The Push/Pull concept commonly applied to upper body training is an excellent way to create a balanced and efficient program.  Lets look at a typical example of an upper body push/pull, the bench press, and bent row.  Both exercises work opposing muscles so that the body does not overly develop on one side raising the risk of injury and decreased performance.  Though both appear to be fairly simple exercises, there are many more technical aspects to them than first appears from grip and wrist position to starting and finishing positions.  Correcting poor posture and wrist position however are among the easier aspects of coaching an appropriate upper body set.  The real challenge begins long before when you are choosing your exercises and while you progress them.

First let’s look at progressing an upper body exercises like the pushup and the bent over barbell row.  So for our example, the athlete is a female about 5’8″ 130lbs and a member of the crew team.  She is currently doing body weight incline pushups and can do bent rows with about 80lbs. In comparison she has a much stronger posterior chain than anterior chain.  This can bring up an interesting question when choosing her progressions.  Do we hold back on progressing her row waiting for the push up progressions to see more progress or do we progress everything as quickly as possible so that we can get the biggest numbers from both exercises?  In my opinion the answer is a middle ground and lies in her movement patterns.  Are they being impeded or impinged by her unbalanced muscle development?  The overly cautious coach would hold her back, waiting until an arbitrarily determined push progression could be reached.  Whereas the overly aggressive coach would push for bigger numbers and improved performance, until the athlete was injured.  This is an athlete in my opinion who could still be pushed but should be a part of a regular movement screening to make sure she isn’t sacrificing any range of motion for bigger numbers.

The Second consideration when putting together a push/pull set is the specific exercise selection.  Some people don’t go with a direct push/pull and instead choose agonist and antagonist based moves.  For example a dumbbell chest fly and a 1 arm dumbbell row.  Though the primary agonist in these exercises are opposing muscles, if we look at the synergists we will see why this is a poor choice.  The dumbbell chest fly and 1 arm dumbbell row both stress the biceps and neither stress the triceps muscle and can create an unbalanced arm and shoulder.  This is a common flaw when first designing programs many people think only of the primary muscle group and not of the entire chain.

Training the entire chain is a key concept when looking at push/pull training.  Whether looking at progressions or exercise selection you have to be aware of not just the opposing muscles but of the synergists involved.  When setting up a program for an athlete you have to keep in mind you aren’t necessarily training the chest or the back but the movements of pushing and pulling.  That idea of movement based training and how much more applicable it is to the sporting world is why I think the push/pull concept is useful.