Repetition This is a pleasant example that our repetition at home is working even if sometimes its challenging. The same is true with training. Do the right thing often enough and you get better. However if you do the wrong thing often enough you may not get better or worse, you get worse or injured.
Custom Corrective Cardio (C3) Last year I introduced Custom Corrective Cardio Routines for a handful of clients. I had a vision that clients could work on imbalances AND get cardio minutes for it, and by repeating a certain number of workouts at home, they could reduce or eliminate those imbalances, help maintain or improve their body composition and improve on their Functional Movement Screen score.
Bottom of Push Up Alternate Knee Flexion Today, Julie L, told me that she did 3 more push ups than ever and she credits it to an exercise in her C3 Routine. This cool exercise that I used with some clients is holding the bottom of a push up and doing alternate knee flexion. It is significantly harder than holding a high or low plank and doing alternate knee flexion and as such, it really challenges your core stability and your isometric pushing strength. Since we haven't retested Julie yet, her subjective feedback and personal record is a good sign that her repetition at home with her C3 routine is working. And this @ home routine of hers doesn't have any push ups in it. Only this isometric contraction in the bottom of a push up, while alternating knee flexion. That's awesome.
So the take home message is that you have to have both repetition and have it with the right message or in this case the right exercise to make progress. How many times have you done push ups and not gotten better? How many times have you repeated yourself over and over and the message doesn't connect?
I think my wife and I are on to something at home with our shoes and hand washing policy and I think I may have cracked the code on push ups with the bottom of push up, alternating knee flexion, however both my families policies at home and teaching push ups are going to require a lot of repetition to acquire the habits and skill. So in the meantime we'll keep practicing at home, and we'll retest clients in the gym to see if it sticks and works.
If you can already do floor push ups, I recommend doing a push up, hold the bottom and alternate knee flexion, then press up. That's 1 rep. Do as many as you can up to 10. If you can do more than 10, add resistance or elevate your feet.
If you can't do floor push ups, elevate your hands to an ottoman or chair height, sofa railing height or table / back of sofa height, then lower yourself to the bottom of a push up where it's the hardest position to hold. Tuck your butt, pull your ribs down and tilt your pubic bone up towards your ribs so your core is in pelvic neutral, then alternate knee flexion, holding each flexed knee for a "1-2" count. Repeat for 8 reps per side. Then press up. That's 1 set. Give it a shot and let me know. If you want me to coach up your technique, ask me in person, send me a video or FaceTime me.
Give it a shot and let me know what you think.
Grateful for progress,
Coach Mike
p.s. if you'd like to get your own custom corrective cardio routine to work on your known or unknown imbalances AND get cardio minutes to work on your body composition, reply and let me know.
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