Push-Ups: The Ultimate Whole-Body Exercise | Shebah Carfagna & Nate Wilkins

Push-ups are a simple, equipment-free exercise and a practical tool to promote everyday health. Sometimes dismissed as old-school, they help us with whole-body strength, stability, and even longevity. 

In our latest Move for Life conversation with the Ageless Workout’s Shebah Carfagna and Nate Wilkins we dissect form and safety, emphasizing glute and core engagement to protect the lower back, with some shared wisdom for first timers. We also explore wall, counter, and chair variations and try to cut through language confusion – distinguishing push-ups from press-ups.  

You should seek medical advice before attempting on a new exercise. 

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Transcript

Shebah Cafagna: 0:27

A pushup is a full body movement that it primarily engages your pectoral muscles, but also the whole body and the core. It's one of the best exercises you can do. It doesn't require a gym. Um, there's multiple ways to do it.

Peter Bowes: 0:41

Hello again. Welcome to the Live Long podcast and the latest in our Move For Life series with Nate Wilkins and Shebah Carfagna. These are bite sized episodes where we try to explain in about ten minutes some of the basic but most powerful workout movements that help us live not just longer, but better. Today we're looking at one of the simplest, some might say underrated movements; the push up. It's more than a chest exercise. Push ups, test strength, endurance, balance, even resilience. And they've long been used as a marker of health and longevity.

Shebah Cafagna: 1:15

So there's a lot of different variations, but it's very, very effective. You see a lot of push ups in boot camp classes, strength training classes because it really works.

Nate Wilkins: 1:24

A push up will allow you to make modifications. And you said that already. But what I'm saying is that even a person who is afraid because maybe they have a a shoulder issue or what have you, they may be afraid to do a push up so they can just actually push out. Right. So it's a pushing motion that I think is is good and everybody can do that.

Peter Bowes: 1:49

And to avoid any confusion, some people say press ups, are they the same thing?

Shebah Cafagna: 1:53

That's a that's a good question as well. For us a press up is actually a shoulder press which is up over your head. A push up is actually engaging the pec muscles as well as the delts. But a shoulder press really is more about the deltoids and the upper body over the head. And not everyone can do those.

Nate Wilkins: 2:12

But but you still get the benefit when you do a push up, so to speak, of what some people call a press up, because it gives you upper body strength.

Peter Bowes: 2:21

Essentially what you're saying is that a push up is a whole body movement. It might not appear like that in terms of its name, but it exercises the entire body.

Shebah Cafagna: 2:33

That is correct. If it's done correctly, it exercises the entire body. You have to engage the glute, engage the core to keep the back from sinking and having lower back issues, and again, primarily the chest and the shoulders. But it's good for all around. Push ups are commonly done in Pilates classes, Barre classes, pretty much every modality, because you do need that upper body strength to promote good posture, you know, and movement.

Nate Wilkins: 3:00

Think about it like this. If you were going to go to the grocery store and you needed to push the cart. That would be really a simple.

Shebah Cafagna: 3:08

That's an ADL. Activity of daily living. That's true. That motion of pushing the cart.

Peter Bowes: 3:15

And one of the key benefits is stability. Overall stability.

Shebah Cafagna: 3:18

That is correct. Stability because you engage the glutes, the core and the whole body acts as one piece going up and down and again performed on the wall. On the floor. There's so many different variations of push ups.

Peter Bowes: 3:30

So where do we start with them? For someone who hasn't tackled push ups before, perhaps they've been put off because they do have a quite a kind of aggressive image, don't they? When you see people working out, those push ups can be difficult to do. Where does someone with no experience start?

Shebah Cafagna: 3:49

Well, as we always say, safety first and you need a doctor's clearance. Now, if you have a shoulder issue, you should really consult with your physician first to see where if it's the best thing for you, because there's other exercises you can do. Having said that, let's move forward to this is your first time attempting a push up. You would probably be best to do it on a wall to see where your strength is, because if you've not done it, the muscles here in your pecs and the pecs are here are not really ready for a full weighted push up. So on a wall, you know you can have your hands far apart, you can put your hands together whatever feels comfortable and then progressively move down.

Nate Wilkins: 4:30

If you don't have a wall, you can just actually just push out. Period.

Shebah Cafagna: 4:34

Right.

Nate Wilkins: 4:34

And that'll give you at least what some people call a body weight, a body weight push up. Now getting down on the floor, pushing on the wall will be called a body weight push up. But if you are really, really, really challenged, I would just think a push sort of push away. Think about it from the table as well. Right.

Shebah Cafagna: 4:51

And some of the individuals we work with, we don't call it a push up. We ask you to go to a corner where two walls meet. So see where two walls meet and you can push there and it becomes a stretch exercise because you're expanding the chest or thoracic spine. You're exhaling as you push out, you push away and it begins to get them into the mindset biomechanically where they can do that. A lot of times if you say to people push ups, they're going to go, oh no, no, no, no, no, but it's how you position the language and encourage them based on their skill experience to get them engaged.

Nate Wilkins: 5:25

So if you don't have a wall or something, you can maybe think about it from a chair perspective as well. So the side of a chair, or maybe even the back of a chair, can you know, that's another variation that you could use.

Shebah Cafagna: 5:37

Countertop in the kitchen.

Peter Bowes: 5:39

I think this illustrates, doesn't it? Just bearing in mind what you've just said, how we shouldn't get bogged down too much with exercise terminology, that it is essentially all movement and we shouldn't be scared off by talking about push ups, press ups that have a certain image or connotation.

Shebah Cafagna: 5:59

Peter, that's actually one of the most difficult things about this business that we're in is the mindset that everyone has to have a beach body, and it's very intimidating. And there is the model of what the perfect body looks like. And there is no such thing as the greatest misconception, which is how we came up with this idea of meeting individuals where they are and being inclusive. And I think part of our ability to engage so many people is that we have this inclusivity kind of mindset. You can do it where you are. Let's say you do have a shoulder issue. Then we would recommend another way of doing a push up and perhaps call it push away. Obviously, in a class you're dealing with multiple people at multiple levels. So then you have to call the exercise one thing. But if you're doing it on the floor, as Nate does in his Boot Camp Classes, you can always have a participant get on their knees, get on one knee. You know, there's so many different ways to take that fear away because not everyone is engaged and loves exercise.

Peter Bowes: 6:59

Can we talk about the progression from a wall push up to a push up on the ground? How do we know when we're ready to make that change?

Nate Wilkins: 7:08

I think that after a number of pushups. So we were talking about what he's what he's really asking is about progression. So if you've already said, say for example, if you've done wall push ups and you can do 5 to 10, 15, 20 of those, then you perhaps want to think about progressing to a push ups on your knees as an example and do the basically that same progression, and then you move away into more of a plank style push up. I think that's what I would recommend.

Shebah Cafagna: 7:40

It's not something that happens overnight. You could start higher on the wall here and then move down the wall a little bit, and then move down to the counter and down to the chair. It's one way of doing it, but when you reach the floor, you can get on your knees. And remember, a lot of people can't get down and up off the floor. So I think, you know, you've got to spend some time here making a consistent program. And that's really what we should focus on is a consistent program. Maybe you set a goal of doing 5 to 8, three times a, you know, three sets three times a week. And you'll know if you're getting stronger.

Nate Wilkins: 8:16

Set a goal.

Shebah Cafagna: 8:17

Yeah.

Nate Wilkins: 8:17

You can set a goal of some people can't do one push up. So 1 to 5 may be a good example. If you can get five in, then you can move to something else. Or you can just continue to work on those five until again until you get it down to what you feel good about. And that comes back to the conversation about doing the exercise the right way, working on posture and positioning, as opposed to rushing through the exercise just because you think you've you've been able to do it.

Shebah Cafagna: 8:49

And technique is a big part of the pushups. Technique. The proper technique is a large part of the pushups because you can easily get hurt, and so you want to make sure that you are in a great position because that sets you back. If you sustain an injury.

Peter Bowes: 9:05

And you're generally going to be doing push ups as part of a broader exercise program, you won't be doing them in isolation. So you need to think about what else you're doing before and after in terms of how many push ups you attempt to do, how much focus you can put on that particular exercise when you're also exercising other parts of your body.

Shebah Cafagna: 9:25

That's true. You just don't want to wear out the muscles here, but you want to engage in other upper body muscles, other upper body exercises to then incorporate the push ups into that. But if you just want to get started, you just do the push ups. So for some, that's the best way to start. We deal with a population of older individuals from time to time, and they're happy to do that. Simply raising your arms up and down is an exercise because your arms are weighted. You have muscles in there, but obviously if you're new at this, you want to be very careful with push ups. And push ups are not a beginner's move, to be quite honest with you. Unless you're on a wall, you know, and doing some other upper body exercises.

Peter Bowes: 10:07

And then when you get better, you can do more advanced push ups. You can do one legged push ups, for example.

Shebah Cafagna: 10:14

Ah. The variations of push ups you. There's Spiderman push ups. There's diamond push ups. There's one arm push ups.

Nate Wilkins: 10:23

There's tricep.Pushups.

Shebah Cafagna: 10:24

Triceps pushups.

Nate Wilkins: 10:26

You know, we used to do the dive bomber.

Shebah Cafagna: 10:29

Dive bomber push ups. Not so many safe if you're a beginner though. But the first thing you would do is if you went to the floor to do your very first set of push ups, you could be on your knees or you could be in a plank. Everyone knows what a plank is, or you'd be on your knees and you could do chest presses here in. Chest presses here. I call them presses. You know where you get that flexibility, that movement. And then you have to stabilize your body.

Peter Bowes: 10:55

Just summarizing, Nate, the value of push ups as we've been talking about them, what do we gain from them?

Nate Wilkins: 11:02

You know what Peter, aside from esthetics. Right. Because again, you know, when you are able to build up your upper body and most men love that look, it gives you that broad shoulder, it gives you the posture that you need. It helps you, you know, sort of develop the posture. But overall general just great health perspective that that you feel good about yourself when you look in the mirror. And other people can notice that as well, is what I would say.

Peter Bowes: 11:34

So the pushup is simple but powerful. You don't need fancy equipment. Just your body. It builds strength across the chest, arms and core. It's even been shown to reflect heart health and longevity. And best of all, it's adaptable. You can scale it to any fitness level. A small move with a big impact. Push ups are proof that sometimes the basics are what keep us strong for life. The Live Long podcast is a Healthspan Media Production. I'm Peter Bowes, you can contact me through our website livelongpodcast.com where you'll also find show notes for this episode.

DISCLAIMER: 12:11

This podcast is for informational, educational and entertainment purposes only. We do not offer medical advice. If you have health concerns of any kind or you are considering adopting a new diet or exercise regime, you should first consult your doctor.