Can’t do press ups? Sure you can!

If you want to get in shape and you don’t know where to start, well the answer is “Anywhere!” Seriously, you can start with anything, you don’t have to be an athlete to do some fitness training or just a bit of regular exercise. And if you’re starting from scratch it’s best if you keep the bar really low and make it easy on yourself. You could start with press ups. You’ve probably done press ups in the past, maybe years ago. And right now maybe just the thought of doing them brings you out in a cold sweat. You can think of half a dozen reasons why you can’t do them, and some of them might even make sense 😉 But what I aim to do here is tell you a few reasons why you can. And when you’ve read this, hopefully you’ll be keen to make a start and give it a go. First, let me explain something: you don’t need to be able to do press ups to do press ups. What I mean by that apparently illogical sentence is this – it doesn’t matter if you can’t actually do press ups if you want to start doing them, because there’s plenty of ways to get there and some of them are very, very easy.

The first step is to make a start

Okay, let’s make a start. I’m going to assume for the sake of this that you think, for whatever reason, that you really haven’t a hope in hell of successfully doing any press ups. Right, okay, now we’re on the same page. I accept that, you can’t do press ups. You can calm down now, I’m not going to suggest you do. I’m certainly not going to start shouting “Hit the floor and gimme ten … and make ’em good and deep, otherwise you’ll be doing another ten on top o’ that!” No, no, I’m going for the softer approach … and then, when I’ve tricked you into going along with my evil plan, that’s when I start all the shouting 🙂 (and just in case you didn’t quite get that, it was a joke). 😉

Okay, the idea is to see this as a goal, and there’s a sensible way of achieving goals, and that’s what we’re going to do. You can’t do the exercise because you haven’t done them for years, right? And you haven’t got the strength in your arms, you’re too old, you’re too fat, you’re past it, you’ve got the kids to see to, you’re not an Olympic athlete … there’s plenty of reasons why you can’t do press ups, okay, I get it, but we’re not interested in all that. Anyway, they’re not reasons, they’re excuses! So let’s get back to it (and do yourself a favour, stop muttering excuses, it really doesn’t help). Let’s make a start … again. Your goal is to do press ups. Why? Because if you can manage to do them, and if you do them regularly, you’ll have made a start. If you can do one exercise, you can do others. You’ll be able to get in shape. A worthy ambition, and one that’s not out of your range. It can be done! But we’re not going to try to do ten press ups today. We’re not even going to do one press up (not a proper one, anyway). All we’re going to do is ease you into the whole thing. Gently. See? It’s not scary at all.

Make it do-able

Stand near the kitchen table, or your desk, or something about that height. Put your hands on it, near the edge. Shift your feet back a bit so you’re leaning into the table/desk/whatever, and taking your weight on your hands. Most of your weight is on your feet actually, but you get my drift. Now do a few press up-type movements, bending your elbows and pushing away so they straighten up again. It doesn’t even have to be the full movement, bending fully at the elbow. It’s easy, right? If it’s a bit of a struggle, just do the same thing leaning against a wall. Now you’re almost vertical! It should be easy enough now. Okay, once you’ve got the feel of these mini press ups against the table, do a proper set of ten of them (still leaning on the edge of the table, I don’t mean you suddenly have to get on the floor and do them). And once you’ve done that, you’ve done a set of ten press ups (of a sort). See what I mean? So what’s all this nonsense about you can’t do this and you can’t do that? ‘Course you can! You just proved it! I’m sure you see where this is going. If that set was a bit hard, specially towards the end, take it easy – you’re not ready to do more just yet. Have another go tomorrow. If it felt easy, do another set. Or try to do a set of twenty. Now, even if that’s all you did every day, it’s a start. It will help you build up your strength and fitness a bit, and within a week or so you’ll be doing a couple of sets of fifty, no trouble at all.

Step by step …

Moving on from this, it’s so easy to increase the level of difficulty. All you have to do is go from using the edge of a table to using a chair. Yeah, you’ll feel the difference, but you’ve been doing them for a while now so it’s not scary at all, and you know you can do it. Remember, when you move to the chair, if it feels really difficult just try to do a few. Build up slowly. Take your time. This is how we’re approaching this goal, we’re sneaking up on it, steadily, ninja-style, so it doesn’t even notice what’s happening. When we’re close enough, and if it’s still unaware of the danger, that’s when we strike! 🙂 Okay, once you’ve advanced to using a small stool instead of the chair you’re nearly there. And when you do try doing press ups on the floor you still don’t have to do the full exercise; you can just do them on your knees for a while. See? There are ways to achieve this goal, and they mostly consist of taking things steadily, and taking them one step at a time. When you’re finally doing the full exercise on the floor, don’t rush to do too much. Settle for a couple of sets of five at first. And try to keep your body straight and stiff, not sagging in the middle, or with your backside up in the air somewhere. It’s far better to do a small number and do them right than to try to do a lot more and make a mess of it.

You did it!

As you can see, this goal is definitely within your grasp. You can do press ups, even if you’re not a teenager anymore, or even if you’re carrying a bit of excess weight, or you have to keep an eye on the kids, or you had an operation, or whatever. A few quick sets of ten (or more) will do you a lot of good, but it won’t take more than two or three minutes. And the benefits are very real. The main one being that you are finally doing some regular exercise. You’ve made a start. You’re on the road to fitness, and you’re no longer shrinking back from all those ‘scary’ exercises.

This was just a little goal, to do some press ups (but maybe not so little to you, I understand that). The important thing is that you took it one step at a time, and you kept at it. You started by making it easy on yourself, and you moved forward bit by bit, not trying to do too much, but not quitting either. You should feel good – you achieved something! Now take something from that and apply it to another goal you have in mind. Break it down into easily do-able steps, write it down (always helps), and decide you’ll do it (making the decision is an important step). Then make a start on Step 1. Don’t hesitate. Don’t come up with half a dozen reasons why it can’t be done. Don’t imagine yourself failing. And don’t talk yourself into failing by constantly repeating (to yourself) why you can’t do it, why it’s difficult, how you’re too old, too fat, too thin, too weak, too whatever.

The sky’s the limit!

Don’t give in to any of this. Stop all the negative self-talk and just get on with it. You can do it. If you can do a few sets of ten press ups when you were so convinced you couldn’t possibly do any press ups, who knows what you’re capable of? Hey, this is just the beginning!