"Centralised" push ups.

[Anarcho]

Someone (can't remember who or where) on the main forum suggested doing push ups on your fists with your arms held as centrally as possible. The idea being, this replicates the type of movement used in punching and thus targets the appropriate muscles more closely. What do you guys think of this? Is it safe/effective in your opinion?

[BeiKongHui]

I have always heard that moving your hands in closer to the center on pushups or the bench press targets the triceps more effectively which is the muscle that powers your punch. I do what I call a diamond pushup which is basically what you described but with hands flat, thumbs and pointing fingers touching to form the diamond. You can also make them tougher by raising your butt so that when you lower yourself your nose touches the center of the diamond. Hope that helps.

"Gong Sao Mo Gong Ching Sao"
- When you talk with the hands,
best not to speak of polite hands.

[Master Po]

The way I understand it is the closer your hands are the more it works the arms and the ****her your hands are the more it works the chest. Both are important.

[mun hung]

Absolutely correct, Master Po. The wider the elbow position, the more emphasis on the chest area, and narrow for triceps. The push-up is a compound movement, which means you're using more than one muscle group to complete the movement. Triceps, pecs, and delts are all used in the common push-up. For punching power - the trick is in the elbow positioning. They should be in close to your sides throughout the movement.

From a bodybuiding standpoint - diamond push-ups put more emphasis on the inner pecs.

[nickle]

if you want to target the triceps, keep your elbows in as you do the push ups, letting them scpare against your lats. also try do a couple hundred chain punches, followed by lots of tricep pushups.good workout

-specialization is for ants-

[Longquan]

The army used to do "diamond" pushups, so named because of the shape formed when the two hands come together.

Well the army now does "close hand" push ups. It turns out that the pressure can be detrimental from performing many reps of diamond pushups. Start by performing regular pushups and moving inward gradually. I would say that if you can't do 50 diamond pushups in two minutes start with regular pushups.

"To the Buddhist, "To
be or not to be" is not
the question. The
question is whether or
not you can transcend
these notions."

Thich Nhat Hanh

[Inquisitor]

I myself always stayed away from them because I thought they put too much pressure on the elbows... Thanks for verifying my intuition, Longquan. :)

[benny]

any tricep thing is good but i have found punching under water is great. you have contant resistance wiothout the problems of wieghts ie gravity makes you lift the wieghts instead of forward.