hello my friends it is your brother hampton from hybrid calisthenics this is the 2022 version on how to build up to a push-up two years ago i made a long version and a short version of this called you can do push-ups my friend and i stand by that statement as you can see in the comment section a lot of people discovered that they could in fact do push-ups congratulations since then they've both gotten decent views however i wanted to make an updated version because i have learned better ways to teach the push-up in the past two years largely through answering questions from our wonderful community that's all of you and hopefully this one will have slightly better visuals because well i'm using an actual camera a lot of my content in 2020 was made just with a smartphone this smartphone in fact not even with the back camera which everyone recommended because it has better quality but the front camera because i was just getting started and i wanted to see what i was doing while i was recording so anyway it's fun fact but just like i said in the video two years ago despite what some internet trolls might claim there's no reason to feel ashamed if you can't yet do a full push-up fitness is a journey and we all start somewhere that hasn't really changed in the past two years there are a lot of really strong people who once couldn't do a push-up and second you can do push-ups my friend because there are many different types of push-ups some are easy and some are much much harder than a full push-up so we can find a push-up variation that we can do and we practice it until we're strong enough to move on you can think of these progressions as weights on a barbell you might start off bench pressing only the bar and as you get stronger you can add weight so here's a rundown on the method one find a push-up variation that you can do competently with good form two practice this variation once or twice a week for two to three sets until you're able to hit the goal standards for sets and reps three when you can reliably hit the goal standards move on to a harder variation in repeat you can check out our fitness routine for a lot more detail and more information it's free so a few quick things on the forum before we move on into the actual progressions i don't want to spend too long on form here that can be a separate video and i think people tend to overthink push-up form a little bit the key is that you can do pretty much whatever you want as long as you build up safely and progressively but here's some things you can keep in mind so the first is shoulder positioning if you look at how different people do push-ups across the internet some people will have the shoulders pushed all the way forward through the entire range of motion some people keep it more neutral like so and others will consciously keep the shoulders back and down and push like this you can use whichever one you like however something i've heard a lot over the past couple of years is hampton i'm doing push-ups but i'm not really feeling my chest and a lot of people do push-ups to work their chest having your shoulders back and down usually allows you to feel your chest a little better and also some people consider that perfect form and second is the degree of elbow flare when you're pushing you see some people really tuck in their elbows like this and they push like so others go the other way and they have their arms almost at a 90 degree angle and they push like this i personally like to tuck in a little bit more not all the way but about 30 degrees like so some people go a little wider like 45 usually if you have some shoulder pain it might feel a little better to tuck in a little bit more like this and lastly i just want to touch a little bit upon body alignment you see some people do push-ups and they have decent pushing strength but their body really sags like this and as a result they're not really getting much range of motion it doesn't have to be perfect but try to keep a relatively straight line from your head to your feet like so now i keep my feet together but you can spread them apart this usually makes it a little bit more stable and makes the exercise slightly easier you especially want to keep an eye on your lower back there's a tendency to tilt the pelvis forward like this someone some people do push-ups they're like oh my lower back hurts that's usually why try to keep your abs tight and maintain a neutral back a great start to your fitness journey is by doing wall push-ups here's how they look now something i hear all the time when talking about this exercise is while hampton this exercise is too easy and i hear this from relatively advanced people and also some beginners interestingly enough now i would say none of these exercises are really meant to demonstrate strength they're to help us build strength and cultivate long-term fitness hence the name and second yes i recognize that a lot of you have strength to do a lot harder variation sometimes you can do a full push-up but remember how i said that you can do push-ups however you like but it's beneficial to us to know how to do them in different ways so if you can do a push-up can you do it with good form can keep your core tucked can you keep your arms moving the way you want to and when we start with an easier variation like this we can really begin learning to move the way we want to and not how we have to based on lack of strength so when in doubt i really recommend starting here you don't have to show anybody you can just do it in your room if you like all you need is a wall and another issue some of you face is wrist pain while doing this exercise especially if you're not used to any kind of pushing motion or you're new to exercise in general your wrists may sometimes hurt because they're not used to having any kind of pressure on them if you do what i recommend is just experimenting with how you place your hands you notice i place mine slightly below shoulder width that way it just feels a little bit more natural to me but if this bends your wrist too much and it hurts try having it higher up having it too high up can hurt your joints as well as it causes pain it's not necessarily bad so just experiment and another thing that may affect that is how far away from the wall you stand some people naturally stand very far away and their wrists hurt because they're standing very far away if you move a little bit closer then you'll find that it's a little easier on your joints maybe just experiment i stand about arm's length away and the final thing i'll talk about here is how you position your feet i usually have mine together now it sometimes helps to be on your toes a little bit like this that just makes it seem a little smoother for me so it's something you can experiment with it's not something you have to do now if it's a little bit too hard if this exercise still is too hard there's no reason to feel ashamed for that if it's too hard you gotta start somehow then a slightly easier variation is spreading your feet like this it'll also make it more stable okay the next progression you can do is called an incline push-up that's just us leaning further forward you can do them at different levels we'll start with something around chest height around torso height they look a bit like this so you see what we're doing the premise is very similar to wall push-ups with the difference being that we're leaning further forward and it's harder because we're putting more weight on our bodies now i happen to find a railing that was slanted this way so it's which is very handy but you may not have that you can use a table you can use a railing i know these aren't exactly at chest height and hip height or whatever i'm writing down in the comments and in the routine but chances are you won't be able to find those exact heights around you anyway so just work with what you have just make sure it is safe and secure anything glass or fragile is out of the question okay moving on to our next stage they're also called incline push-ups but they're more advanced because we're leaning further forward so they're called advanced incline push-ups if you have a better name i'm open to ideas so here's kind of how they look you can do them on a chair or chairs or you can use a stool like this remember to make sure it's secure make sure it doesn't slide around or hurt you that's bad for you so as i mentioned before there's not that much difference between advanced incline push-ups and regular incline push-ups they are simply harder but because they're harder they can make us stronger but there's also a tendency to start sacrificing form around this time so it's very important that we don't sacrifice form to think we're getting better when we're actually not getting better a good idea is to film yourself during your sets and then watch back film yourself doing a wall push-up or something like you know you can do very well for five to ten reps watch that look at your form and then do the advanced incline push-ups and see if the form is fundamentally the same it's a great tip and idea for every exercise but it really helps when we start to progress to harder variations and next we're finally touching ground with knee push-ups also called kneeling push-ups here's how i do them so it's interesting to note here that there's some stigma and shame around this exercise and some people will refuse to do them or think they're humiliating because other people will call them girl push-ups now we have just explored three different variations of push-ups that are easier than full push-ups easier than knee push-ups so it's interesting that there's stigma and shame around this specific exercise to once again compared to weightlifting let's say bench pressing 135 pounds is a full push-up and a knee push-up is slightly easier at 115 pounds and we only choose to shame people who bench press 115 pounds there's 90 pounds but that's okay there's 75 pounds but you know they're totally fine doing that there's 40 pounds but it's totally fine there's only stigma around 115 pounds and there's only stigma around a knee push-up this is a great exercise to build strength muscle and fitness especially when coming back from an injury i wouldn't ignore it just because some people don't like it personally i found those people are very insecure themselves so reach out and dm them a smile emoji or a blue heart now after you hit the gold standards for knee push-ups we can begin to move into full push-ups congratulations on that by the way but over the past few years people have mentioned that they can hit the goal standards for knee push-ups sometimes but then unable to do even a single full push-up so there are some in-between steps we can explore which i'll show here okay so as you're beginning to transition from knee push-ups to full push-ups by the way i'm on a table which isn't the safest necessarily but you can better see what i'm doing actually begin to transition there are a few things i would change first is you can go down like a full push-up and then come up like a knee push-up it's a little bit harder to do the full push-up but it's easier to control it really control the descent like this and then put your knees down and come up like this and you can just simply do your sets like that another thing you can try is you can begin your workout sets so before you do the knee push-up before you do the one i just showed however you want to try it then go down into the bottom part of a push-up position and try to push up as hard as you can you can't really see what i'm doing but imagine i'm trying to push up as hard as i can and just breathe normally and hold for six to ten seconds and try that you might feel yourself shaking a little bit and after that 10 seconds just rest rest for about 20 to 30 seconds and then try it again this will help you build strength in the lowest part of the range which is usually the trouble area for many of us and after you begin to notice some movement and you can stay a few inches off the ground like this just try to hold this for time if you try to move up right away you might feel your joints pop a little bit and there you go that's how i would build to a push-up if you get this far congratulations comment below or tell me somehow golly gee hampton now i can do a push-up just like that and then give me a high-five so there you go that's my 2022 version of you can do push-ups my friends i hope you can find it helpful if you build up to a push-up using this method please spend a few weeks up to a few months really honing your technique after you can do your full push-up make the next one clean that way you can derive a lot more benefit from it please comment below if you have any questions and please read the description in case i've updated any information that might answer some common questions thank you so much for watching i hope you have a wonderful beautiful day my friend