Wall press

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What it’s good for Strengthens arm, shoulder and chest muscles. Particularly good for work­ing the under-​arm (tri­cep) muscles. The “push-​off and catch” ver­sion can also help keep wrist bones strong. Everyday bene­fits include:

  • bet­ter push­ing power for super­mar­ket trol­leys, heavy doors, wheel­chairs
  • bet­ter defence against a frac­tured wrist if you have to put out your hand to break a fall
How often to do it Daily
Equipment you’ll need A wall
This exer­cise is a way of doing press-​ups without get­ting down on the ground. It doesn’t work your muscles quite as hard, but is still effect­ive


Standing leaning on wall, palms at ear-height, feet a short way from wallBody has dropped in towards wall until nose nearly touches, ready to press away again

  • Stand facing a wall with feet hip-​width apart, about one foot-​length away
  • Place your palms on the wall at shoulder-​height, just wider than shoulders, fin­gers point­ing upwards
  • Tighten your lower abs muscle gently, and, keep­ing your feet still, lower your body in towards the wall
  • Aim to lower until your nose almost touches the wall
  • Hold briefly, then push slowly away again to your start pos­i­tion
  • Rest briefly, then repeat

Aim to do as many slow, steady wall presses as you can until your arms feel they can­not do any more, up to 20.

TIPS
♦ It can feel easier to push away from the wall if you breathe out at the same time
♦ Take care not to let your back bend at all as you lower to the wall – keep­ing your lower abs gently pulled in will help
♦ Try also to keep your legs straight, no bend­ing at the knees
♦ And beware of strain­ing your neck for­wards in an effort to get your nose closer to the wall!

Varying the exer­cise for more chal­lenge

Once you can do 20 good, slow press-​ups, you need to make the exer­cise a bit harder to con­tinue strength­en­ing your muscles. Try these pro­gres­sions in order of dif­fi­culty.

The pro­gres­sions

1. Add an extra set of 20 press-​ups
Make sure you rest for at least three minutes before doing your second set

2. Stand a bit farther away from the wall
This will make the press-​up feel quite a lot harder, so you may have to do fewer until you build up your strength, again aim­ing for 2 sets of 20. Be even more care­ful not to let your back sag or your chin poke for­wards

3. Wall press with push-​off and catch
In this ver­sion, instead of push­ing back from the wall slowly, you push away hard, let­ting your hands come off the wall moment­ar­ily. Then drop back on to the wall, mak­ing your arms work to stop you from fall­ing into the wall. Start this ver­sion stand­ing one-​foot length away from the wall for prac­tice, but as you get more con­fid­ent, start farther away from the wall for greater impact.

4. Try press-​ups on the ground
As long as you can safely get down and up from the floor, you should be well able to move on to the press-​up on knees.

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