Best Push-Up Exercises!
Today, I am discussing the best push-up exercises! With COVID-19 quarantine going on, push-ups are a staple in many people’s routines!
Of course, the standard push up is a bread and butter exercise and is likely one that many people will want to use as a main upper body push exercise!
However, there are many beneficial variations of the classic push up to help tailor the exercise to a variety of specifics for the individual. These variations may make an exercise more challenging mechanically, or even put more emphasis on a particular muscle group if the individual wants to bring that area up.
So… enough yimmer yammer… let’s get to the info!
Mechanically Difficult Variations:
First, let’s start with push-up variations that will make an exercise more challenging to perform than standard variations. This is beneficial for individuals who need a little extra difficulty to get close to failure to achieve a stimulus for maintaining or growing muscle.
Decline Push-Up:
One of my favorite variations is the classic incline push-up. This is where you raise your feet on some sort of surface, which creates an incline angle for your upper body to overcome. This angle makes it more difficult to perform.
This exercise will also place a greater emphasis on the shoulders since it is performed more vertically than a flat push-up, thus putting the chest and triceps in a less helpful position to contribute.
Tutorial From Athlean-X (Watch The Whole Video as it Explains Another Variation Shown Later):
Archer Push-Up:
Another awesome push-up variation is the archer push-up. This exercise places more of your body weight on one arm, thus making it work harder and providing more of a stimulus for the muscles. This can help to keep rep ranges reasonable and apply a somewhat heavy stimulus for the pushing muscles involved in this exercise.
Tutorial From Athlean-X (Skip to 3:08 for Specific Variation):
Muscle Group Emphasis:
If you are looking to focus on a specific muscle group such as the chest, shoulders or triceps when performing the push-up, different variations will help with that. Of course, all muscle groups will be worked, however, you can put more of an emphasis on one.
Close-Grip Push-Up:
Ah yes, the classic variation. This is very well known for putting the emphasis on the triceps. How does it do this? Well, the closer grip takes the shoulders out of the equation more, thus putting more of a demand on the triceps to control the movement.
This exercise also gives the triceps more range of motion, thus giving them more tension and stimulus for muscle growth.
Be careful about how close you put your hands and how much you rotate them. You do NOT want forearm or shoulder pain with this exercise… or any exercise for that matter! Tailor these aspects to you.
Tutorial From Jordan Syatt:
Incline Push-Up:
If you want to focus on your lower chest, and get a great overall mind-muscle connection with your chest, focussing on the lower portion of your chest might make a lot of sense!
The exercise for this is an incline push-up. Basically, you’ll place your hands on an elevated surface and perform a push-up. Not a surface like a wall, but something that would create roughly a 45-degree angle between your hands and the edge of the surface that you are pushing against. Think of placing your hands on a bed. But… hard surfaces are preferred since they will transfer the force you are putting out better.
This variation demonstration is included in the first video explaining the decline push-up
That’s All!
Well, everyone, those are some ideas that you can use to tailor push-ups to yourself and your needs! Got questions or looking for other variations? Let me know in the comment section where I will be sure to respond!
Take care, everyone!
Here are some other articles that may be beneficial for your knowledge!
How to Create a Workout Schedule!
Until Next Time,
Kohl Johnson
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