Push ups and handstand holding.  Welcome to a week of gymnastics!  While the freestanding handstand hold may be a party trick that functional fitness enthusiasts should disregard – reserve it for the trained gymnasts like Silk or the sillies like me – a handstand hold against the wall is a very worthwhile practice.  As is the push up.  I’m happy to see them both showing up in our programming to start off the week.

It is ridiculous to me that such a foundational movement as the pushup which is so integral to full body fitness, has such inconsistent standards in the fitness world.  CrossFit is one of the few training methodologies to really teach movement standards.

 

Elsewhere in the fitness world, standards are less appreciated.  As the following two videos clearly demonstrate, the Guiness Book of World Records certainly does not have any meaningful standards as to what constitutes a push up.

Most push ups in one minute?  Compare his first three reps with the next however many reps follow.

 How about most push ups in an hour? 

How functional or effective did those push ups look?  How much benefit do you expect those “athletes” derived from their push up practice?  If we’re going to eschew standards, why not go all the way?  Why don’t we just do kipping push ups?

 

Or try my favourite, the “No Hands” push up:

 

A correctly performed push up is a full body movement.  Obviously your chest, triceps and shoulders will be engaged in pressing you away from the floor but as Radar will happily tell you, your lats and serratus muscles must also be engaged to stabilize your shoulders throughout the range of motion.  Engaging these muscles correctly will eliminate shoulder pain experienced when performing the push up. 

Your core muscles (erector spinae, obliques, transverse abdominis) must remain active in order to maintain a solid plank position.  In fact, the poor push ups I see in the gym are rarely the result of deficient upper body strength but due to insufficient core strength.  Most people can push themselves off the floor but many cannot maintain a stable trunk while doing so.  In both the push up and the handstand hold you will find that as your core fatigues and your bracing fails, smaller joints like your shoulders or wrists will be forced to bear more load resulting in the common complaint of wrist pain.  Tighten your core.  Lacking in core strength?  Time to implement some regular plank practice.

Your glutes and to a lesser extent, your quads, hamstrings and calves must all remain active as well.  It is not uncommon in high volume push up workouts to see a belly touching the floor before your chest or to see your bum sticking up and rising before your shoulders.  In both cases, you have failed to maintain glute contraction.

Rather than being in a hurry to finish this workout first and get your name atop the Guinness Book of World Ridiculousness’ leaderboard, slow down and work on mastery of these two fundamental positions.  Both the push up and the handstand hold will provide you with the foundational strength and fitness to master higher level movements.  Do not make the mistake of dismissing these as basic movements.  I practice handstand holds at least a couple times per week and push ups daily.   You should too!

Monday

Warm Up
1 min Bar Hang
1 min Band Pull Aparts
1 min Scap Push Ups
1 min Wrist Rocking

Tech
Core Bracing
Active Shoulders
Lat and scapula activation
Push Up standards

WOD
50-40-30-20-10
Push Ups
Handstand Hold

Finisher
5 rounds
50ft Sled push/pull
20 sec Battle rope
10 Plate passes
10/10 Half kneeling DB Up Chop