How to Do a Push-Up

Video Transcript

"A push up is a great exercise to develop strength in the pecs, the interior deltoid and the triceps but form is so important. This is Alice Monsaert and I am going to show you the proper way to do a push up. If you don't have a lot of strength then my suggestion would be to start your push up on the wall. You can stand next to a wall, place your hands up on the wall and just lean forward and press away from the wall. That would be a great beginner starting point for you. Once you develop some strength you can come down to what we call a modified push up which is on the knees. Place your hands forward, fingers facing forward, drop the hips forward and pull your shoulder blades back and keep your head lifted. The body goes down in one unit, down towards the floor, inhale on the way down and exhale on the way up where the effort of the exercise is. Be careful not to leave your gluts in the air and/or sag through the back so you've got to tighten up through the core muscles. Once you develop strength in a modified position you can go into a full push up position again inhale, keep the body in alignment and exhale on the way up, developing strength again through the chest and the triceps and the deltoids to make your arms look great. This is Alice. Have a great day."