In women, the angle formed between the forearm and the arm at the elbow, in relation to the pelvis, is greater than in men. By placing your hands slightly further apart and rotating them slightly outward, your muscles and bones follow more natural movement patterns.
Push-ups can be a challenge even for those in good shape. But many women have difficulty to do them, even after months of training at the gym or many hours of practice at home.
Therefore, when an alleged “tip” to make push-ups easier for women began to gain traction on social mediait’s no surprise that some of these videos have gone viral.
The trick is to simply change the hand position. Instead of placing their hands facing forward, in line with their bodies, women are told to position them laterallyso that the fingers are facing away from the body.
A anatomy helps explain why this change in hand position can make it easier for women to perform push-ups, says Adam Taylorprofessor of Anatomy at Lancaster University, in an article in . And the explanation involves a part of the body that is perhaps not the most obvious: has pelvis.
In pelvis influences the position of the arm in relation to the body. In women, the angle formed between the forearm and the arm at the elbow (known as the carrying angle), in relation to the pelvis, is on average around 15 degrees, while in men it is around 10 degrees.
O transport angle is greater in women to allow additional clearance from the pelvis during movement.
The transport angle not only influence the way in which the bones of the upper limb articulate with each other and with the trunk. Also affects the direction in which the muscles contract.
This is why women may find it more difficult to do push-ups the conventional way. When you put your hands slightly further away between each other and rotating them a little outwards, the muscles and bones are allowed to follow more natural movement patterns.
Women also have more flexible ligaments and tendons, which means their joints generally have a greater amplitude of movement. This can cause the joints to become more subject to strain or pain if the biomechanics of the movement are not correctly aligned.
The torso, which connects the top of the shoulder to the arm, is 12.4% higher in men than in women. This also contributes to biomechanical differencessuch as the center of gravity and the most efficient muscle groups during certain exercises.
The push-ups are not, moreover, the only exercise that women might want adapt according to your anatomy. It may also be worth changing the way you perform other arm exercises — especially those where the arm is raised above the head.
Women have more likely to suffer shoulder injuries due to overload or repetitive movements. This happens because the female shoulder jointso are smaller and more mobile than men’s, which gives them a greater range of movement.
But since the shoulder is a highly mobile joint, this additional mobility It also brings instability. This means that the shoulder relies largely on the rotator cuff muscles to hold the joint in place.
To make this situation worse, women have less muscle massin addition to a different configuration the area of contact between the bones of the shoulder joint, and shorter, thinner collarbones.
All of these anatomical differences, taken together, translate into an increased risk of injury for women in exercises involving internal rotation shoulder or overhead movements. Among them are the so-called shoulder pressestriceps dips, lateral raises, upright rows and the overhead presses.
Already the skull crushersa triceps exercise that consists of lying on a bench and slowly lowering a bar toward your head, as well as side bends with a neutral grip or thumbs facing up, and the seated dumbbell pressthey are safer shoulder options.
Seated dumbbell press
If the funds are the exercise of election, keep the torso perpendicular to the floor can reduce the burden on the shoulder.
It may also be useful use angled bars instead of parallel bars. As these bars are slightly angled towards each other, they allow for a more natural wrist position, rather than forcing you to keep your hands parallel, with your thumbs pointed straight ahead.
