Master The Pushup To Change Your Life!

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Are you trying to up your health and fitness game? Check out the humble pushup. I know it might seem a little daunting to add them into your daily routine, but trust me, with diligent practice, you can completely transform your upper body.

For die hard gym attendees, the push-up gets a bad rap. Many think it's a lame exercise; something you only do when there's no other options (like being stuck in a hotel room). Personally, I think people avoid it because it's tough and uncomfortable to perform. In truth, it works wonders for building lean muscle in your chest, arms, and shoulders. Plus, it'll really boost your upper body strength in a dramatic way.

The idea behind progressive pushups is basically playing around with body placement and where and how you put your hands. If you want to take it easy, you can start by doing them standing against a wall, then try them on your knees or against a raised surface. But if you’re up for a challenge, you can make them tougher by putting more weight on one arm or raising your feet up.

So basically, push-ups are a great way to challenge yourself no matter what kind of shape you're in. And the cool thing is, you can keep getting stronger by moving on to more challenging variations. Here’s a beginner pushup progressions video:

These simple versions will provide a dynamite full-body workout all by themselves, while building the foundation of strength required for the more advanced variations.

After a while you get so strong that doing the same old push-ups day in and day out can feel a little vanilla, so you have to shake things up. Variety can supercharge a workout and throw a whole range of new muscles into the mix, and there’s so many variations it’s crazy to think you’ll ever get used to them.

Is The Pushup Comparable To The Bench Press?

Some weightlifters say the bench press is the ultimate exercise. But while they lift an impressive amount of weight, this may not be suitable for everyone. As you age, your shoulders start to protest because you never exercise them in different directions. It’s important to remember that overdoing this exercise is possible, as many individuals over 50 can attest to.

On the other hand, push-ups are also a great way to get strong. No doubt, they're tough. They may not give you the same gains as bench pressing, but maybe that's not what you're after. All you want are some serious results, right?

Our body has this fantastic ability to handle stress. And it's not like you have to do a certain workout to look a certain way. Your ability to change your body isn't about the ride you choose, but more about the attitude you bring to that ride. How you perform the exercise, the strictness in your form, the effort you put in, the intensity you bring, your ability to handle stress, and so on. You get the picture!

So yes, push-ups work. They’ve worked for me, they’ve worked for other people, and they will work for you, as long as you keep making progress towards more difficult variants.

Owen Ezell on Medium talks about this. He says that most resources estimate that roughly 70% of the body’s weight is moved through the hands and arms during a push-up. That means a 180-pound person is pushing around 125 pounds as they do the exercise. Now, serious lifters may laugh at that amount of weight, but you have to remember that there are tons of different push-ups out there. I can guarantee you that even a weightlifter who can bench press 400 pounds would have trouble with most of these variations. I've challenged a few to try and they all politely declined.

And of course, there are always ways to increase the load even more through countless variations. Check out this video below:

Here’s a readable version of 82 more variations at Greatist.com,

If you’re like many people, you don’t go to a gym and that’s alright. But you can pop out pushups at any time and place because they require no equipment; only about six feet of floor space to get a killer upper body workout.

So, if you really put in the work and consistently practice these exercises, they will make a huge difference in your body. You'll develop lean muscle, get toned, build stronger bones, and gain foundational upper body strength that you can use in all areas of your life. Plus, your cardiovascular health will improve - and don't underestimate that! Working with your own body weight is tough, because it takes a lot of effort and you consume a lot of oxygen. But the results are worth it.

A Fountain of Youthfulness?

Exercise, specifically resistance exercise, can be like a natural, healthy medicine. It's been shown to make changes in your genes that result in health benefits and prevent chronic diseases.

Credit: BMC Genomics

Significantly, this change in gene expression allows the older body to effectively act like a younger body. This Journal study says that before exercise training, older adults were 59 percent weaker than younger people, but after six months their strength improved to only being 38 percent lower than young adults. In effect, healthy older adults showing evidence of prior mitochondrial impairment and muscle weakness can significantly repair this issue after only six months of resistance exercise training. This shows that genes that were functioning poorly at an elderly level could be returned to a normal level of functioning.

While I’m only speaking of pushups in this article, the evidence applies to all exercise. Yet pushups are easy to learn and to reap the benefits from, to maintain or even improve, your health. Give them a try, I think you’ll be pleased with the results.