you
go ahead and put get yourself into the bar okay don’t produce any stiffness right okay so if I’m here I’m going to
be like okay uh if you’re not present in stiffness most likely you have an arch on your back like I can see you from the side I want you to squeeze your butt and
you might not know what that means right if you don’t know how to squeeze your butt this is where this helps okay so okay relax your button now I want you to
uh pull your belly button in okay so it didn’t change much right um I’m going to have you open up your legs a little bit
I’m going to put you this in between go ahead and come back together now I want you to squeeze your butt do you feel that tightness between your legs so now
you feel tighter okay go ahead and relax again okay relax again and now I’m going to so right now she’s pretty flimsy I
might touch her from the hip and she’s pretty flimsy if I go between the legs again squeeze it’s a lot stiffer I want
to teach that first I want to make sure I teach that first before they start and I usually do that in the assessment when
I first have him I want to give him knowledge in the assessment right okay from here some people don’t know how to start with their hands they might start
too far away from the bar or too close to the bar I really don’t know until they start doing the first move it’s like here or we need to get a little bit
closer to the bar if it’s like right here we need to get a little further for the bar right uh we always look for
tension in the last right so what I want you to think about is I always use the queue hey I want you to are you ticklish
a little bit okay so I always has the CL we talked about this on your session right yeah exactly so let’s say the
class tick okay well act I want you to think about if I was going to tickle you from the side what would you do to T this muscle right yeah exactly so she
pulls her shoulders down I’m looking for that I’m looking for her to pull her shoulders down as she’s getting ready to
do a push-up right so as she’s pulling her shoulders down now I want you to pull your belly button in and you’re going to go chest to Bar go ahead and
start going down yeah so I’m looking at your elbows to be somewhat diagonal I don’t want them to flare out right show
me a flared out push-up exactly right so you have no stiffness in your lats right so I want
to make sure that it’s nice and stiff right um let me think any questions on
that so far so far any question you like that to be back I want them to I want
them you okay with them as long as the elbow pushes back yeah I mean I want them then what I’m saying is you’re not going to fix this overnight it’s not
going to happen today maybe on a new person that’s never worked out definitely not but you want to get something straight if if I can fix your
stiffness I’ll take that over anything I’ll take stiffness learning how to be stiff over anything um the flaring out
of the elbows we can work on another thing thing that we want to look at is the knuckles you see our Knuckles are pointing up there also people a lot
exactly a lot of people bench breaths like that too right want to always try to push Knuckles into the ground I always tell them hey I don’t punch like
I don’t punch like this you’re going to break your wrist if you punch like this you always want to punch like this right exactly so from here it’s going to be a
little bit harder to create stiffness on your lats act like I’m going to tickle you again okay so now let’s go do a couple push-ups like that a little bit
harder to keep right especially because of your wrist right your wrist prevents STS but if we teach it now it’s a little
bit easier than we teach it later it’s hard to reteach the wrist especially um guys in general guys are so used to
keeping the wrist like this that is so hard we teach and then they end up not we end up not being able to go past certain weight because of that that’s a
limiting factor not anything else in the body is just the rist right um so wrist
I’m looking at wrist I’m looking at elbows but really what drives it is between the wrist and the lat if that’s
right you’re not going to flare your elbows no chance you’re going to flare your elbows right I don’t have to correct the elbows if these two things
are tight right and then from here uh go ahead and try to let me take this thing off here go ahead and try to arch your
back the other way sorry Arch not round yeah okay so now if I see this that just
means that she’s not pulling that belly button in and she’s not keeping her butt tight right that’s what I’m looking for right keeping your belly button in
pushing your butt tight um go ahead and take a break uh let me think uh so yeah
so I’m looking at your wrist I’m looking at your um lats I’m looking at making sure that your heels come slightly off
the ground cuz you might be mobile you may not I don’t know as a coach what their assessment was like but I do know what I
a good pushup looks like and I’m looking at not overwhelming them right I want to make sure that they take one thing at a
time take a win for today hey nice way to keep your don’t even don’t even mention the wrist is just trying to work
on their on their stiffness right take one thing at a time uh it helps them a lot and this is one source of help right
and I found this in the past 6 months somebody told me about like oh my God this works so well for new people we’re always looking for things like that so
if you have someone other things that I’m Co coaching and you’re like dude this works really well for me please say it we’re always looking for something
like that let me see if I miss something on that um the first couple ones are going to be the hardest to like teach
for you for me to you um because they’re going to be the most things eventually
if we get this push-up right everything else just follows through right just keeps going through
um okay so that’s the barbell [Music]
push-up so what we’re going to try to do now is a hand plank let me get a mat real
quick so we’re going lateralize first okay we’re going to cross the thing um
somebody if somebody can’t do a push-up right I sometimes think showing how to do a hand plank is a lot easier I can
learn how to create stiffness from a hand plank before a pushup right um so I usually teach a hand Plank with this we
usually start with this I go down on my hands um I I start with my legs wide because wider base is more stable
correct if we keep our legs together a lot of times it’s hard so I almost always teach everything a little bit wide uh from here if I see them arching
their back or I see them pulling out then I’ll have them close their legs together and add this between your legs
okay um that’s the first cue some people have wrists like lucrecia has really uh
weak wrists so she just never likes to be on her hands well how so theoretically I could do this right
theoretically now we’re talking about people’s patience for us and we’re talking about biomechanics right she has
really weak risks you can’t ask somebody that weighs over 200 lbs to put weight on their hands they’re not haven’t done it in years what can I do number one I
can go on my elbow so it’s going to be a little bit harder number two I can switch my grip around a little bit right so I always have okay this hurts let’s
switch your grip to facing out that’s a neutral position sometimes this works for people sometimes not all the time but sometimes right so if I switch my
grip to this it’s a lot more comfortable for some people another thing that we can do is put dumbbells underneath right
dumbbells underneath you you have you’re a neutral grip you never hurt at all and never have anybody hurt unless you have
arthritis on their hands doesn’t it doesn’t hurt right um okay so for a hand
plank things I’m looking for is am I arching my back right do I know how to keep my butt tight um if I’m a guy so
like and as you guys are coaching someone uh you always want to ask hey is it okay if I touch you especially if
you’re first time with that client is it okay if I touch you you always want to ask you never want to assume right especially if a guy’s coaching a girl
that’s that’s or a girls coaching a guy that’s also I mean you just never know but you no matter what you’re coaching female or male always ask do you mind if
I touch it yes so what I do right go ahead and get in a hand plank
position all right so we’re going to get into a hand plank I’m going to have your I’m looking for his shoulders to be over his hands right A lot of people are
behind a lot of people are on top I want to make sure they’re behind does your wrist hurt right there great that’s perfect okay so from here I’m pushing
him like I did to you I’m making sure that he’s not stable all right I want you to squeeze your butt a little bit more and I want you to pull your BT
button in oh way better right a a lot stiffer okay so that looks good I want you to now get your leg Clos
together perfect and I want you to squeeze your butt again there we go pull your belly your hips up so I’m looking
at him from the side I want to make sure he’s in a straight line right that’s pretty good for me let me push him around a little bit yeah it looks pretty
stiff um you feel pretty stiff there good okay so if I can get this correct I can get a push-up correct if I can’t get
this correct it’s going to be really hard to get a push-up correct right so sometimes this could be a regression for some people if you can’t get somebody
and you’re teaching them this it’s okay to take him from a push-up to this and then come back to a push-ups so they can
understand it better if they need to correct uh go ahead and stay there and let’s put this in between your
legs and I want uh I want you to tieen up and try to not let me pull it up so a lot of times I’ll test them I see if I
can pull it out that’s also creating stiffness right there you go exactly it’s much better A lot of times what
people will do though is they’ll drop their back and they Arch it right so I want hips a little higher and I try to
keep it stiff there you go that’s much better now his back is neutral for me right does your back hurt right now
great go ahead and relax there we go um questions on that no so
like we’re talking about some some uncomfortable things on here will be uh wris to the thing first thing I always
think about what do I have what can I do without bringing you equipment it’s just a pain in the butt right logistically if
I can deal with somebody in the same pattern without bringing extra equipment I’m good so the first thing I’ll try
from here is neutral the second thing I’ll try if the hurts my wrist dumbbells right that’s the first the things I use
to cue them and Coach them through it right um questions on
that having pain in their wrist wrist is weak so would you gradually be switching
their hand to proper position for uh yes good question it could be some people
just get stuck with that wave for a long time so they just think that or they might just heard from that one time and
now they don’t want to go back to it so let’s say you had LR today and you wrote
a note hey she likes neutr gr better so I’m going to do it next but let’s say after this note that I did it I I don’t
remember it and next time I do it I do Straight if she doesn’t complain about it I’m good but she might remember that
herself right so it might be something that we teach this way right forever for her right um it just depends on that
time I mean there’s times that she can do this okay and there’s times like my wrist hurt right now day to day right day to day it just becomes a dayto day
thing um okay so we try to make sure that a client can hold this for 30 to 40
seconds if they can hold 30 to 40 seconds that’s a good standard of stiffness create for that amount of time
right um okay so next we go to kneeling
scapular push-ups so what we’re going to be here is we’re going to be on our knees I’m going to be on my um I guess
I’m going to be on my forarms or my hands so same thing I’m not going to be loading my hands that much we can do
this for comfortable but for this one let’s just keep it like they’re they’re not hurting your wrist cuz my knees are down right this is another way we want
to teach we want to teach three things really we want to teach scapula Lear Mobility we want to teach not just with
this in general scaping Mobility want to be able to teach um hip tilting right somebody be able to understand what hi
til means and we also want to be able to see somebody’s ankle um ankle Mobility is a big deal for most people that can
squat or something if we increase the ankle Mobility or we can add um how would you say
that auxiliary equipment to make sure the ankle Mobility fits better like we raise their heels we’ll get to that that
helps out a lot of people get be able to get to a deeper squat to fix the problem which is the ankle Mobility it just helps me get there faster right um okay
so scapular push-ups or scapular what is it scapular push-ups kneeling what does
it say okay yeah perfect so I’m going to be here I’m going to make sure I have my belly button in my back is flat right
now right one thing I’m looking for is them not to do a a cat Cow right uh I want the the movement to come from the
scals right so I’m looking for them to round their upper back as much as they can and then I’m going to have my
fingers between their shoulder blades and try see if they can pinch them together most people just have this kind of movement in the beginning right not
much eventually I want them to be able to come back and forth back and forth right this is a progression of a
standing scab retraction standing scab retraction would be this one right so I
want to make sure they can do this movement and I might do it in warm-up this a test them prior to getting on the hand and doing that right or let’s say I
forgot about it I start this I’m like oh you can’t move your scal hey Roger hold on for a second go ahead and kneel for
me or just stand up for me and we’re going to work on scapular retractions right I want to see if you can round and
retract if they can do this they should be able to do that no problem because you’re minimally loaded unless they have
a shoulder tear a prior injury there that’s like like you might have no but you don’t have a shoulder tear you have shoulders a good elbow yeah it’s the
elbow right good now it’s the elbow but I would ask that like hey if they can’t do it it’s like did you have a shoulder
tear before I might ask that because they might they might develop scar tissue and they might have compensated for that at some point in their life
right um all right okay so just I’m just looking for the movement of shoulder
blades like I said I don’t want to have my hips tilt that’s a different movement we’ll get to that I want to have this shoulder blades retracting if I teach
this this becomes a lot easier right this becomes a lot easier let’s go
to a negative barbell push-up so another one that we like to teach is if somebody
cannot fully get a barbell push-up we would just go negatives right um
everybody know what a negative is Ecentric Ecentric negative the same word
is going on the lower face of any lift right it usually you’re usually a lot stronger during the Ecentric or negative
fa of the lift so what I would do is hey set him up the same way you did B uh ball of the feet down I want to make
sure you’re squeezing your butt I want to make sure you have your belly tight pull your belly button into your spine I’m going to inhale going down and then
I’m going to put my leg in and come up by help right that’s a negative movement I want to usually on negatives we try to
look for 4 to six seconds seconds going down 4 to 6 seconds going down so inhale hold hold hold and up right uh I’m
looking for their form not to break during those six seconds I don’t want them to Archer back and get there like this right I want to make sure they’re
tucking my pelvis in and I’m able to squeeze my butt the whole time um a Quee that works for squeezing your butt uh
let’s say keeping a penny between your butt cheeks um let me think um that’s
just one CU you’ll see I used a lot of different cues um um and the like if I’m standing straight if I ask somebody hey
push or I’m going to push you and I ask you to squeeze your butt I’m going to push you it’s going to be a lot different they’re going to be a lot
stiffer and you’re barely going to be able to have them move right so another one that I could use is like hey Kiara go ahead and relax yourself there you go
okay now go squeeze your butt you see how much stiffer you are that’s that’s easy I can do that right now I’m teach
him how to do it standing so I would do that before I do a push-up if they’re lacking that or I can’t get them to understand how to do that take them off
the bars have him stand try to squeeze your butt get him turn the stand push him you see how much stiff you are let’s do the same thing on the bar right
that’s that’s really easy to do right um
like yeah so you can on the negative push-up you can always use your legs some people are just afraid of getting
down there right so you’re like hey you’re you’re always welcome to use your leg a little earlier but a lot of things is confidence how do you feel confident
on people hey I don’t I don’t have to see you touch the ground right you can just we can just start here and that’s it start there start halfway through the
movement range of motion that’s another one of the progressions right start with half the range of motion and eventually get to full just make sure you’re right
notes on that like make sure you tell us hey that person can only go halfway down or or the other one what’s another way
of uh regressing this [Music] exercise bringing it up right so level
stepping it up right it might be too low for them at this time you can’t do it right so let’s bring it up a little bit
and write it down right um
yeah okay perfect so on all these four no hip tagging right we don’t want to Sag our hips want to squeeze our butt
want to be able to understand how to squeeze your butt right um use the block if it helps you out obviously you take
away the wide stance to a narrow stance but it will help you understand even you can even do it this way hey have him
stand don’t let me take a block away from you right cuz you’re rotating you’re stly rotating your knees so it
makes you tighten up your butt right go ahead try this for me relax yourself
okay you see how you’re externally rotating your knees it’s really hard to teach that for people like if I’m have you to stand hey without moving your
feet try to squeeze your butt you immediately your knees start twisting out a little bit a little bit right if I’m pushing my hips forward I’m
squeezing my butt my head start my knees start trying to twist out that’s you’re externally rotating your knees this the same way doing it but with an external
thing on you right um go ahead and relax there you go all right so any question on that one
on El four no I feel like if you can look at the wrist look at the shoulders
and the lats look at the back and look at the feet if one of those is not it you found a new concept that we haven’t
heard of one of those four are usually it right one of those four are usually it um all right so we’re going down to
kneeling push-ups some people call in girl push-ups not politically correct now uh we’re going to call them kneeling
P us forever and um this is definitely a little bit harder
because you’re always going to especially somebody you got to think about somebody that’s overweight they have a belly in front of them so no
matter what they’re going to have to have their hips back a little bit they cannot be straight so you have to be conscious of who you’re working with if
somebody skinny is going to look different than somebody that’s not skinny right so if I have a big belly
right here this is probably as far as I can get and I have to keep my hips a little bit bent to understand that that’s still okay like you got this like
you’re still progressing somebody that’s not skinny I can go all the way down and my hips are St a lot straighter right so
it’s going to be what I’m looking for is not flaring out right what I’m looking for is the same thing as tightness I
want to see can it tighten up the lats a little bit right so this is what my my lats look like when they’re tight this one my lats look like when they’re loose
so I’m almost always looking for the shoulders to drop a little bit right if they’re dropping that means they’re tining up their lats um let’s
[Music]
see yeah so this will most likely be doing with people that are smaller in the midsection a kneeling push-up I it
you also want to think about client’s comfort you don’t want like people that are somewhat heavy they do not like
jumping they do not like feeling their belly going up and down right um so it’s just things to think about ahead of time
like I program a jump try it don’t mention that wait until they say
something because we do want people to eventually jump and be athletic and that’s part of our balance you get better at balancing by jumping there’s a
lot of benefits to jumping the knees get stronger everything get stronger I mean there I seen really overweight people jog right so that’s okay up to a point
right um so yeah shoulders I’m looking for shoulders on a kneeling push-up I’m
looking if they if they don’t have a belly try to keep your spine nice and erect it’s going to be a lot harder to squeeze your butt for sure but you want
to make sure you have your hands right under your shoulders that’s another thing when you start doing pushes on the
floor and we’ll talk about it for kneeling your hands you’re always going to have somebody start at the bottom and we’re going to have them start right on
top of their hands if you start at the top you don’t really know where to go right how far to go so I usually like to
have one idea for everybody and is that that is starting on the floor you’re going to have your hands right underneath your shoulders obviously this
require a little bit of Mobility if you don’t have that Mobility it’s a little bit different you might go a little bit wider um and from here I’m going to push
away right what I don’t want to do is I don’t want to push away keeping my hips on the ground I want to push away with
my hips at the same time is the same thing on a push-up on a barbell you should see the shoulders and the hips
come up and down together you don’t want to see one or the other it’s going to be really unstable right so I’m looking at the hips and the shoulders to come down
together um questions on this one or anything so far we gone over no am I going too fast
am I going just right do you guys like use me using you for examples is that okay yeah okay perfect um all right so
now we’re going to go to a bench push-up let me grab a bench if you want water anything you’re more than welcome to any time
okay all right so now now we’re back to an elevated
push-up essentially but you don’t have something to grip right you have a bench one thing I’ll tell you is whenever
somebody’s doing a bench push-up this slides a little bit so what I might do is I might put it a little bit more
towards the black mat the black rubber doesn’t slide um you also want to kind of understand the person the person’s a
little bit already like sketchy brand new to a gym environment you want to you always want to set them up to succeed
don’t even wait until the first set just put it closer to that black side right um all right so for a bench push-up what
I’m going to make sure I’m doing is I’m going to set up the same thing I would have it’s just a a set bench we can’t go
up and down right if I want to go up I have to go to a bar if I want to go down I have to go to a bar or the floor right
so it’s just a bear ability that we don’t have to get equipment for a bench push-up I’m going to have my hands flat on the ground from here I’m going to try
to touch my my chest to the uh bench and back up so a lot of times what we’ll see is just this right and like I said we
want to make sure your hips come down with your shoulders right squeeze my butt my hips come down with my shoulders
and pull away right I’m squeezing my lats the way I always coach any push-up
okay we’re set up at the top hands are down I’m going to squeeze my butt I’m going to make sure my lats are tight and
my lats tight I’m going to pull my shoulders back right one or the other lats tight pull your shoulders back hey
um pull a belly bton to your spine or try to squeeze that orange between your armpits whatever you want to use for
that lat CE and then inhale inale going down for the most part and exhale going up for the most part that’s something we
haven’t talked about it’s breathing right focus on one thing at a time um
every session that you have on your client it’s a lot easier to focus on different things but in the beginning hey like if the person is getting out of
breath let’s focus on breathing if the person is starting to feel their back let’s focus on the post posture right
let’s just pick the best thing for them and we don’t never know that what that is it’s up to you to figure that out um
if there’s not one best thing then just pick one thing right for now if you think you can handle the think that they can handle two things they a little bit
more experienced go for it right uh the goal is to get them faster to that point that they can succeed on their own if
they can handle and they fix one thing as soon as you told them and they you can you can try to fix another thing go for it right just for sure absolutely
but it go that’s when emotional intelligence matters want to make sure that they’re you understand how they feel before you can continue to progress
on different things on the same day right on the same day um not much here that’s different right now almost here
it’s just the the grip changes I don’t have to be like this I’m going to have to be open hands
um okay so now from kneeling I go to toes right so this is a progression so
now I was here before now I’m looking for my body to be stiff right I might still add this guy in between my legs
and I’m looking for here here so the only thing that moves is my shoulder blades right I don’t want anything else
to move right some people just going to do this and that’s okay right they might
just need to come here to get more range of motion so we want to build this range of motion on your knees before you go up
to the floor on your toes right the more range of motion the better then you have more um more strength through that range
of motion right any questions on any of that so
far I actually want you guys to try it um why don’t we try doing
a kneeling uh plank uh scap retraction let’s go try to KN scap retraction I
want to coach you guys through it there you go do you want a m bre no
okay let’s go for it so let’s go on your on your knees first and you’re going to be a little bit closer your hands to your knees exactly so you’re going to be
on a 9090 right exactly just like that all right from here I want you to pull your belly button into your spine before
you start and now I’m going to have my hand between your shoulder blades I want you to push your shoulders away from you
as far as you can up up up up up yes round your shoulders as much as you can now I want you do the opposite pull your
shoulders back and try to pinch my fingers together without bending your elbows without bending your elbows exactly up again push away away away up
up uh-huh and back down good and not try not to use your back now try not to use your back so this is difficult right
this is very difficult it’s try it’s hard to isolate that movement but you should be feeling it all across here right all right let’s do about 10 of
those I want to try and see if I can fix you guys as you do it there you go exactly and a lot of people will do
exactly what you guys just did they will use their back and they will bend their elbows it’s very difficult to understand
this perfect perfect there you go so you should be feeling your scals we working
a lot right now and this is something a lot everybody focuses but if we want to row want to do pull-ups want to do
push-ups good this is a really good version to understand before we move forward with anything right with
anything okay so now let’s go ahead and kneel and let’s try the scal retractions
so it should be a lot easier not that you got that this should be really easy so straight and then pull back right so
this was loaded that’s this is unloaded another progression principle right we’re unloading the lift so I’ll
make sure if we can’t understand this hey I know you did it last time with my arm straight and for on let’s try to do
the same thing but on the floor like so we’re trying to progress him up right uh questions on that I’m definitely glad
you guys did it for sure all right hold on let me get my
water bottle before we continue I’m getting thirsty
[Music] all [Music]
right yeah so one big thing on that one is control the movement with the scapula
only you see other parts of the body moving lower back elbows want to try to shut that off that way the more they
understand the scapula moving the better right all right so the next one walking plank or bear crawl walking plank is
just what it sounds you’re literally on your hands and your feet and you’re walking without changing anything around your body a little bit harder but on the
same level as a scapular plank so all we’re doing is here right so that’s for me is showing
me that you can stabilize your scapula and your lower back at the same time right I’m not moving much and people
don’t understand that people try to do this right that is a bear crawl next we’re going to go over that so on a
walking plank you’re starting on your hands underneath your shoulders and all we’re trying to do is take a step with the opposite sides right right hand left
foot left hand right foot right hand left foot left hand right foot I’m moving maybe an inch on each that’s okay
what I’m looking for is not doing this right I’m looking for not doing
this right and most people will try to do same s same hand same leg they almost
always try that’s the way you have to get them out of right and the next one would be a bear or bear crawl a bear
crawl you’re going to start always knees underneath the hips hands underneath the shoulders and then you’re going to pull
your knees off right we’re going to do small steps keeping your back flat pulling your belly button into your
spine opposites opposites opposites opposites let’s try to move about an
inch I don’t care about the length for now I just want to make sure they understand how to do the Opposites it is
a very mental game for that one for somebody starting it’s it takes a lot of effort somebody that’s really heavy is
going to have a hard time with it because of the weight on their wrist and and and their quads everybody thinks this looks easy and like oh you made it
look so easy no and it is a cardiovascular exercise a lot of times because the you’re facing down and all
the weights in front of you right um let me the little check something yeah it definitely teaches
stiffness and scapular stability okay everybody done a bear craw before bear
craw I did it the other day okay perfect okay yeah yeah you did yeah you did exactly okay perfect so what I’m look
like once again I’m looking for not this right I’m keeping my my back uh nice and stiff I’m pulling my belly butt into my
spine I don’t want to look for this either right A lot of people try to avoid that if this is too difficult then
we’re just going to be able to do a hold a hold is the best place to start right so all I’m doing is I’m going to take an
inch a lot of people try to keep it here hey take just be an inch off the ground Lean Forward I want to make sure the
shoulders are over the hands right shoulders are over the hands this will teach him if you can hold this for 30 seconds seconds you’ll be ready to do
try a walking forward and backwards right we always teach walking forward first much later try backwards don’t try
on the same day it’s going to be really hectic um questions on that comments no
all right sweet all right so all right so we’re going to go hip
banded push-ups so let me move this out let’s put a band around this rack so
we have on every rack there’s a low bar and a high bar right usually on every note we write low bar or high bar
because it depends it depends a lot it makes a big difference depending on low bar and high bar for demonstrations I
don’t really care I’m going to put it over here so on the hand uh hips you’re was going to put this on your hips for
somebody’s overweight this is a little uncomfortable just know that I usually what I try to do as a coach if somebody’s overweight I try to pull the
band for them have them get in and then let it go and I also try to know when they’re going to finish I try to take it
off from them so it’s a untable otherwise they’re all over the place they’re like this like this right
they’re really uncomfortable so always think about catering to the client how can I make him and especially in the group class how can I make him feel
less um not dumb but like intimidated like I don’t want to have a bad experience I don’t want everybody see my
that right yeah in security thank you that’s a really good way to put it for sure
[Music] um okay so what we’re going to try and do on this first
one we’re going to do negatives so we’re going to go down so then from here I’m
going to do the same thing I was doing before on a on a hand plank I’m going to have my hands over my shoulders I’m
going to decide if this should take away the need for that uh block right cuz I’m
taking away the need to be really really stiff right now I’m trying to work on the upper body only I’m not concerned on my lower body anymore unless it start
getting really hard or a light band then I’m going have to have to think about it so on this one I’m going to go down
hands down or Knees Down up right so I’m going down now negative 1 2 3 4 I get to
the floor I put my knees down and I push away and I pick up my knees afterwards that’s the easiest variation right
second variation would be going down and then pushing up at the same time right going down pushing up there shouldn’t be
a need for you to do kneeling with a band right we should be able to do kneeling pushes by this point right from
here to here there shouldn’t be a KNE for the band cuz you’re take you’re already you’re already not using your hips on a kneeling push-up right um let
me think questions on that no all right why don’t we try it this is going to be
a little bit too much weight let me give you a little bit less we also have about all the same
bands um Red’s the lightest purple’s the next heaviest um blue green orange and
red and you’ll learn that with all the exercis we do we’ll definitely have lighter and heavier ones all right girl let’s give you a
shot and let’s get on here so I’m gonna act like you were my client I’m gonna put it on for you okay so all right
we’re gonna get on here we’re gonna go ahead and step in go ahead yep I’m going to put it around your hips go ahead and step forward let’s get on the
ground oh wait hold on there you go make sure it’s on hips good all right so I’m going to have you be on your hands go
ahead and pick up your knees from the floor there you go all right so I want you to try to squeeze your butt and let’s go you already have your lats
tight all right so now we’re going to go down into a pushup go about 6 seconds going down one 2 3 4 go and put your
knees down there you go and push away nice not bad right okay so now what I
want you to focus on is when you get down don’t shrug your shoulders spring and down and stick okay let’s go ahead we talked about this last time there’s a
boxing gym next door too so you guys know that’s what it sounds is a what boxing gym next door yeah all right so
now shoulders down go ahead much better pull your knees down and let’s come up
you don’t have to come up slow you can come up normal speed yeah you’re just trying to reset yourself for the next one right not bad the band takes away a
little bit of weight right yeah exactly okay perfect go ahead and relax any questions on that so one thing
I noticed is the traps right going up that to me means that she somewhat has either mobility issues with your scapula
or you’re just not strong with your scapula one or the other and we’re going to probably we’re going to we’re going to learn how to do that a lot more as we
go through with this I would also expect us to find a lot of deficits with both of you as we move forward and we’re
going to work on this which is great which is great cuz you can fix your own body a lot easier when we see this right um BR let’s try it
[Music] out I want you to act like you’re really really weak all right so it’s going to
yep we’re going to put it on here all right so go ahead and push yourself forward hands on top of your shoulders
all right you’re going to try and stiffen up your butt I want you to go about 6 seconds going down one two three
four five knees down and let’s come up there you go all right let’s do it again
this time I’m going to have you tuck in your chin so whenever I teach a push-up I also have them tuck in their chin I don’t want to put too much veral flexion
on their spine right all right go ahead and go down slow slow one 2 3 4 5 Knees
Down pull up all right so I noticed that your shoulder blades are coming in but
go ahead and push up again okay I want you to think about squeezing this muscle right here belly up higher higher higher
let’s keep squeezing right here all right now go back down [Music]
slowly good and now back up there you go a little bit more Arch on your back but
did you feel about more in troller blades yeah okay so we have some kind of dysfunction between his shoulder blades
and and his lower back we need to figure this one out in the next couple weeks um uh there’s some people and especially
guys that are used to a lot of bench pressing they’re used to arching their backs a lot and they’re used to looking
up on a push-up so they’re used to keeping their back Hearts right we have to try sometimes if they come in with
lower back paint I have to get them away from that it depends if they don’t have lower back paint I might not switch that
around but if they have lower back paint I’m I’m going to that’s the first thing I’ll say like like dude you’re arching your back the whole time that makes sense right you’re putting a lot of
emphasis on your Lumber and cervical spine um question on that good all right
let’s go ahead and step out I’ll hold it for you there you go a lot easier that way nice nice all
right nice guys all right so then we’re down to a negative push-up on the ground
so for a negative push-up on the ground it hasn’t changed anything from a barbell it hasn’t changed anything from
a um from a bandid right at this point now now I’m looking at their hips that’s
the main thing I’m looking at can they keep the stiffness when the weight gets lower and lower right so squeezing my
butt I’m going to pull my shoulder blades together I’m going to go down one 2 3 4 I can have them stop here and
reset or I can just come up right the same thing now I don’t have a band so I can go down slow put my knees down and
come back up but I usually for women I’ll teach negativ going down knees down
and come up just like we did with the Bandit once they get really good in the next couple weeks hey let’s try to go up at least for one you can do one or two
great if not just keep kneeling until you eventually can do it for women mostly is confidence though they have to
get they”re never done a push-up so for when it’s something new and no nobody’s ever done it nobody’s been in the gym
nobody’s ever done a push-up it’s that breaking that barrier once you break that barrier once it’s great it’s so
much easier but getting to Breaking that barrier is really hard especially with women women are so scared of their gym
sometimes they’re like okay let’s let’s let’s get you really confident first change your mindset and we can really change anything right
um so yeah so I’m looking for a negative is when they start they usually start
doing this they they lose their hips right away right so I can try to put the block between my legs number one or I’m
trying I’m going to try to push the opposite way hey pull your hips up instead maybe don’t squeeze your butt
pull your hips up so it might look like this right that might be a little bit
different but I’m getting them away from what they were doing I’m countering it right that’s a different way it’s not necessar right way to do it but it’s
starting to feel different you’re putting more emphasis in the upper body where eventually they’ll be able to do it once they understand their hips
better so we’re always trying to think about how can we load them more how can you get them to understand different
movement um I already tried the band at this point right I already pass that so I checked that off so now I’m on a
different concept I might help him out manually just by my fingers how much weight are they putting on my on my uh hands through the hips right so um car
go ahead and come down all right so we’re going to go ahead and
up all right so what I might do is I might have my fingers on my under hip bones right go ahead and come down slow
yeah so she’s not putting any we in my hands that’s great that’s how I know you you’re putting all the pressure in your upper body if you’re go ahead and relax
your hips yeah so now she has a lot of weight in my hands right so I can tell right away she has a lot of my weight go ahead and pull your belly button in and
squeeze your butt yeah you go all right go ahead and try it again yep and push up nice that’s it
much better right okay so I’m I’m I’m trying to make sure you tuck your pelvis in um I’m trying to make sure like I
said if I needed to change it I’ll pull your hips up manually I might pull her hips up manually making sure she can get it right um and then outside of that if
that I mean you can clearly see if somebody can’t even keep it at the top right away they’re not ready for this Movement we have to band it right away
right we’ll have to B it right away yeah that’s perfect so like I said once we teach the first row it gets a lot easier
after that to teach all the other ones cuz they’re just a concept within itself right um every time
that all right so we did negative push-ups we did onto the knees now we did hips banded push-ups so now it goes
from negative with the band on your hips and then coming up with your knees to negative going down and pushing up
without your knees right that will be the next step that’s this one basically the hip bend the push-up it’s just not using your knees right that’s the next
elevation um okay the elbow banded pushup so another one that we’ve used
before sometimes it works differently and this one might work better on heavier people what we’ll do is we’ll
take this band and we’ll do a a figure eight on it we’ll put this between your elbows right right around your elbows
right so it’s going to take care of your chest instead of your hips right so what I’m going to do is I’m going to come down here I’m going to use this band to
help me put weight into my chest and then back up and that’s for people that have really um the opposite problem so I
can take care of my hips I just my upper body is not strong enough let’s do this version right let’s do this version uh I
can do a kneeling pushup like this also cuz it’s taking care of my upper body a lot more I KNE my hips that much I can
also do it just normal right and knees down and push up so it’s three variation kneeling only negative going down
kneeling coming back up or just normal push-up on the toes the whole time right I’m going to have you guys try both so
you guys both tried the hips now we’re going to try both the elbow Bandon okay let’s try it out actually no go ahead
try it another one that we learned there you go exactly so now put on your elbows a little bit higher yeah exactly they
High get on your elbows the better women cuz if you have bigger chest it’s going to be a little bit harder there you go cuz going to help you more the higher it
is and you might be able to knock out like 30 go ahead a little bit of help right I like
this what’s up yeah it makes you bounce back up right almost the opposite where you put it around your back and you’re
using the resistance okay yeah so another one would be hips and back from the top right so basically you could do
that and you can do this one too it’s whatever you feel more comfortable with trying um you just want to have somebody
yeah somebody that some you’re going to find something that works for people there’s so many different issues the more you have on your tools toolbx the
better right you can do hip you can do um chest banded from the top you can do elbow
banded squeeze your butt there you go hips up a little bit higher and look down for me look down for me look down
for me there you go you’re good you’re good you’re good you’re good there you go up
[Music] nice beautiful how does it feel takes a
lot of weight off right yeah and then obviously this is a little thin band if you go with a thicker band you’re
bouncing you’re bouncing the whole time another one that we do on the power side is we do put this band on your hips or
on your chest for um uh Pio push-ups right so another one we will get there
but we’ll just put this and we’ll put on your chest or your hips and you just try and clap right and that’s obviously the band will take a lot of weight away we
want to make sure people are able to do power stuff from from a band right uh questions on that
new for most of you I think good at least we learned something new um all right so after that we go on to a floor
push-up um basic floor push-up you already did it the one before that would have been a negative push-up right so we
would be kneeling back up right this time we won’t be kneeling so the next
one is just a full push-up going down and up or we just went over push exactly all it is right so like I said we want
to tuck your chin in I always think about hey if somebody doesn’t understand that I’m going to put oh I got to get ready I’m going to put a tennis ball
on her chin right that’s easy um hand release push-up so this one’s a little
bit harder you might have to look up on this one so on this one I’m going to go down release my hand and back up right
so Hand release push-up on this one couple things I’m looking for when they’re going down their hips don’t tou
their quads don’t touch the ground right so I’m sliding my hand down making sure that don’t touch the ground the only thing touching the ground is my belly or
my chest and I’m going to should like I can see underneath my hands then I’m pushing back up down push back up down
push back up you might see a little bit more of Lumbar extension than that a little bit more flexion but it’s just because of the movement right um you
want to try to get a full like sweep of a paper underneath it if they’re not coming off it’s not a real hand release
push-up the idea of this is to just take off all the pressure of the upper body and then build it back on from from
nothing so you’re taking momentum out of it right you’re taking momentum out of it that was that’s what makes it a lot
harder right um plate loaded push-up we’re going to put a plate on their lower on
their midback right so go ahead and get on the ground [Music]
RP so basically yes exactly so I’m going to
have you pull your hips up squeeze your butt there you go right there all right so I’m going to be here if I only have a
one-on-one I’m going to make sure I keep my hand on the plate it doesn’t slide down go ahead and go down for me
and then come back up good so this one we’ll start seeing people sag their hips a little bit more right so we have to
overemphasize pushing your hips up go ahead and go down again there you go up good back
down up nice relax okay so tagging the hips want to push the hips up a little
bit if you’re spotting them have a hand in the plate so it doesn’t slide down or up um anything else on
that I don’t think so no that’s it um any questions on this
one no bottom good question um we have a lot of times just let them do it the first
time they do it you need to spot them make sure they can get it right after that if you trust them go for it we even have people load their own plane on
their back right so most people just go like this right and I’m here and they understand
how to do at this point right um and then they know how to take it off again I feel like if they’re going at a good Tempo too like the pl should
stay yeah so that teaches you go slow control everything we’re looking for is control if you can control every lift”
