I can remember when my dad used to do 1 arm pushups when we would all be around the TV watching Monday night football back in the day.
My dad growing up as a wrestler and was always strong with his bodyweight movements.
He taught me the importance of pull ups, push ups, bodyweight squats, and lots of different types of isometric exercises.
I did these all at a young age.
I got good at both pushups and pullups as usually every night I would do 100’s of pushups before I went to bed.
I started to get addicted. I couldn’t go to sleep if I didn’t do my push ups. It would stay in my head keeping me up all night if I didn’t do them.
I can remember when I was at a wrestling camp in Gunnison, CO at Western St., and my roommate for the trip, my friend Willie, thought I was insane as every night, even if we had been though a brutal day of live wrestling drills, I would still hit my push ups no matter what.
It’s kind of like the stories you may of heard about wrestling legends Dan Gable and Coach Ethan Reeve and how they used to crank out pushups every night. They would do somewhere between 300 and 500 a night! I wasn’t quite to their extreme!
The great thing about pushups is there’s literally 100’s of different variations you can do to keep progress going strong.
One of the best variations is the single or 1 arm pushup.
You’ve got to have a solid core, good shoulder stability, and just a high level of pure upper body strength.
To hit these you’ve got to be strong all over!
I know lots of people that say they want to be able to hit 1 arm pushups but they just don’t know how to get there.
Well, I’ll show you! With hard work and determination you can get anywhere!
NO EXCUSES!
It all starts with proper regressions.
My number 1 rule of thumb for these before you even attempt to start doing 1 arm push ups or any other similar variations is that you must be able to hit 50 solid reps of regular push ups.
Once this becomes cake, then you can start messing around with 1 arm pushup progressions and variations.
Here’s 5 steps to hitting your 1 arm pushups…
1) 50 Regular Pushups – you must hit 50 regular, REAL, solid full range of motion push ups before you move onto the next step.
2) 30 Close Grip Pushups – these will hammer your triceps and help build up even more strength in your whole upper body. I prefer to do them on a medicine ball or some dumbbells side by side.
3) 30 Med ball Switch or Off Balance Pushups – These are great for power or for straight up strength. The med ball switch is good for power while the straight off balance pushup is good for strength. Get good at both!
4) 15 Assisted 1 Arm Pushups/ Side – I got this step from Convict Conditioning (Which is a straight up BADASS book!!!). I use either a med ball or even a basketball for this trick.
This will help you go through the full range of motion while still assisting your pushups just enough to still get good strength gains.
5) 1 Arm Pushups – now that you’ve built up a significant amount of upper body strength and coordination, you’re ready to hit some 1 arm pushups!
Bust em out with GOOD FORM!
Live Aggressive and Get Strong!
Travis