blacKandi Fitness

Written by Tanya A. aka blacKandi aka fitKandi ha!

Why Learn to Push Up?

Pushups is the best exercise, in my opinion, to develop chest muscles. You don’t need any additional weight besides your own body weight, you don’t need any fancy equipment and it is the exercise that not only helps to build your chest muscles, but it teaches you balance, develops other muscles in the body that reside in your arms, core and legs and it also helps to increase cardio endurance. If a man can.., then we can too ladies. Let’s get this party started right!

Train to Perform A Push Up

Here is my advice as to how you can train yourself to do pushups. The work is simple, hard in the beginning and if you train yourself to do these things on a consistent basis you will be able to perform push ups sooner than later.

Chest Exercises
- Do chest presses. You can do these with a barbell or dumbells lying on your back. What this exercise does is strengthens the muscles in your chest, shoulders and biceps. You can do this exercise on an incline to reach the upper chest muscles or on a decline to reach the lower chest muscles.

- Do planks. Planks can be done with your own body weight. What this exercise does it strengthen your core muscles. The stronger your core muscles are the better your balance becomes, the stronger your abs become and the stronger all of the inner most muscles in your mid section become. You can do all variations of planks like a full plank, a standard plank, reverse plank, side plank or for extra ab work you can do a standard plank with alternating your legs up into a crunch and they are all just as effective for building up your core muscles. Here is an example of what I’m talking about.

A Plank Modification…
You can also modify your plank if you cannot hold your body up with your hands or arms and feet. Get into plank position, but place your knees on the floor, cross your legs. Your feet should be elevated. You can use this position to do all types of planks until you can do a full plank.

Push Up Modifications to Build Chest Muscles and Strength

LEVEL 1 – Do Wall Push Ups. Stand about arms length away from the wall. Make sure that both of your palms are flat on the wall and that they are positioned wider than shoulder length (but not too wide). Stand up with good posture. Start lowering your chest down all the way until the front of your head touches the wall and then come back up in your starting stance.

LEVEL 2 – Do “Off the Couch” Push Ups. Stand on an angle, with your palms flat on the arm of your couch, your body should be on a 45 degree angle and arms should be somewhat wider than your shoulder length (but not too wide or you’ll be performing Off the Couch Wide Push Ups). Lower your chest all the way down, until your chest slightly brushes the arm of your couch and come back up into your starting stance.

LEVEL 3 – Do “Table Top” Push Ups. Get down on the floor with palms down wider than shoulder length apart. Your back should be flat. Lower yourself down, shifting your weight forward, until your head slightly brushes the floor and come back up, pushing your weight back up into your starting stance.

LEVEL 4 – Do Modified or Girly Push Ups. Get down on all fours with head straight looking down at the floor. Your back should be on a 45 degree angle. Arms should be wider than shoulder length, but not too wide. Lower your body down, shifting your body weight with it to about a couple of inches away from the floor and lift your body back up into that 45 degree stance.

LEVEL 5 – Do a Push Up! Get into a full plank position, back should be straight and aligned, the buttocks should be even with the back. Arms should be somewhat wider than your shoulder length. Push down until your elbows are even with your head and push back up. Continue to failure.

Weighted Push Ups to Increase Intesity & Weight Load

As if holding up your own body weight was not enough already! For added weight you can wear wrist and ankle weights or a weighted jacket or you can use your own weight to make it seem like your pushing more weight by traveling down 3 seconds and back up 3 seconds. Tough!

You can also challenge yourself and peform decline push ups (push ups with feet elevated off of an 8 inch or lower step) or perform incline push ups (push up with your upper body elevated off of an 8 inch step with your palms flat on the step). Decline push ups will shift your weight up putting more pressure on your upper chest and arms and incline push ups will shift your weight back putting more emphasis on your lower chest.

You can increase your intensity (make it feel like you’re actually pushing more weight) by widening up your arm position and performing wide grip push ups. Wide grip push ups hits your chest, arm and back muscles spot on. Last but not least, you can Arnold up and perform a one-arm push up which will help to strengthen your arm, shoulder and one-half of your chest (on the working arm side).

Caution / Safety

Do not allow anyone to sit on your back while doing pushups because it can cause unnecessary, major injury if all goes wrong. Do not place children or babies on your back either (totally crazy, but I’ve heard people doing this) because children and babies can fall off your back and injure themselves. Not good.

Thank You For Reading!

I hope this helps someone as this question comes up all the time on SparkPeople team chat and on many different fitness website communities all over the web. Always strive to do at least one standard push up at each working where you’re working chest to see how you’re progressing as time goes by. Start out slow, take the time to build your strength, train like a bodybuilder and you’ll be able to do push ups in no time!

Take care!