Goalie Push-ups: Instructions, Modifications and Benefits

Push-up variations abound, of modifying raising your hands to increase the challenge by adding plank cats.

A particularly valuable (and quite challenging) variation is the archer pushup. Not only can this move involve different muscles than traditional push-ups, but it can also help progressing toward single arm versions.

The bend’s name comes from carrying one arm while still using the other, similar to how an archer draws back the string of a bow but still holds the bow when loading an arrow.

Here are the steps on how to do it, along with tips to make it easier or harder.

Push-ups with a goalkeeper: step-by-step instructions

• Let’s suppose a plank position with your hands about twice shoulder width apart. Keep your body straight from head to heels, maintaining a neutral spine and making sure your hips do not sink or rise.
• Instead of lowering yourself directly to the floor (as you would in a traditional push-up), lower your torso toward your right hand. Your left arm bends only slightly, since most of the work must be done by your right arm.
• Return to center and switch to a push-up on the left side.
• Alternate between the two sides, focusing on keeping your arms open and engaging your chest muscles.

Benefits of goalie pushups

The archer pushup combines the advantages of traditional push-ups with benefits that come from working on one side of the body, says strength and conditioning coach rocky snyderCSCS, author of Return to Center: Strength training to realign the body, recover from pain, and achieve optimal performance.

Those benefits include the following:

Push-ups with archer: muscles worked

With this type of pushup, you can expect to engage several muscle groups in your upper body.

triceps

Goalkeeper push-ups place a substantial load on your triceps. This muscle group is responsible for extending (or straightening) the arms, which becomes more difficult the closer the hands are to the torso.

anterior deltoids

Your deltoids are made up of three muscles, the most frontal of which (the anterior deltoid) is emphasized during pressing movements, such as the flexion, overhead pressand bench press.

Chest

Composed of the pectoralis major and the pectoralis minor, its chest muscles are working hard during pushing exercises. Its main function is adduction, which means bringing the arms toward the midline of the body (think breast fly either bench press).

obliques

The internal and external obliques are core muscles They are located on the sides of your trunk and help with torso rotation. During the archer’s push-up, they will help stabilize the upper body and resist movement.

toothed front

An underrated muscle, the anterior dentate It is a fan-shaped muscle in the chest that attaches the shoulder blade to the rib cage. Your job is to slide your shoulder blades forward (protraction) and rotate them upward (flexion), which is necessary during press movements.

Tips for the archer pushup

As with any exercise, form is the most important aspect of correctly working your muscles during the goalie push-up. Snyder notes that these are some common mistakes to avoid:

• Falling your hips
• Arching your back
• Tilt head up or down

“(The downward head tilt) happens because it’s the brain’s way of tricking you into thinking you’re going down to the appropriate level with less effort,” he adds. “Any break from proper body position, even if it’s just the head, is an unfortunate opportunity to reinforce poor mechanics and that increases the likelihood of injury.”

How to make the goalie pushup easier

• Drop your knees to take pressure off your shoulders as a way to make the push-up easier but still effective. Snyder adds that you can also place an anchored resistance band above your knees as a way to maintain proper form.
• Place your hands on a slightly elevated surface.
• Put your hands together.

How to make the archer pushup harder

A key way to intensify this movement is to roll an object from side to side, Snyder says. For example, you can place your hand on the working side on a medicine ball and go down there, and then roll the ball to the other hand.

“With this option, the medicine ball moves easily, so more effort is necessary to control instability,” he adds. that can engage more core muscles as your body works to maintain balance.

Snyder suggests trying different objects: a kettlebella small step or a box, or even a dumbbell, to evaluate how that changes your flexion and which muscles are activated.

Combine any of these intensifiers to make the exercise more difficult:

• Slow down the pace of the movement during the eccentric (lowering) phase of the exercise to focus on time under tension.
• Lift the opposite foot off the ground as you lower down. For example, lift your right foot as you step down to the left side. This is another way to activate your core muscles, as they will work harder to keep you stable.
• Place your legs on an elevated surface so you are doing a declined version of the push-up.

“The goalie push-up allows you to be creative, because there are countless ways to modify this particular movement to increase or decrease the intensity,” Snyder says. “As long as you maintain proper form, feel free to play with variables that help work your muscles in different ways.”