Understanding Why Modified “Knee” Push-Ups are the Key to Success
For a variety of cultural reasons, there is nothing an athlete hates more than doing modified push-ups on their knees. It’s like an insult to them. However, looking at modified push-ups in this way is a mistake.
Unfortunately, society has conditioned us to have an all or nothing mindset. So, an athlete would rather do a terrible push-up that doesn’t even qualify as a push-up instead of a modified push-up with perfect form. Moreover, out of shape adults would rather do no push-ups at all than to start building their strength with modified push-ups.
With that said, I’m not here today to rant about push-ups. Push-ups are just a metaphor. A metaphor for what it takes to execute a personal growth process to achieve success in anything. Simply stated, before you can be great at anything you first have to be bad at it. THIS. IS. A. FACT.
Yes, some people are born with a level of natural talent. That natural talent may get them to good, but natural talent won’t get anyone to great. Greatness requires the process of using a progression.
A progression is the process of starting where you are currently, and then gradually layering on new abilities to progress towards where you want to be. The reason why push-ups are such a great metaphor for this is because whether you can do 0 push-ups, 50 push-ups or 100 push-ups, you can always set a goal to do 1 more. In addition, to do one more, you can drop to your knees and do a modified push-up as a progression towards that goal.
This is the mindset you need to achieve whatever goal that symbolizes success for you right now. You can’t be embarrassed to start where you are. No matter how far behind everyone else you are, you must realize that everyone else doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is that you have enough self-awareness to start where you are right now and focus on the process you will need to get better.