Pushups: Understanding Their Difficulty and How to Master Them

Why Pushups Are So Hard?

Pushups are challenging due to the significant portion of body weight lifted, the complex coordination required across multiple muscle groups, and the critical demand for core stability. They expose deficits in upper body strength, scapular control, and overall neuromuscular coordination.

The Demands of Bodyweight Leverage

One of the primary reasons pushups feel so difficult is that they require you to lift a substantial percentage of your own body weight. Unlike lifting a dumbbell, where you choose the load, a pushup inherently uses approximately 60-70% of your total body mass at the bottom of the movement, depending on your limb lengths and body proportions. This makes it a formidable test of relative strength – your strength in relation to your body size. For individuals with higher body mass, the absolute load becomes proportionally greater, increasing the challenge significantly.

A Symphony of Muscles: The Compound Nature

The pushup is a highly effective compound exercise, meaning it engages multiple joints and muscle groups simultaneously. This integrated demand is excellent for functional strength but contributes to its difficulty, as it requires coordinated effort from several key players:

• Primary Movers:
  • Pectoralis Major (Chest): Responsible for horizontal adduction (bringing the arm across the body) and shoulder flexion.
  • Anterior Deltoids (Front of Shoulders): Assists with shoulder flexion and pressing.
  • Triceps Brachii (Back of Upper Arm): Extends the elbow, pushing your body away from the ground.
• Synergistic and Stabilizing Muscles:
  • Serratus Anterior: Crucial for scapular protraction and upward rotation, preventing "winging" of the shoulder blades.
  • Rotator Cuff Muscles: Stabilize the shoulder joint.
  • Latissimus Dorsi (Lats): While primarily a pulling muscle, it assists in stabilizing the shoulder and can contribute to the eccentric (lowering) phase.
  • Abdominals, Glutes, Quadriceps: Maintain the rigid plank position, preventing hip sag or pike.

The need for all these muscles to work in concert, with appropriate strength and timing, is a major hurdle for many.

The Unsung Hero: Core Stability

Often underestimated, core strength is paramount to a successful pushup. The exercise requires maintaining a rigid, straight line from head to heels, essentially holding a moving plank. Without adequate engagement from the rectus abdominis, obliques, transverse abdominis, and glutes, your hips will sag towards the floor (lumbar hyperextension) or pike upwards (hips too high). Both scenarios compromise the exercise's effectiveness and can place undue stress on the lower back or shoulders. A weak core forces other muscles to compensate, making the movement less efficient and more difficult.

Strength Deficits: Where Weakness Shows

Many individuals struggle with pushups due to specific strength deficits in the primary pushing muscles or crucial stabilizers:

• Insufficient Upper Body Pushing Strength: Modern lifestyles often lead to underdeveloped chest, shoulder, and tricep strength, as these muscles are not frequently challenged through their full range of motion.
• Weak Scapular Control: The ability to protract (push forward) and retract (pull back) the shoulder blades with control is vital. Weakness in muscles like the serratus anterior can lead to "winged" shoulder blades or instability, making the pushup feel unstable and harder on the shoulder joint.
• Lack of Muscular Endurance: Even if you possess the raw strength for one or two repetitions, maintaining proper form and generating force for multiple reps requires significant muscular endurance in all involved muscle groups.

Mastering Form and Technique

Improper form is a common reason pushups feel harder than they should, or why progress stalls. Common technique errors include:

• Elbows Flaring Out: Places excessive stress on the shoulder joint and reduces triceps engagement.
• Sagging Hips/Piking: Indicates a weak core and shifts the load incorrectly.
• Shrugging Shoulders: Elevating the shoulders towards the ears reduces chest and triceps activation and can strain the neck.
• Insufficient Range of Motion: Not descending low enough (chest to within a fist's height of the floor) reduces the challenge and muscle activation.

Correcting these issues requires conscious effort, body awareness, and often, starting with easier variations to build foundational strength and motor patterns.

Neuromuscular Coordination and Progression

Beyond raw strength, the pushup demands excellent neuromuscular coordination – the ability of your brain and nervous system to communicate effectively with your muscles to produce a smooth, controlled movement. This coordination improves with practice.

For those finding pushups too hard, it's crucial to understand the principle of progressive overload. You don't start with a full pushup if you can't perform one with good form. Instead, you progressively build strength:

• Incline Pushups: Performing pushups with your hands elevated on a stable surface (e.g., wall, bench, counter). The higher the elevation, the easier the exercise, as less body weight is supported.
• Knee Pushups: Reduces the lever arm and the amount of body weight supported.
• Negative Pushups: Focusing only on the eccentric (lowering) phase of the movement, building strength and control.

By addressing these contributing factors—from the inherent bodyweight load and multi-muscle demands to core stability, specific strength deficits, and proper technique—you can demystify the pushup's difficulty and systematically work towards mastering this foundational exercise.