Push ups, pull ups and fat loss, oh my!

I think we can all agree that push ups and pull ups are hard…..really hard. A common goal I hear when students begin training with us is, “I want to be able to do a chin up” or “I want to be able to do a push up.”

I have been lucky to see hundreds of students meet these goals over the past 5 years. It is one of the coolest things to see as a coach!

So let’s talk about each of these and come up with 3 ways you can get better at them this year

Push ups

1. If you are a fat loss student then step one to being able to do a push up is to lose the fat. How do I lose fat, you ask? Food, it’s all about the food. We can help you get a better relationship with food so you                                                                     can lose the fat so you are able to push your                                                    bodyweight up and down. We offer a ton of nutrition coaching- talk to us!

2. Learn to keep your body TIGHT. When we coach you to bring your toes and knees together and squeeze your cheeks it is not because we are knit picky. It is because to be able to push yourself from the floor and get your body to talk to each other from the head down to the toes you need to keep your whole body tight. If you can teach yourself to keep your body that tight during all of your training- squats, deadlifts, swing, planks, etc then it will become a more natural feeling

3. Working on your trunk stability. Let us teach you about rolling patterns (or see it for yourself on our website!) Practice perfect reps. Be PATIENT Be CONSISTENT and STOP telling yourself you’ll never be able to do it.

Pull ups

1. Same as the push ups. If you are a fat loss student then you need to lose the fat before you can get your chin over the bar. I’ll address relative strength in a moment

2. Hollow body holds. We’ve been working on them in training. Do them regularly. Do them right. We talked above about keeping your body tight. This is the same thing for a pull up.

3. Hang on the bar. In order to get your chin over the bar you have to first be able to hang on the bar. If you keep your body tight and just hang on the bar I can STILL help you get strong. If you lose the fat and you are strong, you will pull your chin over the bar

Here is a little education for you…

Relative strength-  is the amount of strength to body size, or how strong you are for your size. This reflects a person's ability to control or move their body with no more weight than their own. Think push ups and pull ups for repetition.

Absolute strength-  is the maximum amount of force exerted, regardless of muscle or body size. Think heavy deadlifts and heavy squats. If I am 140 pounds and I can lift 225 pounds off of the ground then I am stronger than someone who is 215 pounds and can lift 300 pounds off of the ground because I am able to lift 1.5 times my body weight but the other person can only lift 1.3 time their body weight.

There are many ways to prove you are strong, but relative strength proves you are strong AND lean.

Coach Meagan

I know that we have a lot of clients who do recreational activities, whether that is running, or hiking both need strength.  It is often quoted that one of the riskiest forms of exercise, from an injury standpoint, is recreational running. The question then is why?  Why is it something that seems so simple to start has such a high risk of injury? By simple I just mean doesn’t take any specialized equipment, anyone who can walk could conceivably wake up on Saturday morning and go for a run if they wanted to.  The other notion that is not fully understood when it comes to running is that you need to be strong, a.k.a you need to strength train.

Why though?  Most of the time when it comes to running people think that the worst thing they can do is strength train because it seems to be the complete opposite of running.  That however is a misconception, the answer to why can be found in physics. Most people have probably heard the phrase “for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction” what does that mean?  It means that every time force is exerted on an object, that object exerts that force back. For example when running, every time your foot hits the ground, the ground hits back. In the example of plyometric exercise, which is a category running falls under, 2 to 3x as much force is exerted back up your legs.  For some prospective, that means in order to be able to take that pounding most sources suggest that you should be able to squat 1.5 to 2x your body-weight at least, before you start running. This is one of many reasons why when it comes to running strength training is SOOOOOO important.

-Coach Adam