Women Behind The Weights
Welcome to the Women Behind the Weights Podcast, where we empower and inspire women to lift both weights and their voices! Each week, we explore the incredible journeys of women who are breaking barriers in the fitness world and making their mark.
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Women Behind The Weights
How to Get Your First Pushup & Pull-up
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The pushup and pull-up may seem like a basic exercise, but it’s challenging at first. If you can’t do a pushup from the floor yet, or pull your body weight up we’ll show you the path to your first real pushup and pull-up.
It takes an impressive combination of upper body strength, full body coordination and core control to do pushups from the floor and pull-up from the bar. Tune-in now as Marciea & Brittany will explain.
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Real Quick About LSF:
Established by two women (Marciea & Brittany) for women. LadyStrong Fitness is an intimate boutique style fitness studio, where women like you can come and be yourself without feeling judged.
Are you tired of being unhappy with your body? Feel Like you are lacking structure and motivation? Do you hate going to the gym? Good! We’re not a
Hey guys, what's up? It's Brittany. And Marcia. And we are the co-founders of Lady Strong Fitness. And today on the Lady Strong Fitcast, we are going to be talking about how to get your first push-up and your first pull-up.
SPEAKER_00So the big question is this How were two women who didn't cheat and purchase a gym franchise model, how were they able to spread their mission and purpose by empowering and transforming hundreds of women's lives through fitness, nutrition, mindset, and accountability with a micro gym business model of women only? That is the question, and this podcast will give you the answer. We are Lady Strong Fitness.
SPEAKER_01Alright, hey guys, what's up? It's Brittany and Marcia here, and uh, like the intro said, today we're gonna talk about push-ups and bullets. How exciting!
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I'm excited. Me too. So, um, where shall we begin?
SPEAKER_01I'll let you start. You have a story to tell.
SPEAKER_02I do have a story to tell. So, um, for those of you that are tuning in that don't know that um Brittany and I, prior to being business owners and or life partners, um, she was actually one of my clients.
SPEAKER_01I was.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So when you came to me, this was approximately, I would say like eight years ago.
SPEAKER_01Oh my god, it wasn't really that long ago.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it was that long ago. Eight years ago, uh, you reached out to me, and when you came to me, I recalled that you could not perform not a single pull-up. I could not. Yeah. Um, how did that feel?
SPEAKER_01Um, it wasn't, I mean, it was just I was on my fitness journey at that point in time, so it wasn't like I was so depressed that I couldn't do a pull-up, but of course it's like I feel like that's like the holy grail of coming to work out is like when you can do your first pull-up.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. You had really good upper body strength in regards to like doing push-ups.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02But when it came to doing a pull-up, you just it wasn't quite there. Yeah. Were you driven to want to do like accomplish like one to two, maybe three reps?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think obviously, like I said, it's like kind of like the holy grail of working out, like when you know you can get your first pull-up or you can, you know, you can do multiple repetitions of push-ups without you know having to modify or stop, is always something that I think a lot of people look to achieve.
SPEAKER_02Agree. Fast forwarding 90 days after that, you were then able to manage. I was saying you were banging out like yeah, I was gonna say like three to five.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I could do a couple pull-ups, which was kind of cool. So let's lead to that. Yeah. So the the whole purpose of this podcast today, ladies, is that we want to teach you guys or talk to you guys about um how to work to get your first pull-up and to work to get your first push-up. And the first thing I want to mention is um tying to this story is practice and repetition. So you have to be willing to practice daily to repeat the process multiple times over and over and over again and stay consistent with that practice in order to really get the results that you're looking for. So, what I mean by that is don't just do like a couple pull-ups and then it's two weeks, and then you do a couple more, and think that in a month you're gonna be better. You have to do it every single day.
SPEAKER_02Agree. I like to use the analogy of yourself because you you put in the work.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02You were working out five, six days per week, yeah, and you were working on honing that skill, you know.
SPEAKER_01And I would actually even come early for class some days, and I would just practice whether it was like actually on the pull-up bar or on the TRX or whatever it was, I would do something always before class. And it wasn't like early before class, it was maybe like two to three minutes before class, and I would just do a few like sets and reps, and then that was it.
SPEAKER_02So that's the first one is consistency.
SPEAKER_01Yep.
SPEAKER_02Um, the second thing I want to talk about, because I'm sure these ladies are wondering, okay, Brittany, what exactly did you do? So um, as far as progressions, you know, it's okay to do progressions, right? Right. Obviously, you're not gonna be able to pull your body weight up right away, right? So let's talk about those progressions.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So we talk about progressions with push-ups and pull-ups. For example, um, for me on pull-ups, it would be to start on the TRX, right? With your uh 45 degree rows or your inverted pull-ups, whatever that looks like, right? So um 45 degrees is you're standing a little bit more upright. Inverted is maybe you're right directly underneath of the TRX.
SPEAKER_02Maybe have some V-rolls showing that as well.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so um we'll have those are the kinds of progressions you can look at. And maybe you're doing like three sets of 20 on the TRX or three sets of 10 on the inverted row. Um, but some kind of progression. When it comes to push-ups, maybe you're starting with like incline push-ups, right? You you're at you're at an incline, making it a lot easier and you're doing regular push-ups on your toes. Then maybe that incline gets a little bit lower each time, right? Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I was gonna say the incline, you can even start on the wall. Yeah. I know someone and I've seen or the TRX, the wall or the TRX, depending upon the TRX, it it's it has its uh intensity levels, right? Um so just depending upon your fitness level, there are many options that are available, regardless if it's a wall, the TRX, or a box.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. So those are just some of the progressions that you can work on. And when you're doing them, you're like I said, it's not I didn't I didn't ever do like a whole hour of practice. You know, it was like five minutes a day before class or after class. I would stick around and I would just do like three sets of 20 or like three sets of maybe like negative pull-ups, right? Which we do in the strong herd class is always a really good way to do it. Um, or some incline push-ups, and that's really how I started was just with progressions.
SPEAKER_02And keep in mind too that there's always something in the workout as well that you're recruiting those muscle groups as well, which leads us to our next topic is major muscle groups you need to focus on, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yep. So starting with um pull-ups, right? We're focusing on kind of that lat area right here. So in the back, we're working on our traps, our upper back here, and then also our shoulders. Your shoulders play a pretty big part in pull-ups too. And so traps, lats, and shoulders would be for your back. What are some you might probably want to share some exercises?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, well, um, to kind of add to what you were saying, because there is a difference between different muscle groups, you have your major and your minor, right? And the major muscle groups are the bigger, the fatty tissue muscles, right? The minor is more like the bicep, and we want to make sure that we're targeting the bigger muscles and we're recruiting those muscles when we're doing these types of exercises, right? Um, so to answer your question is like what styles of exercises should I do, right? So, for instance, if we're talking about the pull-ups in particular, like Britney said, you want to focus on like the lats, right? Um, which is here, right? Um, and alongside your traps, right? And then believe it or not, um, deadlifts help help as well. So recruiting um again the major muscle groups in the back, like the hamstring muscles as well. So, where was I going with this?
SPEAKER_01Sorry, we're not really, you were we were talking about exercises.
SPEAKER_02Sorry, yeah. So now that we know the types of muscle groups to focus on, let's talk about the types of exercises to do. So um, in order to gain strength, we want to keep the repetitions high, right? So the ideal target would be the eight to twelve repetition range, right? Um, three to four sets to start, as you progress each week, you may add more sets, right? So you might start out maybe your first week one set, second week two sets, third week three sets, four, so on and so forth, right? So the main objective and purpose, again, the more repetitions you put in, the more you're gonna get out of it. So we're gonna make sure to add an actual programming for both the push-ups and the pull-ups of types of programmings that you can do on your own time or inside of Lady Strong Fitness, whichever. So, in order to get that information, uh we'll provide that for you on LadystrongFitness.com forward slash fitness, okay?
SPEAKER_01So, Marcia, why don't let's let's rewind. I want to I want you to talk about the exercises because we talked about the major muscle groups. I mentioned the major muscle groups. Now, how do we recruit what exercises do we use to recruit those major muscle groups?
SPEAKER_02Sure. So I took some notes here. Um the first one I want to talk about is the pull-ups, okay? Um, so a lot of these you can do either with weight, which is loaded, um, body weight, um, which is just utilizing your own body weight, and or resistance style training. Okay. Um, so the first one for pull-ups I have here is negative. Um, negative pull-ups is time under tension. So you're going to um descend slowly on the way down by counting, you know, one, 1000, 2, 1003, so on and so forth, right? So time under tension, really slow, using your own body weight. Another one for pull-ups as well, um, using your own body weight would be uh TRX, 45 degree row, right? Um, another one for body weight is scapula. So scapula again, you're recruiting its muscle groups in your back area, and you're gonna do a dead hang from the bar. And from there, you can just go ahead, it's like a shoulder shrug, and then you're descending back down slowly. So you're gonna do several of those repetitions and that up-down range of motion, okay? Um, and for the loaded exercises, moving on to loaded exercises, meaning using body, or instead of body weight, using weight uh would be a bent over row. Uh, this can be done with dumbbells, this could also be done with barbell, it can be done with uh single arm or dual arm motion. Again, we're recruiting those bigger muscle groups. And um, last but not least, my favorite is deadlifts. So you you might think like, wow, deadlifts really, but that pull motion, right? Again, recruiting all your muscle groups in the posterior chain. So keep that in mind for these exercises here, recruiting those major muscle groups when it comes to pull-ups, okay? Now I want to talk about the push-ups. Again, going back to the body weight, there's different styles of push-ups that you can do recruiting those major muscle groups. And the first one is incline push-ups, right? This could be done, we talked about on the wall, on the TRX. Um, you also have scapula push-ups, just like scapula pull-ups. Again, the same motion for this is going to be that up-down motion, right? In that plank position, tabletop position, nice flat back, shoulders over hands, and you're just going to keep your arms and elbows fully extended, locked out, but you're bringing descending your body weight, your upper body down, and then pressing back up. So if you guys, maybe we could show some b-roll what that looks like as well.
SPEAKER_01But yeah, and I think if if you if you were to just sit here and think about squeezing your your shoulder blades towards your spine, that's exactly the movement. Yes. You're just literally like squeezing and then releasing.
SPEAKER_02So we could show some b-roll of that, that'd be cool as well. Um, so that way you guys can get um a better picture as to what we're talking about. Um, moving forward, um, negative as well, right? Just like the pull-up, slow descension on the way down, 1100, 2100 at your own pace. And then moving on to more of a weighted style exercises for um push-ups would be like chest press, right? This could be done with a dumbbell, barbell, it can be done with single or dual arm. Um, just playing around with it, right? You always want to make sure that you're doing um different variations of exercises. You don't necessarily want to get comfortable doing the same identical thing because that's where you start to kind of plateau, right? Um, so those would be my recommendations. And again, you can go to ladystrongfitness.com forward slash fitness to be able to grab some exercises and templates that we have available for you.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so I guess just to wrap things up, guys, the biggest thing that we want to tell you is just number one, practice repetition consistency. It's okay to do progressions, and a lot of the exercises that Marcia gave you are progressions of an actual pull-up or an actual push-up. The other thing I want to end with is you just have to do it. When you're in class, when you're working out, you know, a lot of us will lean towards the modification, which is fine if you have an injury. But if you're wanting to actually work up the strength to do an actual push-up, do some on your toes. Like if you're doing push-ups and maybe you can only do two on your toes, that's fine, but two is better than none. Don't just default to dropping to your knees because you're like, oh, I can't do 10 push-ups. Well, if you can do three, do three on your toes and then drop to your knees, take a rest, and then get back up to your toes and do a few more. You just have to do them. It's the same thing with pull-ups. You just have to do them. If you always avoid them, you're never gonna get better at that.
SPEAKER_02I agree. There's something that you mentioned that I want to bring up too. You talked about injury. Um a lot of people have a tendency to um, I would say, neglect the the most important things, which is increasing that mobility and flexibility, which reduces the chance of injury. And in order to do that, what's really nice is that when you increase that range of motion, you're able to lift heavier. So making sure that you have good internal rotation and external rotation so that way you're able to push heavier weight going up above your head. And you're probably wondering, well, well, how can I do that, Marcia? Is being able to stick around after the workout is done at Lady Strong Fitness and focusing on doing the cooldowns, right? Um, different stretches here and here. And um, we also have like our foam rollers as well. I know, shout out to Sarah Zalman, loves a foam roller and uses it all the time. So just keep that in mind, right? It's not always about lifting the weights, but it's also about increasing that mobility and flexibility.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, all right. So with that being said, ladies, thanks for listening in today, and we'll see you guys in the next episode. Bye.
SPEAKER_00Thanks for joining us today. If you like this episode, subscribe to our YouTube channel or find our podcast on iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, or whatever your favorite place is to listen to podcasts. And if you really like this episode, please leave a review for us on iTunes. Thanks, and we'll see you next week.