Kathy S, Donna and Other Pushup Weenies

S

Soosan

Cathlete
Thought I'd continue our pushup discussion over here rather than at "Ask Cathe." (Maybe Nancy will even get her original question answered}( . Sorry, Nancy!)

Anyway, long-leggedness might be an explanation for being a Pushup Weenie (PW), but then how come bent-knee pushups are hard for me too? The core is a weak area for me so I wonder if that has something to do with it. My core strength has increased considerably since I started doing Cathe workouts, and I can do stability ball pikes fairly well, but a roll up with good form (e.g., one vertebra at a time) is very difficult.

How's your core strength? Any thoughts from other PW's?
 
Thank you Soosan for unhijacking my post!

As I was starting to say on the hijacked post, I'm the biggest push-up weanie of em all. Can't do a single push-up on my toes, and maybe one or two on my knees. I have very short arms and I'm quite short-waisted, and I don't know if it matters. I was able to do more push-ups before I was working out regularly, so I'm assuming I always have some sort of muscle fatigue going on that interferes with push-ups. I've just dropped them out of my routine completely and stick with the bench work for chest.

Push-up weanies unite!!:)
-Nancy
 
Susan, my long-leggedness seems to be fine when it comes to pushups. It's these darn long arms that are the trouble makers. Knowing where to place my arms is tricky for me. I am inclined to place my hands a bit foreward or I feel like I am going to crash into the floor and smash my nose I am trying very hard to get the proper placement. I feel way too much work in my shoulders in the position most comfortable for me. I can pull off 8 ok straight-legged pushups before dropping to my knees and I often just drop to the floor and mutter and curse! Pushups are NOT nice! :)

A Note: Lately, I have become just a little obsessed with doing a handstand with out relying on the wall and my pikes are becoming much easier as a result. (For those two seconds I can support myself with my feet in the air, I channel David Swenson; I love him!) My headstand, is much prettier (even if it's only in my mind) and the core is definitely engaged. Yoga is the most amazing core work I have found which does not seem like core work at all.
Bobbi http://www.handykult.de/plaudersmilies.de/chicken.gif "Chick's rule!"
 
I found you my fellow weenies! I am short, only 5'3" but I think my legs and arms are long relatively speaking. I think my core area is probably not that strong, I tend to not want to work it much, although I can hold a plank for a long time, but it's such a long way down and back up again for those darned pushups! :)
 
Nancy, I guess I measure my core strength by how much I need to modify an instructor's ab work. Can you keep up with Cathe pretty well with good form? Other types of ab work?

For YEARS (even while consistently working out), I could barely get my shoulder blades off the floor during crunches. That was with the Firm as well as with instructors at various gyms. For as thin as I am, my abs are loose and flabbly unless I'm holding them in. This was the case even before I had my three children.

Bobbi, I agree that yoga is great for the core. It's just one more piece of the ab puzzle, but a large one!

Regularly adding Pilates to my Cathe workouts has shown me that my abs are weak because I STINK at it! I do Pilates about 2x/wk and I have not gotten much better at it. I can still barely do a roll-up. My goal is to do a teaser by my 43rd birthday in December and I wonder if I'm going to make it. If not, that will be the first fitness goal I haven't accomplished :-( . Incidentally, one of my past goals was to do five straight-legged pushups and I did accomplish that, but it took me a while. Now I can do a whopping six as long as it's not in the middle of a Cathe workout!
 
I have done a lot of abdominal work since I was a teenager, so they were never really weak. I can follow Cathe pretty well, only occasionally do I have to modify, and the things that are tough are definitely because my legs are long (the alternating legs and ball raise from Boot Camp and ME, the bicycles in SJP, etc.), however, I can do pushups quite easily. I can do about 30 from the toes, I can do the decline pushups in PS chest. I can complete any pushup exercise Cathe does, except the BodyMax pushups, where I have to go to my knees, and the second set of staggered pushups in CTX usually slays me too. My legs and arms are long and my body is short.

The reason I am saying all this is that I think there is a hump you get over, and then it all just flows. I used to only do them from the knees, then only could do 1-5 on my toes, I just kept at it. I was 19 or 20 when I could do 10 pushups and I just kept at it, kept at it. The Intensity Series used to be sooooo tough, but now it's just a good workout.

I do think long legs makes it harder to do some things, of course it makes crunches a lot easier!! Your upper body doesn't weigh anything. But just keep at it. I think the planks from the elbow are excellent at strengthening the "pushup" core muscles, as are the side to side with a medicine ball things.
 
Gee, it's just grand to be publicly acknowledged in front of 10,000 Cathe-ites to be the complete Pushup Weenie that I am. :)

I'm late catching up on this thread, and the thought clearly occurs to me after reading everybody's posts that long arms and legs seem NOT to be the common denominator. What I now suspect is this (and I have zero training, mind you, this is pure Educated Crowd conjecture): The key to big boy pushups is mondo core strength, and if you have less than that AND you have long arms, you've got TWO problems -- lack of stellar core support plus long-lever interference from your arms. And then, I would think, if you add to that the THIRD problem of long legs, then you've got the Trifecta of pushup-defeating challenges. :)

And that, my dear ladies, would be me. Long arms, long legs, and mediocre core strength, if I gauge that by how well I keep up with Cathe on the more advanced core work.

I'm good at oblique work of any kind, and I can do stationary planks all day but not those damnable walking "soldier" planks. (A really pitiful sight I often topple over, I am not kidding.)

Y'all know those stability ball things in PUB where you lie prone and lift the ball over your head while curling up and then tap the ball with each leg, roll back and then immediately come halfway back up for what Cathe (from somewhere on planet Mars, apparently) calls "a partial recovery"? Sheer torture at that tempo. After months of practice I can do the whole set now on a strong day, but I am at absolute failure by the last rep and couldn't do a single one more.

And although I have improved, pikes are still brutal to me. In PUB's core section, I am exhausted by the legs-tap-the-ball thingys by the time pikes roll around, and I just dread them. I can manage about four or five with great form, two more with pathetically sinking butt height (and a lot of tension in my hip flexors, by the way -- what's that all about????) and then I have to finish with knees-in instead of pikes. Then when Cathe and crew are "resting" by holding nice and stable on the ball and lifting first one leg and then the other before Cathe cheerfully says "Let's do a few more inverteds," like that would be just SO easy -- well, I'm usually sitting back on my heels having a moment of air-sucking red-faced recovery. But I am nothing if not stubborn. After a minute I make myself rewind the DVD a little, I get back up on the ball and I restart the DVD where they begin those alternate leg-lifts during the "resting phase" before the rest of the pikes. I try to do those bleepin' alternate leg lifts with them but half the time, again, I fall off the ball, then I struggle through "a few more inverteds." I am like jello at the end of this.

Now, I tell you kind people all this NOT so you can chortle at me (go ahead, though -- my kids do it all the time :)), but to support my brilliant theory of why pushups elude me, and us. I can't do a thing about my orangutan arms or Abe Lincoln legs, but I can add another core workout or two to my schedule every week. Which I should have been doing all along, of course, but it's so excruciating it's like "eat your vegetables", ya know? Ugh.

I pledge to try that for a month and report back to see if my pushup count has improved.

So, whaddaya think, Educated Crowd of Pushup Weenies? Do you think we all must confess to a core issue??? ;-)

http://www.click-smilies.de/sammlung0903/sport/sport-smiley-003.gif Kathy S. http://www.click-smilies.de/sammlung0903/spezial/spudniks/spudniklifter.gif
Weenie Queen
 
It's not just about the core.

Do not underestimate the amount of isometric work the thigh muscles, particularly the quads and hip flexors, are doing to keep the entire lower body stable during a standard straight-leg push-up. Hip flexor work such as the high-kicks in MIC and 10-10-10, and the supine planks in CTX KB, could be good cross-training for the legs to help in standard push-up work.

Also do not underestimate the amount the triceps are working. It may be helpful to upkick triceps training if it's push-up endurance you're shooting for.

a-Jock
 
I'm curious, for the "weenies", where is it that you reach failure? The chest, the core, the thighs, the triceps? For me, it is clearly my chest, with my triceps feeling pretty shaky at that point too, like they'd be the next to go. What I'm reading here is that for many of you, it's the core.

But it could be any of the above sub-units that are the weak link. I guess my "helpful" advice is to feel very carefully where it is that you are failing, and then target that part.
 
A-jock!

Excellent point -- hadn't thought about that. My hip flexors seem to be fairly strong but are chronically tight and require extra long stretches. I've also got good strength in my triceps but I can't do triceps pushups as a matter of arm comfort. Something about that angle doesn't feel good at all to my arm.

Edited to add: Don't know how or why this double-posted, but sorry, folks!

http://www.click-smilies.de/sammlung0903/sport/sport-smiley-003.gif Kathy S. http://www.click-smilies.de/sammlung0903/spezial/spudniks/spudniklifter.gif
 
Mogambo, I can tell you from today's workout that I feel failure in my core after about five or six pushups. But I also feel too much work in my shoulders. I have a mirrored wall in my exercise room and have been able to really study my form. I appear to be keeping very nice alignment, hand position, core sucked in firmly, etc. So it's always a little mysterious to me that I then do not feel much work in the chest. The shoulders definitely feel it more. During bench presses I can clearly isolate the chest work, so I know what it SHOULD feel like. Any ideas on this??


http://www.click-smilies.de/sammlung0903/sport/sport-smiley-003.gif Kathy S. http://www.click-smilies.de/sammlung0903/spezial/spudniks/spudniklifter.gif
 
I am no expert, but it seems to me that you were right in feeling that it's your core that is the problem for pushups. I mean, your chest isn't getting tired with just 5 reps. What about the straight arm planks? Wouldn't those be good practice?
 
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