Help! I can't even manage kneeling press-ups.

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  • JohnnyPenso
    JohnnyPenso Posts: 412 Member
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    kenyonhaff wrote: »
    Another perspective: why push-ups? It's a fine exercise but not all fit people do push-ups. There are many ways to a fit body and you can work up to a set of push ups or swim or do yoga or free weights or any number of upper body exercises.
    It's kind of one of those watershed exercises where being able to do one or two if you can't do any is a big moment in someone's progress to fitness. Sort of like a 5k is to a runner or a bodyweight squat is to a lifter. All good advice so far. I've had a fair few female friends with this dilemma over the years and those that started with the wall and table top pushups eventually progressed to full body push ups at floor level.

  • leoniemcdee
    leoniemcdee Posts: 21 Member
    edited March 2017
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    kenyonhaff wrote: »
    Another perspective: why push-ups? It's a fine exercise but not all fit people do push-ups. There are many ways to a fit body and you can work up to a set of push ups or swim or do yoga or free weights or any number of upper body exercises.

    Good question. The answer's going to sound a bit facetious but it's not meant that way: because I want to. I certainly wouldn't torture myself to learn an exercise I don't actually want to do. That's why I don't run.

    Edited to fix quoting mess up
  • kenyonhaff
    kenyonhaff Posts: 1,377 Member
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    leoniemcdee wrote: »
    kenyonhaff wrote: »
    Another perspective: why push-ups? It's a fine exercise but not all fit people do push-ups. There are many ways to a fit body and you can work up to a set of push ups or swim or do yoga or free weights or any number of upper body exercises.

    Good question. The answer's going to sound a bit facetious but it's not meant that way: because I want to. I certainly wouldn't torture myself to learn an exercise I don't actually want to do. That's why I don't run.

    Edited to fix quoting mess up

    Then go forth and work up to push ups! I just wanted to be sure you know there are a lot of great exercises. Sometimes people get very narrow and inflexible about what a fitness program should be.
  • firef1y72
    firef1y72 Posts: 1,579 Member
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    leoniemcdee wrote: »
    Pretty much what it says in the title. My upper body strength is so poor, I struggle with more than two kneeling press-ups.

    I've got the weight loss down (still have some ways to go) and my cardio fitness is always improving but I can't seem to manage even the simplest bodyweight exercises. I fatigue really quickly, even if I take it slow.

    Any advice? What can I do to get stronger?

    Start with wall press ups. Once you've mastered them then start changing the angle, if you have stairs in your house they would work brilliantly. Start at an almost upright position and then as you master 3 sets of 10 at that angle drop your self down a step so it's a little bit harder. I'm doing something similar with inverse rows using the Smith machine, I started by finding out which position I could comfortably perform 6/5/4 reps with and then added a single rep each session until I was up to 10/10/10, which was when I lowered the bar and started again.

    With press-ups I started with working against the wall then progressed to knee. Once I was very comfortable with knee I started slowly progressing to full, keeping with my sets of 10 but doing 1 full and 9 knee, then 2 full 8 knee, etc. A year ago I couldn't even manage a single knee press up, yesterday I did 3 sets of 10 full, simply by progressing in teeny tiny steps.
  • AFGP11
    AFGP11 Posts: 142 Member
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    Reverse push ups can also be a good way to build the strength up for a full push up.
  • leoniemcdee
    leoniemcdee Posts: 21 Member
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    firef1y72 wrote: »

    Start with wall press ups. Once you've mastered them then start changing the angle, if you have stairs in your house they would work brilliantly. Start at an almost upright position and then as you master 3 sets of 10 at that angle drop your self down a step so it's a little bit harder. I'm doing something similar with inverse rows using the Smith machine, I started by finding out which position I could comfortably perform 6/5/4 reps with and then added a single rep each session until I was up to 10/10/10, which was when I lowered the bar and started again.

    With press-ups I started with working against the wall then progressed to knee. Once I was very comfortable with knee I started slowly progressing to full, keeping with my sets of 10 but doing 1 full and 9 knee, then 2 full 8 knee, etc. A year ago I couldn't even manage a single knee press up, yesterday I did 3 sets of 10 full, simply by progressing in teeny tiny steps.

    That's awesome, thanks for sharing!
  • caroldavison332
    caroldavison332 Posts: 864 Member
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    starting MARCHING. Pump your arms back and forth like a solider. I do 6 miles a day and have awesome biceps and deltoids and I'm 56. Do push ups against the wall to exhaustion. After working out give that muscle group e 48 hours off so your muscles can rebuild. Then do pushups on the stairs to exhaustion and take 48 hours off. Then do girlie pushups on the floor. Finally do boy pushups. Try putting your arms closer and farther apart to build different muscles. And so what if you only ever have weak arms?

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