Press-ups for Better Punching and Conditioning

Article by Idai Makaya

This article was written for the October 2008 edition of Martial Arts Illustrated Magazine.

Press-ups, sometimes called “Pushups,” are a very common fitness exercise used by martial artists. This article will look at the different variations of the exercise, how useful the exercise is (or isn’t) and some things to be careful of when using press-ups.

To begin with, I will explain the areas of the martial artist’s physiology affected by press-ups and how conditioning of those areas may be significant in martial arts performance. I will then explain the different ways of doing press-ups and the things you need to be careful to avoid in order to maintain good joint health. Press-ups tend to engage the frontal muscles of the shoulder complex, the muscles of the chest (to an extent) and the muscles of the rear upper arms (triceps). They also engage the abdominal muscles (to a small degree) and the frontal muscles of the upper leg (to an almost negligible extent).

I will take a leap of faith at this stage and assume that everyone reading this article has a basic idea of how standard press-ups or pushups are executed. However, it is still important to be aware of the fact that slight variations in the method of application of this exercise will lead to a different emphasis on the musculature and every individual will be affected slightly differently when performing this exercise, due to slight variations in body design and proportioning.

If you want to know which specific muscles on your particular physique are affected by press-ups you will need to perform the following test:

Do a long set of standard press-ups, until total failure (i.e. when you are unable to perform another repetition). At the end of this long set the muscles most affected by the exercise will give up first, rendering you unable to continue exercising. Because this will have been a maximum effort (and is probably something you don’t do regularly) it is also likely to lead to some sort of muscle stiffness setting in over the following 2 to 5 days, peaking between 24 to 48 hours after performing the drill. This muscle stiffness will indicate which muscles are conditioned/affected when you do this exercise.

At this point, it will be clearer to you how useful press-ups are in your routine. Another useful drill to try a day or two after you have done the maximum press-ups test is a session on a punching bag - punching gently, without having warmed up. If the stiff muscles seem to become more uncomfortable while punching the bag, then you can be comfortable in the knowledge that press-ups will condition the muscles you use for punching. Be careful not to immediately assume this means you will punch harder if you do regular sessions of press-ups; because punching power is dependent on the 4 main factors listed below:

1. Punching technique is probably the most important factor behind punching power (this also includes what you do with your torso, legs and footwork).
2. Muscle strength in the key areas used for punching (the hands, arms, shoulders, chest, midsection and legs).
3. The strength or tightness of your connective tissues in your joints. These are your ligaments and tendons, the framework holding your joints together or attaching the muscles to the bones. This determines if you are a natural puncher (or not) and is highly genetically determined - although specific ways of training can alter it to a good extent (pushups can play a part in this).
4. Bodyweight (and the size of your skeleton/bones) is also a big factor in how hard you punch.

To punch well you may need to work on all the above factors - but mainly on the first 3 factors listed. The question you may ask at this point in the discussion is specifically how press-ups help you as a martial artist? I will outline the advantages of the exercise below:

• If you are weak and don’t do any strength training, then starting a regular routine of press-ups will undoubtedly make you stronger than you were before. This will automatically improve your current punching power if all else remains the same.
• If you are already reasonably strong (able to do 40 pushups with good form) – as many experienced martial artists are – then press-ups will not improve your single-punch-power. What they may do is condition you to sustain your punching power as you tire and also when you throw multiple-punch combinations.
• Press-ups build strength-endurance, the ability to sustain a given level of muscular exertion over a long period. If you already have good cardiovascular endurance doing regular sessions of press-ups can help you to sustain your punching power in a tiring fight situation (when you are exerted to the point of breathing heavily and are struggling for air). That is usually the point in a performance at which muscle power starts to fade, as the body enters into “survival mode,” but good strength-endurance in the punching muscles can help fight that sort of fatigue.
• Strengthening of specific muscle groups makes them more resilient against injuries caused by sports training and allows you to continue to progressively improve your punching skills and power without the training interruptions caused by injuries. If you are an athlete who does a lot of punching as part of your training, being stronger in the muscle groups involved in punching will lengthen your training career.

One version of press-ups which I do NOT recommend involves exploding up and clapping the hands before landing in the standard press-up position and repeating. Yes, this version of the press-up does increase explosiveness (and probably punching speed and power) but it is extremely high-impact in nature and if done consistently over a long period of time it may lead to elbow and nerve problems - such as Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, Nerve Compressions, Ulnar Nerve Damage or Tennis Elbow - among others. Take my word on this, if you regularly do explosive press-ups, with hand claps in the middle, you will get wrist, nerve or elbow injuries - eventually.

I can understand why a professional fighter - who fights for a living - may be tempted to use this version of the pushup when peaking for a fight. But performing explosive press-ups, with hand-clapping, is not necessary for general conditioning, long-term training, or off-season training. The professional athletes that do it should only do it periodically, for a few weeks, as part of phased pre-fight conditioning for a major, career-defining performance. But be aware of the fact that a much better, safer and more controlled effect can be achieved using weights (the explosive bench press with light weights is the best substitute). The weight training version of the exercise can be used long-term and carries no added injury risk compared to standard press-ups. So there is no real justification for this exercise for modern martial artists or fighters and the performance benefits of doing it are so small they are unlikely to change the outcome of most performances.

Moving onto the variations you probably should use, there are a number of different ways of doing press-ups as shown below:

• Standard Press-ups

Lie front down with your feet close to each other and head slightly raised (with the face looking forward and not downwards into the ground). The arms should be held out to the sides with the hands flat on the floor (palms downwards) just outside shoulder width apart, as shown in the photo. The elbows should pass along the side of the body as you lower it; try not to have the elbows projecting out wider than the hand placement in order to minimize the chances of developing ulnar nerve irritation or chronic ulnar nerve damage. Use the arms to lift the torso off the ground until the arms are straight - and keep the torso straight and taught at all times. Lower the body back downwards, under control, until the arms are bent at least ninety-degrees (or until the chest is just off the ground). Then repeat as many times as necessary. Generally sets of up to 30 repetitions are recommended - with breaks between sets to recover. Some people can do much more than 30 repetitions but this practice is of no real benefit to a fighter.

Only the first 30 repetitions really count when training with pushups to improve punching ability. Going to a hundred will not help your punching ability and may even hamper it by slowing you down. The reason for the loss of explosiveness by people who do long sets is because high repetitions lead to endurance-type muscle fibre development and those types of muscle fibres fire slowly. To build strength-endurance rather do a number of sets (of up to 30 repetitions per set) using good rhythm and technique, instead of performing longer, slower sets of higher repetitions. Think of the training runners do – long, slow runs build endurance and actually reduce all-out sprinting potential. Sprinters train in short, explosive bursts and build their strength-endurance by doing high volumes of short explosive work. Train as you mean to perform.

(An alternative hand placement for pushups, intended to help condition the wrist and forearm to deliver a harder punch, would involve wearing your boxing gloves and performing press-ups on the fists. Many of us who started training before the new millennium have probably been asked by instructors on numerous occasions to do pushups on our bare knuckles - on carpets, mats or even on hard floors - but I have not seen satisfactory research into the long-term safety of this practice so I cannot endorse it. For this reason, I suggest you wear gloves when doing press-ups on the fists, which is what I have been doing for some time now. This method will help improve punching technique and power).

Apart from Hindu press-ups the other variations covered in this article follow the same theme, using different hand and/or foot placements to vary the angle of work. Please refer to the appropriate illustrations.

• Wide Stance

• Narrow Stance

• Single Arm

• Elevated Feet

• Hindu Press-ups/Dive-bombers

• Finish

Hindu pushups are designed as a high repetition version of pushups where you start with the body arched, and the torso angled downwards at about ninety degrees, as shown in the images. Lower the head towards the ground by bending the arms, and begin to edge the torso forward in a sweeping motion along the ground. The hips should follow the path of the shoulders and be drawn closer to the ground. In the middle of the movement you should be in a stance similar to the lowest level in the standard version of the press-up. Then begin to raise the head upwards, also looking more upward and forward. Straighten the arms out to finish the movement. Overall, it should be a similar movement to diving headlong and then surfacing in a swimming pool.

• Standard Press-ups for beginners

Beginners, new to press-ups, can use their knees - instead of elevating the whole body on the tiptoes. This reduces the strain considerably - until you develop enough strength to do the full version. Alternatively, beginners can use an inclined posture with hands stationed at a higher level than the feet (different to the version depicted earlier with the feet higher than the hands, which is more challenging than the normal stance).

Used correctly, all the different forms of press-ups are a handy and simple way to condition the punching muscles and all martial artists need to be familiar with how to use them properly. However, there are many other ways to achieve the same (or even

better) levels of conditioning using other exercises. Also be aware that you must condition your entire body - so do not rely on only one exercise, which only targets a few areas of the body. Strengthen every major muscle group of the skeleton to equal effect in order to maintain an athletic, injury-free, high-performing body. My next articles will continue to look at some of the basics of martial arts conditioning as well as some of the more complex options available. Happy training until then!

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