Doing Push Ups Wrongly?

[wngshmn]

All my life I've been doing push-ups by sticking out my elbows without knowing that I've been doing it wrong!

I've been told that your elbows are supposed to be by your sides when you're doing push-ups and not stuck out, but I find it nearly impossible to do push-ups that way!

This video (push-ups start at 0'49") shows the person doing it with

Comments

[ringtree]

There are different ways to do push-up's in order to target different muscles. With your elbows at your side you tend to target the triceps.

A "normal" push up that targets you chest will leave your elbows sticking out a bit. bodybuilding.com has a lot of "how to" videos that show proper form and such. :)

[mark356]

As she said, the different types of pushups have different flavors and different goals. My knowledge of anatomy isn't extensive enough to describe them, but you can experiment. If you keep your elbows by your sides, you will have to be very careful about your core (though that's really true for all of them), and you probably won't be able to go down very far. You get a very different feel, more in the shoulders, if you put your hands down fingertip to fingertip and make your elbows stick out as far as you can. It's yet another feel if you have your hands very wide apart, and another if you have them very close together. As long as you can do a pushup without pain, they're all good.

[mark356]

PS: As long as you keep your core engaged and tight, you're probably using correct form for whichever pushup you use.