proper pushups

[Shaolin Dude]

I've been doing pushups for the last 3 years with the elbow sticking out. But now at my new school, one of the instructors said to keep the elbow in. So, which is right? It's easier for me to stick the elbow out

[stubbs]

they focus on different muscles. elbows out uses mainly chest, triceps and lats but elbows in focuses more on the triceps. elbows out uses more and larger muscles which is why they're easier. i've stopped doing elbows in for a while because when i did them fast i tended to hunch slightly and i think it overstretched my shoulders.
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Fetish feet

[WinterPalm]

I think you meant 'delts', lats are on your back...

[GreenCloudCLF]

Many different types of puch-ups to focus on different muscle groups. The military style push-up is generally elbows out.

Elbows in, and also diamonds, helps put focus on triceps.

Positioning hands high than shoulders puts focus on the shoulder area, while bringing them lower will focus on the lats more.

Hope this helps

[whitefox]

Moving the hands and elbows to different positions will cause the focus to be on different muscles. I personally do push-ups from a variety of angles. This, along with other things helps me get a really good workout.

[WinterPalm]

Am I being fooled...

The lats are involved in a pulling motion. There is no pulling motion in any pushups. The may be tense to assist in stability. But they are not used to perform the action of a pushup: that is, horizontal adduction.

[IronFist]

^ Unless you're Blooming Lotus

[ThaiMantis]

Am I being fooled...

The lats are involved in a pulling motion. There is no pulling motion in any pushups. The may be tense to assist in stability. But they are not used to perform the action of a pushup: that is, horizontal adduction.

in actual fact, if you think about it, there is only pulling motion in any movement. muscles can only contract and pull bones, never expand and push them..

adduction (movement towards the bodies centreline) really has to be thought about on an individual muscle and bone basis all contributing to the whole motion, which is comprised of a whole combination of muscle actions.

it seems to me like lats get a slight powering up on the down phase of the press up, only to (partially, along with all the others involved) control the rate of descent?

[IronFist]

^ Got context? "Pushing" means "pushing something away from you," ie. pushups, bench press, pushing a car, etc.

btw, welcome to KFM.

[ThaiMantis]

^ Got context? "Pushing" means "pushing something away from you," ie. pushups, bench press, pushing a car, etc..

context understood, was just pointing out that to achieve a push it's a complex combination of multiple pulls.

and it's worth a mention that if you focus on the actual muscle pulls your body has to do, to achieve the pushing effect, instead of the final outcome (the push) you can often find and generate extra power in the final (push) technique, and in a weight training context, extra strength.

btw, welcome to KFM.

thanks

[Vasquez]

what ever yuo do, just do lots of it to improve punching power