Why Aim For The Perfect One-Arm Push-Up
Bodyweight exercises can be modified so that almost anybody can execute a movement…
And further modified to the point that very few can do it. Where the movement calls upon the activation of all of your muscle fibers and mental concentration to execute. Such a movement over time will pack on significant muscle as well as give you a bodyweight-to-strength ratio most athletes would admire.
The Perfect One-Arm Push-up is such an exercise that continues to elude most trainees but some are getting close.
The perfect one-arm push-up is a push-up with one arm but the body position is still the same. If you type in one-arm push-up anywhere on the internet you’ll find people with legs splayed wide apart while twisting their bodies to the ground as they bend their working arm till they touch the deck and they return to the top. This is technically a one-arm push-up but is it perfect?
Keeping the body straight and making the one-arm push-up movement a one-armed diamond push-up is incredibly taxing. But why pursue this goal?
Strength
The demands this movement places upon your triceps and chest are extremely high. Its been stated that those who are adept at full-planche push-ups are capable of benching twice their body weight.
“YoU nEeD tO lIfT wEiGhTs tO gEt StRoNg.”
The author of convict conditioning states that performing these for reps enabled him to rep 315 on the bench. Is the author of this book real and is this information legit? Maybe and I believe yes.
After I found Convict Conditioning in college I would once in a while go back to the bench press to test myself and despite not lifting weights my numbers were going up past a 225 bench. Keep in mind at the time my pressing strength was on the level of performing close handstand push-ups and uneven push-ups.
Now I can perform a somewhat garbage wall-assisted one-arm push-up and an enhanced range of motion handstand push-up.
Your muscles, tendons, and bones can’t tell the difference between weights or your own body. All you have to do is find a way to send the right signal.
Stimulus
The higher you go in body weight exercise difficulty, the more opportunity you have for building muscle. You can still build muscle with lower-difficulty movements as long as you go to failure, which depending on how many reps that takes or how they’re performed will take some time.
Increasing the difficulty of the exercise and using that as a stimulus for muscle growth is a time-efficient solution. The added mass on top not just from the pushing work but from the pulling work as well will mean more weight that your legs will need to press up or move during squats, jumps, or sprints,
Tendon Strength
All bodyweight movements performed correctly and in a progressive manner will not diminish your connective tissues but do the opposite. The road toward the perfect one-arm push-up will yield stronger and stronger wrists, elbows, and shoulders.
Functionality
This improved integrity of your connective tissues will follow you into old age. And so will that strength. I mentioned elsewhere how my time on Christmas break with one-legged squats improved the power of my kicks as a taekwondo practitioner. I can only imagine what the perfect one-arm push-up can do for the upper body.
Our bodies move mostly in a unilateral fashion so why not train in such a way? Uniltareal work will require more balance but once it's surpassed you can start using such movements for strength and muscle.
Perfect One-arm push-ups will also place a great demand on your obliques (side core muscles) to keep your body straight during the movement. No other movement I can think of other than the human flag can have such a demanding effect on these muscles.
Time
Progressive Calisthenics is one of the most time-efficient ways to train. You don’t have to do hundreds of reps, you don’t have to set up weights on a bar, you don’t have to drive to the gym and set weights on the bar, you just go.
What Am I doing Currently?
Currently, I’m utilizing variations of the archer push-up. But instead of the whole of my non-working hand touching ground, I’ll place it on an unstable surface like a foam roller or limit the number of fingers touching the ground. I’ll alternate both between the weeks.
The finger options allows me to gauge how much force I am generating with the working arm. The more force, the less the fingers on my nonworking hand are being subjected to. I do something similar with my archer pull-ups and the goal is to get to the point that my non-working arm is adding very little force to the movement. From four fingers down to three, then two, then one.
Until I arrive at a full unilateral movement.
I’m using a strength and muscle-based approach. Meaning I’m not aiming just for strength or just for muscle I’m doing a little of both.
So I’m keeping the rep range mainly around 8 and over time improving my mind-muscle connection by going slower but not too slow. I’ll focus on the majority of my weight being on the working arm and lessening the force preceding the non-working one.
The Journey
As with all progressive calisthenics, it’s not just the attainment of the movement but the journey to get there.
It teaches you patience and it teaches you how to work towards a goal which these lessons will help you in other areas of life.
With this sort of training, one has to keep in mind the principle which is finding little ways to make the exercise more difficult. Even If you are not at the full push-up yet there are still plenty of options for you.
Thank you for making it to the end and if you have any questions let me know.
