Powerlifting Bench Press Techniques

During the past few weeks I was focusing on push ups and chest.  The different types of push ups you can do are nearly endless ans scattered through this blog is a plethora of them.  I realized however that I have not addresses using resistance bands while doing push ups to increase your results and add a whole new level of difficulty.  I will unpack the right and wrong ways to do these in this post so keep on reading.

The Basics of Using Resistance Bands With Push Ups

There are many videos out on YouTube and other sites that show people doing push ups with resistance bands.  Some of them are doing them correctly, and others are waiting for a back injury to happen.  I will show you two videos that I found that correlate to both.  The first video is the wrong way to do them, and the second video is the right way to do them.  See each below

You only need to watch the first few seconds of this video.  Notice that the resistance bands are located on his lower back.  For one that will put tension on his lower back which if you put enough resistance on it can and will cause injury.  Secondly, as you fatigue which part of your body do you think will dip first?  Your lower back and groin area will.  By dipping, it will decrease the effectiveness of the push ups and reduce the actual resistance of your chest muscles.  In short, don’t do these this way.

Here is the second video with correct form:

Notice that the bands are across his shoulder blades.  In this video actually they are a little bit lower, I would place them a tad higher on the shoulder blades.  By placing the resistance bands on the shoulder blades it focuses the resistance directly over your chest, and eliminates the bowing of the back shown in the first video.  As you fatigue it saves your back and still puts the main focus on your chest muscles.

Closing Thoughts On Push Ups With Resistance Bands

Place the resistance band(s)over your shoulders and make sure that the handle of your resistance bands is beneath the palm of your hand, not just your thumb and pointer finger.  If you want to add more challenge and get add size to your chest muscles, this is a great way to do that.  One last thing, the great thing about using resistance bands while doing push ups is that they make you fight to reach the top of the push up.  As you go down the resistance is less but as you come up is increase the higher you go.  Give them a try, and let me know how they go.