How to do push-ups aka press-ups, muscles worked and what benefits will you gain from it? Push-ups is a fantastic exercise that just requires your own body weight.
Push-Ups Benefits & Muscles Worked
Push-ups are excellent for working, developing and strengthening your chest, arms and shoulders, it can be used to build muscle, and also to tone up your body by burning off body fat.
Push-ups are so simple and effective, they’re easy to perform, it’s one of the first exercises that I tried, and I still perform them on a regular basis. They can be performed almost anywhere and they’re one of the best exercises for developing your chest muscles (pectorals) shoulders (deltoids) and triceps.
Push-ups Variations
Different hand placements
Normal – Hands just wider than shoulder width, good focus on the chest, triceps and shoulders.
Wide – More focus on the chest and more difficult to perform.
Narrow – More focus on the triceps and also more difficult to perform than the normal hand placement.
Other Exercise Variations
Knuckles – Allows for better technique, allows you to lower yourself down slightly further than just performing them on the palms of your hands.
Single arm – If normal press ups are too easy for you, you may want to try doing them using only one arm, however these are very difficult to perform, only using one arm requires a lot of strength and balance.
Knee press ups – If normal press ups are too difficult you can perform them on your knees, less of your body weight is used so they’re easier to perform (great for beginners).
How to do Press-Ups
- Palms or knuckles on the ground with your hand placement just wider than shoulder width.
- Keep your body and legs straight and slowly lower yourself until your chest in nearly touching the ground.
- Slowly push yourself back up until your arms are straight or nearly straight, keeping your arms slightly bent will keep more tension on your muscles.
Knee Push-Ups
Technique
- Get on your palms and knees, knees bent at 90 degrees and supporting your lower body weight, thighs vertical and arms straight.
- Now lower yourself until your chest is nearly touching the ground and then push yourself back up.
- To increase your body weight resistance you can lean forward on your arms.
