Techniques, Benefits, Variations of push-ups

Published: December 18, 2021

The push-ups – the best bodyweight exercise for muscle building known to man. If you are not doing push-ups, you better add them to your next workout session. Push-ups are beneficial for beginners as well as advanced athletes, of course, if proper techniques are applied.  And with a practically endless number of variations, you can target different muscle groups and keep your workouts interesting and challenging all the time. You do not need any equipment and you can do them virtually everywhere. Dubai PT will show you techniques, benefits, variations of push-ups that you can use as a part of your daily routine or as a part of an advanced workout program. Let’s take a look.

Anyone can benefit from push-ups

If you have never workout before and you are looking for a perfect exercise to start with, no matter who you ask, you would probably always get the same answer – for a healthy lifestyle the push-up is the best exercise. However, even though it is a perfect beginner’s exercise that doesn’t mean that advanced athletes cannot benefit from push-ups. So, no matter whether you are a beginner, maybe doing a street workout, or going to the gym, push-ups should be on your menu. And it is the endless number of variations that give this exercise advantage over all others.

Push-ups are a full-body exercise

Even though push-ups are predominantly a chest exercise, you will hit other body parts as well. For example, push-ups are considered one of the best arm workouts for women, however, you will also train your shoulders, core, back, even legs. Now, depending on the sets and variations of the exercise you practice, you can work on your strength or endurance.  Of course, to benefit from these variations, you need to know proper techniques. So we will start with that.

How to properly do a classic push-up

Before we start explaining the proper technique for doing push-ups, it is important to understand that this technique should be applied to all variations. The push-up is a whole-body exercise, which means that your entire body will be involved.

• Lay on the ground.
• Put your palms on the ground slightly wider than your shoulders with elbows more towards your body.
• Extend your legs keeping them hip apart and lean on your toes.
• Keep your head facing the floor.
• Strengthen your core and your glutes, and push.
• Inhale while you are lowering down, exhale while you are pushing.
• Maintain full range of motion –lower until the chest reaches the ground and push until you feel your shoulder blades separating.

The most important part is to keep your entire body contracted so you do not injure yourself. Of course, when it comes to proper techniques for doing push-ups, there are many schools and teachings on how you should do it. And yes, there are many different variations regarding elbow positions, whether you should lock your elbows while going up, whether you should perform a full range of motion, where should your fingers point, and such. So if you want you are free to try out different techniques and find the one that fits your body the best.

What to do if you can’t do a single push-up?

We already explained how to do a classic push-up. And that is the first and most important version of this exercise that you should master. However, depending on your condition you might find it difficult to even one classic push-up. Luckily, there are easier variations that almost anyone can do. They will be enough to get you going and after just a few days of practice, you will, most certainly, be ready to do your first classic push-up.

Of course, the easiest variation is something we sometimes see people call a women’s push-up. It is essentially the same thing as a classic version only, instead of performing it on your toes, you will be performing it on your knees. You will find this variation of push-up much easier than the standard one. However, it is still challenging enough to start gaining muscle. Keep in mind, though, that this variation mostly targets the lower part of your chest as well as triceps.

Do incline push-ups to hit the lower part of your chest

An incline push-up is one of the easiest push-up variations mostly intended for hitting the lower chest. It is similar to the bent-knee push-up, with slightly more intensity on the core. Instead of laying completely on the ground, put your hands on a bench. The higher the bench, the easier the exercise gets. If you want to make it very easy, you can even push against the wall. Even though this is an easier version than the classic push-up, though, do not be fooled. If you do it with enough intensity and with a higher number of reps, you can hit your lower chest better than with a classic bench press workout.

Try decline push-ups if you want to target the upper part of your chest

There is a push-up variation for hitting every part of your chest. Hitting the lower chest is easy. Hitting the upper chest, on the other hand, will require more effort. More precisely, you will have to be in good shape if you want to perform decline push-ups properly. In this variation, you are climbing your feet on the bench and putting your hands on the ground.  For this, you will need good core stability or you can easily hurt your lower back. So make sure that you can do at least 10 classic push-ups before you move on to this variation.

Try other variations of push-ups

As we already mentioned there are an endless number of push-up variations. However, the classic, incline, and decline push-ups are essential and can get you very far. After you master those three and you get into serious shape, you can start experimenting with other alternatives. What you can do to mix these three up a bit is to change the position of your hands.

Doing push-ups with hands wider than your shoulders will hit the outer parts of your chest more. A diamond push-up, where your palms are touching each other under your chest will hit the middle of your chest, helping you gain that separation line that we are all looking for. Moreover, diamond push-ups will especially target your triceps as well. Try it out.

Try doing classic push-ups with hands wider than your shoulders or an incline with a diamond variation. If everything is too easy, get a resistance band and make them more challenging. You have plenty of options to try out before you move on to more complex and demanding variations.

There are many techniques, benefits, variations of push-ups to challenge yourself for the rest of your life

As you can see, there are many techniques, benefits, variations of push-ups that can keep you occupied for the years to come. No matter what your level of fitness is, you can always find a variation of push-ups that will provide you with enough challenge.