REAL Push-Ups for Girls - The One Armed Kind

Bigger Stronger Leaner Powerful Women
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Hey ladies!

I’ve been posting on the conditioning forum for a while under a different username but haven’t had a chance to really post over here with the powerful women :slight_smile:

Anyways, I just wanted to take a chance to share my goal to conquer a one arm push-up. I saw a couple of the guys at the gym I train out of banging them out and thought “Hey! I can do that!” So I tried it…and I can’t do one…YET! So I’m buckling down and will tackle this bad boy soon!

Anyone here been able to master the OAPU? I’d love to hear about it, if you have. Any training tips or ideas? I have a video of my latest OAPU attempt here:

Thanks, y’all!

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Annnd I just realized I linked the wrong video. Here’s the RIGHT one:

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Well, I’m a guy so I’m not sure whether what I’m going to say is going to apply to you or not, but the max reps I ever got was 14 with my right arm when I was around 70kg (yeah skinny), with the “arm out” style.

First of all, you may have read it already but the tutorial on beastskills is awesome in my opinion, especially as far as technique is concerned : One Arm Pushup « Bodyweight Strength Training « Beast Skills

For progression, basically what I did first was mastering the standard pushups with both arms (worked up to 3 sets of 20 with feet elevated). Then what helped me the most was to do one arm push ups with my hand on a bench for about 2 sets of 5 and try to find something lower and lower as I got better at it until I could do them on the floor (I started against the wall). One arm planks helped get my shoulders and core get stronger and helped me get a feel of the very unique tension that goes from the working arm to the opposite leg.

As far as assistance work goes, I wasn’t doing anything else than chin ups or light stuff as I was training at home, but I suppose what makes your bench stronger will make your OAPU stronger aswell (unilateral exercises are best, like one arm presses and one arm rows). I feel like eccentric only OAPUs didn’t do anything for me but you may want to try them and see if it works for you. Same thing for assisted OAPUs. As I said earlier, full ROM OAPUs on something to elevate your upper body is probably the best and easiest way to go.

Then when I got the first one I was doing them all the time (GTG) until I was able to do 10 easily. Now I’m much heavier and I struggle to get 5-8 reps max, but I haven’t been training fot them at all for years.

Hope this helps.

EDIT : wow just realised this was a 2 months old thread, no idea how it was in the first page… oh well, maybe it will help someone.