Hey,

Did you do some kind of warm up/down exercise? I wouldn’t have thought for it to be necessary for this kind of work out, however as you seem to be suffering it might be a good idea to do so. Either way, the all over pain should go sooner rather than later. So don’t let it be an excuse for you to stop, no pain no gain!!!

With regards to how low should you go, you don’t need to push your nose against the floor. The most important thing is that you keep your back straight, when i perform push ups i tend to lower myself until my arms are locked in at 90 degrees.

Also how far apart are your hands going to be? You don’t want your hands too wide (way outside the shoulders) but also if you have them to tucked in it’s much more difficult. Where you place the hands is detrimental to which part of the body is being worked!

Keep up the good work, I’ll be joining you on Monday!!

Will

@Will: Ha, no, I don’t do a warm-up for pushups… like you, I didn’t think it necessary. I feel a lot better today, but that may be a factor of not having done pushups today. We’ll see on Monday.

I generally have my hands slightly wider than shoulder width apart… that’s okay, right?

Looking forward to having you on board Monday! I’m doing week one again, so it’s not like you’re behind or anything.

Hi Melissa,
I too have started the pushup workout, and just successfully completed my first day a few minutes ago.

Anyways, back to the post at hand:
A brief warm-up will definitely help you out, and it doesn’t need to be any serious stretching; just getting the blood flow to your limbs will help immensely. Doing a few windmills, rotating your arms in small then large circles, and rolling your neck around a bit both ways will help with that.

If you ever start to feel serious pain when you exercise, STOP EXERCISING. You could seriously damage something that way.

Also, take a look at some of the stretches at wikihow for more info:

http://www.wikihow.com/Stretch

Good luck!

You can’t do push ups because you are out of shape, and significantly so. From the photos I’ve seen, you probably have a very high body fat percentage. You need to start doing cardio for 30 minutes a day, every single day.

Soreness is something you should come to expect and that you should get used to. Eating better will keep you from getting the overall crap feeling after you workout. More fruits and veggies…make sure you’re getting your protein, preferably from red meat which has all of the proteins that you need…avoid carbs (your body doesn’t really NEED them like it does good fats and protein).

Fitness isn’t a six week push-up course. It’s like eating, breathing, and sleeping…it is something we must do for our entire lives. Putting it off is the equivalent of putting off going to the doctor to have your cancer treated.

@Trainer: Wow, you’ve made a lot of judgemental assumptions there… I guess you didn’t read the part in my initial pushups post where I mentioned that I run and do yoga seven days a week, and that I have no problems doing any weightlifting exercises with any other part of my body. In addition, if you go back through this blog, you will also learn that I run races regularly and that last year I trained for a marathon (ended up not competing in it for logistical reasons, not physical ones).

I’m surprised that someone who calls themselves “Trainer” would be as quick to make an uninformed judgement as you have just done. You know nothing about my eating habits, and you have said things here that simply aren’t true – I don’t feel crap after my workouts, only after pushups, and my eating habits are pretty much exactly how you described what I “should” be doing, aside from the fact that I don’t buy your claim that red meat is the automatic answer to the protein issue (though I do eat red meat when I feel I need to). I am not “significantly out of shape,” and although I am somewhat overweight, I do not have a “very high body fat percentage.”

Boy, am I glad I never had a trainer like you, though I have seen plenty of them at the gym, strutting around like theirs don’t stink. Staying fit is enough of a challenge without having to listen to self-important nonsense from complete strangers. Perhaps it’s time to worry less about physical fitness (of which clearly you are already the authority) and work on your grating personality for a while instead.

Ha, I just noticed your e-mail id is “supercow”… how appropriate. Perhaps I’ve misjudged your self-awareness.

Niiiice, trainer.
Melissa- women are notorious for upper body weakness.
It is genetics.

Just keep trying. I would definitely do the push-ups on the floor though. I think the extra pain is coming from your other muscles trying to compensate for your arms while you are up against the wall.

On the floor, you are just competing with gravity.
Does that make sense?

Your arms are usually shoulder width apart.
I also do the floor push-ups on my knees, it is less core workout, but I feel more controlled in my motion.

I hate being sore. I really don’t even like exercise.
Keep at it! Don’t cash in your tickets to Quittersville yet. We can do this!
Scoot on over, so I can sit by your “out of shape, high body fat” self.

@Shaunte: it’s funny you mentioned about genetics – a female relative of mine (who is quite active and fit) told me the other day that any time she tries to lift anything with her arms, it feels to her like her collarbone is going to snap in two… which is a very similar feeling to what I get when I do any kind of shoulder or arm work. As it turns out, the internet tells me this problem is not unheard of, and that one possible remedy is to tuck the chin into the chest while doing pushups, thus rounding out the top of the spine and taking pressure off the front of the shoulders and the collarbone. I tried it, and it appears to have made a significant difference. I’m actually able to support some weight on my arms doing them that way.

It means I’m looking at my boobs the whole time I’m doing pushups, but whatever. I don’t see anything in the rules that says I’m not allowed to do that.

I totally get what you’re saying about the other muscles compensating, and I was starting to think that myself – I’m making my body work harder than it actually needs to.

We’re totally going to do this – are you going to buy the t-shirt? I guess since we’re so fat and out of shape, we probably need the XXXXXXXL, if they even make shirts big enough for heifers like us.