Hi Suzanne. Good question. The push-ups you see where the elbows are totally pointing backwards and your upper arms are hugging your rib cage are tricep push-ups. They are also known as a yogi push-up because that's how they do a push-up in yoga. For your standard push up how I like to guide people is to have them create a triangle under your arms. So if I were over you looking down I would see a triangle formed on each side. Hard to articulate, but hopefully you know what I mean. If you do this there will be about a 45 degree angle at the armpit throughout the movement. In doing this your elbows still will mostly be pointing to the wall behind you. For a shoulder/wide push-up the elbows do flare to the side walls more though.