Pushups: Everything You Need To Know About Them

Pushups are the ultimate exercise.

While most people claim to hate pushups … I love them!  I don’t necessarily love doing them, but I love the results they give.

By using your arms to push your body against gravity, pushups will strengthen your pectorals, shoulders, and triceps.  On top of that, pushups will strengthen your abs and, in fact, your entire core.  Pushups, I should add, will work more muscles on your body than will be worked by bench pressing.

And there are countless variations to doing pushups, so you are always able to step it up a notch to increase your strength if you prefer, or stop at a level at which you feel content.  For instance, by simply changing the position of your hands, you can put more emphasis on certain muscles.

Let’s start with a regular pushup:

As you most likely already know, begin a pushup by lying on your stomach with your feet together and your hands near your shoulders.  Push yourself off the ground while keeping your body in a straight line - from your neck to your heels.  As with all other exercises, it is important to keep good form during pushups … i.e., don’t let your butt stick up in the air or your pelvis drop to the floor.  Keeping your midsection tight, lower yourself back down to the ground until arms are parallel to the floor.  Try to touch your chest to the floor.  And keep your elbows close to your ribs throughout the movement.  Do 12-15 reps, or do until muscle failure.

To put more emphasis on your triceps, move your hands closer together than shoulder-width apart.  Form a triangle with your hands, touching your fingers and thumbs together for yet even more emphasis.

To put more emphasis on your pectorals, move your hands wider than shoulder-width part.

To put more emphasis on your shoulders, put your feet on a surface making your feet higher than your shoulders.  The higher the surface the more the emphasis.

Here are 6 creative ways to make your pushups even more intense:

  1. During your pushups, lift one foot up in the air thereby using only one foot to hold yourself in position.  Alternate legs.
  2. While putting your feet on a higher surface as mentioned above, try using an unstable surface such as an exercise ball.  Great for the core!
  3. Try placing added weight on your back.  (Not recommended in you have back problems.)
  4. During your pushups, lower one shoulder to the floor while keeping the other as high as possible.  Do one set of reps and then alternate shoulders.
  5. Find two phonebooks of equal thickness.  Place one hand on each phone book and do classic pushups lowering yourself down as far as possible.  Don’t forget keep your body straight.
  6. While doing any type of pushup, simply adding a pause when you lower yourself to the floor will increase the intensity a great deal.
  7. Add a clap.  After lowering yourself to the floor, push off the ground and clap your hands once before returning to the floor.

Inverse Push Up

The inverse push up is great for the back, as well as the deltoids, glutes, and triceps.

Preparing to go into a backbend/bridge position, lie on your back with your hands on the floor near your head and your legs bent.  Push your body up arching your back as shown in this picture.  However, your arms should be more in line with your shoulders.  Hold for several seconds (try for a minute) and then lower yourself back to the floor.  Or  you can increase the workout on your triceps by bending your elbows and lowering your head to the floor and then pushing back up.  Do as many as you can.

Mountain Climbers

One of my favorite exercises which targets the abs, shoulders, and core is the mountain climber.   Start in a pushup position keeping your entire body in a straight line.  Your arms should be straight with your hands directly below your shoulders.  Bring one knee into your chest with the other leg remaining straight.  Without taking your hands off the floor, switch your legs landing both feet on the floor at the same time.   Repeat at a fast pace for a set amount of time.  Remember to keep your mid-section tight during the exercise.

One-Arm Pushup

This pushup works the abs, shoulders, triceps, obliques, and upper and lower back.  But it is definitely an exercise you have to work up to.

Start as though you are doing a regular pushup, but spread your feet a little wider apart and put your hands closer together.  Take one hand off the floor, and place it behind your back.  You may find that spreading your fingers of the hand remaining on the floor will help you keep your balance.  Lower yourself to the floor as far as possible and then push yourself back up.  Try for 3 to 5 pushups on each arm.  This pushup places a lot of work on your midsection causing you to flex nearly every part of your body.  But that’s what makes it so great!

If you are new to one-arm pushups, you may want to start with your feet on the floor and one hand on an elevated surface.  Or you may want to do them on your knees. The wider apart the knees, the easier the pushup.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Share the wellness!
  • TwitThis
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • StumbleUpon
  • HealthRanker
  • Digg
  • Technorati
  • Google
  • del.icio.us
  • E-mail this story to a friend!
  • Faves