Q: Bill, I love your blog. I wish you had time to post more often. I had a question. I have never been able to do a lot of push ups. My chest gets fatiqued after about 25-30 now matter what I do. I hear people talk about doing 50 push-ups at a time. Do you have any advice that will help me be able to do more push-ups?” Thanks.

A:  Thanks for the question.

If you really have your heart set on setting a PR (personal record) for push-ups there’s a number of factors that contribute to your performance.

1.  Stability

If you lack trunk or scapular stability, your prime movers at the shoulder girdle and upper extremity will be limited in their ability to produce force.

The Fix:  Perform long duration planks and isometric holds in the lowered position of the push-up.  Be sure to actively depress and stabilize the scapula.

2.  Maximal strength

When doing a regular push-up on the floor, you’re lifting about 2/3 of your body weight.  If you can increase maximal strength of those muscle groups involved, your 2/3 body weight becomes a lesser percentage of your maximals strength and theoretically your maximal number of push-ups performed should increase.

The fix:  Loaded push-ups with a weighted vest, push-ups with chains, push-ups with bands, asymmetrical and unilateral push-up variations, partial range of motion push-ups, and even bench pressing.

3.  Strength-endurance

High rep sets of push-ups are a test of your strength-endurance, so in essence, doing more push-ups will help.

The fix:  Try this progression.  1-2x/week start by performing the maximal number of push-ups that you can do in a row while timing the duration of this first set.  Rest the same amount of time that it took to complete the set.  Repeat this process until your complete the desired number of repetitions.  As strength-endurance improves, it should take fewer and fewer sets to complete the desired number of repetitions.

Bill

I was doing my food prep last night while my wife was watching “60 minutes.”  Most of the time I’d have ignored the TV, but they were talking about the science of sleep and it’s impact on health so my ears perked up.

Here’s some highlights:

After 6 nights of sleep deprivation, subjects of one study were found to be pre-diabetic…6 nights!

Leptin hormone concentrations are altered by sleep deprivation such that you become hungrier and consume more calories.  This kind of makes sense that I you’re awake more you would eat more, but these calories may be in excess of your daily requirements and increase fat storage.

A lack of deep sleep may be risk factor in most of the major cardiovascular diseases.

As we age, we spend less time in deep sleep.

Sleep is not just a primary recovery tool as part of your training (see http://billhartman.net/blog/2007/06/22/restoration/), but it’s also an important component of overall health.

One little piece of advice:  Try to go to sleep and wake at the same times each day.  Otherwise, it’s like constantly changing time zones which makes it harder to get restorative sleep.

Here’s a link to the 60 minutes segment:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/03/14/60minutes/main3939721.shtml

Bill

You don’t typically think of the lats as being shoulder stabilizers, but the latissimus dorsi tendon has fibers that attach directly to the posterior shoulder capsule which keep the capsule taught during shoulder rotation.

The biceps long head also provides an important stabilizing function during the first 50 degrees of arm elevation and external rotation by keeping the humeral head pushed back into the glenoid.

While these “uncommon” shoulder stabilizers play important roles, the subscapularis is well known in its role as the primary dynamic stabilizer to prevent anterior/superior migration of the humeral head that can result in impingement or worse a rotator cuff tear.

My friend Eric Cressey recently touched on another important aspect of the role of the subscapularis in his blog not to long ago that may of interest to strength athletes and powerlifters.

Bill

P.S.  If you already own Inside-Out expect a special bonus offer coming in your email very soon!

Most general descriptions of muscle function are explained from a reference of anatomical alignment.

Anatomical alignment is much like lying on your back, arms at your sides, palms up, legs straight, toes up.

When you begin moving out of such an alignment, joint angles and muscular functions change.

For instance, gluteus medius is primarily known as a hip abductor and external rotator.

In standing and walking, it will resist the hip’s tendency to adduct and internally rotate at the hip. 

In a complex movement like a squat or a lunge, as the hip flexes its moment arm changes such that the muscle no longer abducts and externally rotates the hip but rather it becomes an internal rotator of the hip.

If you’re trying to correct someone’s lunge because their knee tends to “cave in” at 90 degrees of hip and knee flexion by strengthening their gluteus medius, best of luck because it won’t help due to the change in the muscle’s change in function.  Look for a posterior chain weakness in this case.

Learning more about how a muscle functions throughout a joint’s range of motion will help to assure proper corrective strategies and exercise selection.

Bill

So I mentioned last week that I’m training in the wee hours of the morning these days due to a busy schedule.  I didn’t expect so many of you to be so concerned for my lumbar spine health.

First thanks for reading the blog, second, thanks for caring, third, congrats for reading Dr. McGill’s book, and fourth, don’t sweat it.

For those who’re in the dark about my comment above.  Here’s the scoop.

As you sleep, the lumbar discs are decompressed and will hydrate (aka, swell with water) which puts the annulus of the disc at a greater risk of injury during lumbar flexion activities.  According to Dr. Stuart McGill, in his book Lower Back Disorders, it’s best to avoid bending exercise until after the first hour of rising from bed.  After the first hour of being up, the disc dehydrates by about 90% of what it will all day, so after the first hour, the injury risk goes down.

Makes good sense.

Now let me give you some insight into what I’m actually doing.

I’m up at 4 a.m. (It was actually 3:59 this morning which is kinda scary…has my brain adjusted to the early hours…could I be a…gasp!…morning person?!).  I walk down the hall to “drop a little water weight” and then head off to the kitchen to mix up my workout drink. I get dressed for training and head back down the hall to the gym.

I’m in the gym at about 4:15 give or take a couple minutes (depends on how hard I had to argue with myself to leave my warm bed).  I then do some form of warm that includes dynamic mobility drills.  This is to wake up and raise my body temperature.

At no time from the time of rising until about 4:30-4:40 have I performed any lumbar flexion activities (even during dressing and putting on my shoes) as I’m very aware of the risk.  So I’ve got about 30-40 minutes of no flexion and only body weight loads at best.  If 90% of the water that will leave the disc does so in the first hour, I’ve got a good start and risk is already down. 

After this point it’s strength training and metabolic training.  Still no lumbar flexion activities (don’t confuse lumbar flexion and hip flexion).  Even if it wasn’t early in the morning, my approach would be the same. 

By the way, I would be just as concerned about lumbar flexion for someone who sits slouched at desk all day or just drove home from work and went right into their strength training program.  The passive posterior structures will tend to lengthen and the nucleus of the disc may shift due to periods of prolonged flexion and may place you at greater risk for instability and lower back injury if the spine is loaded before creep of the tissue is restored.

If you haven’t read Dr. McGill’s book, you may be as much as 6 years behind on your approach to treating and preventing low back injuries.

Bill