Diamond pushups use more chest than wide pushups (from a study that also examined standard, pseudo-planche and simplified Lalanne pushups)

[missj]

@thomaslowrens

Wide pushups are the best for shoulder impingement

I think you mean "best if you want to develop impingement (ie hurt yourself," though maybe you mean "best exercise to treat impingement."

 

[thomaslowrens]

@missj Good point about the phrasing.

 

[zhou]

@thomaslowrens So which is it?

 

[deniygaras]

@zhou Causing shoulder impingement.

 

[dawn16]

@thomaslowrens wide push ups - awkward, short ROM, prone to injury, ugly

why even do them? the chest being hit enough from regular push ups(ofcourse with progressive overload) and if you cant use weight then wide push ups are not going to save you anyway

 

[thomaslowrens]

@dawn16 I agree.

 

[cultivar]

@thomaslowrens Well, it makes sense that Diamond pushups are best for chest activation. I read in this study that wide ROM is very important to recruit the most amount of motor units. as the ROM at the shoulder is at it greatest when preforming Diamond PUs its not a surprise that chest activation was at it highest. Maybe using rings to execute the wide PUs will increase the activation of the chest.

This sounds like a great study, thanks for sharing it, dude!

 

[thomaslowrens]

@cultivar Rings would also help to avoid elbow flaring and shoulder impingement. In fact chest flyes on rings are similar to ring wide pushups, and I've seen Ben Bruno doing an interesting drop set.

 

[josephelizabeth]

@thomaslowrens This was so interesting thank you!

 

[thomaslowrens]

@josephelizabeth It seemed to be a topic that created a lot of discussion.

 

[dawn16]

@thomaslowrens Thanks for posting that article about EMG. Its important to understand that it's a useful research tool, but doesn't necessarily apply directly to practical applications. (And of course sometimes it does.)

 

[thomaslowrens]

@dawn16 From what I understand it's best used to compare exercises with similar loads or form, so for these pushups it should be ok because the hand placement does not change extremely.

 

[jkatt]

@thomaslowrens It's been a while, but I remember reading this was true only because diamond push-ups are overall more difficult, not because they actually isolate the chest better than wide push-ups. But yeah wide push-ups are too easy for most people that workout consistently and bad for your shoulders, I think the conclusions you wrote are correct.

 

[thomaslowrens]

@jkatt It could be the case, but giving exposure to narrow, weighted, pseudo-planche etc. pushups as a training tool is still a good thing overall.

I think wide pushups still activate the chest less since people tend to do them in a T shape and part of the load goes to the passive structures and not muscles. Maybe on rings it's not as bad since they are easier to adapt to your anatomy so the pushups look more like chest flyes.

 

[jkatt]

@thomaslowrens I think you just agreed with me?

 

[thomaslowrens]

@jkatt I am starting to wonder how useful the study was, since EMG is less useful when load or form is different, maybe the hand placement of these 5 variations was similar enough to get valid conclusions or maybe not, also see ThunderThighs' reply in this thread.

So I agree with you at least partially.

 

[jackflash444]

@thomaslowrens Really good and detailed info, thanks for posting that

 

[terrym5407]

@thomaslowrens You present great scientific evidence and then say shit like, "it makes sense", which is where science goes to die, lol.

Nice post though, interesting stuff.

 

[thomaslowrens]

@terrym5407 I kind of regret giving so much credit to this article but I still think the title of my post is correct and people will make better training choices by knowing about the other pushup variations shown.

 

[terrym5407]

@thomaslowrens I'm not arguing against your point, just thought it was funny juxtaposition. Good post, imo.