Today we’ll talk about the 4th level of our push up challenge, Partial Range Push Ups. We created this challenge because we rate the traditional push up as one of the greatest bodyweight exercises. Seeing how many people can struggle to complete a full set of regular push ups, while others might need a bigger challenge, we decided to introduce gradual progression to push ups. This way you can gradually develop strength and attempt more challenging push ups as you progress towards the higher levels.
On the previous level we wrote about the knee push ups. The follow-up exercise today are partial range push ups. Just try to overcome the Final level of the knee push ups, before attempting this exercise.
Performing
Go down on your knees, place your hands in front of you and then straighten your legs. Keep your arms straight, shoulder-width apart, and just under the shoulders. Your feet are together. It’s very important to have a straight line from your legs, knees and back, all the way to your head. This is our starting position. Now:
- Slowly bending your elbows as you breathe in, lower yourself to a height approximately half the regular push-up, or until the elbows form a right angle. You can place a basketball or a soccer ball under your pelvis to see just how deep you should go down (however, only do this a few times to determine the height, don’t keep the ball there as it can break the straight line from your legs to your head);
- Once you touch the ball, hold for a second and then slowly return to the starting position, while breathing out. Continue repeating.
Exercise Notes
The partial range push up is an important step for practicing the technique and strengthening your muscles. Starting from this point you can learn how to avoid typical mistakes, like bending your knees or lifting your hips up, all a sign of weak core. If you have a problem with this level, and cannot maintain a straight line, work it together with these planks here. Work one session on the push ups and one session on the planks, which will greatly increase the performance level of your core.
Training
| First level | 1 set of 8 reps |
| Second level | 2 sets of 12 reps |
| Final level | 2 sets of 25 reps |
Technique
If you have difficulty with partial range push ups try to reduce the range of motion even further by using a bigger ball, or as we mentioned previously, divide your time between push ups and the planks.
After overcoming the Final level of partial range push ups, continue with the next exercise – the Full Range Push Up, which is actually the traditional push up.
Image Source: Youtube
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