The "Push" Exercise Series
Whenever I head to the gym I always see a lot of teenagers that are just starting to work out and a lot of them come to me for advice. The most common thing I hear is "Dude, how do i get huge biceps?" Lets clear some things up before i get to some beginning exercises. Your biceps are only HALF of your arm, a lot of people overlook the bottom half, the triceps, which are just as important to work.
A good Upper Body exercise is one that actually works the whole upper body. The granddaddy of them all is the good old push up. I believe they are one of the most underrated workouts there is. That's only because they tend to be used in the wrong or inefficient ways, luckily I know how to spice them up.
During my wrestling season one of our warm ups were a customized version of the traditional suicide where you would run up and down the the court touching the basketball lines. For our version of the suicide we would run the same thing except we would have to stop at each line and do 10 push ups. That would end up being 70 push ups per suicide and our usual warm up was 3 suicides before practice and then 3 after. During wrestling practice, if anyone messed up on a move, coach made them do 50 push ups on the spot and if we couldn't do 50 we would have too hold the push up up position for 30 seconds. His motto was "If you won't learn the move right at least you'll get stronger" After practice if coach didn't beat me up me it was the push ups that did. By the end of the season I could do nearly 50-70 pushups easily and felt a lot stronger. Here's lesson number one: More reptition = More strength = More muscle development. Here's all the pros about the push up:
1. It works your core, triceps, and chest all at once.
2. There are dozens of variations, making sure you never get tired of it.
3. Pushups are indeed the best method to build muscle. Pushups are doubly effective because they help to burn body fat and build muscle
4. Results are quick.
5. Can be done anywhere
You got to be mentally tough for doing pushups. If you want to build muscle mass, toughen up your mind first. Pushups cause pain in the muscles, and unless your are not mentally prepared you would want to quit.
These exercises work the upper body pressing muscles - triceps, pectorals, anterior deltoids. For these few exercises you will be required to hold some to all of your body weight on your hands. You can do them on your fists to strengthen the wrists or to condition your knuckles; you can do them on all 10 of your fingertips, or on as few fingertips as your strength will allow. This is a great way of building strength in the hands. The further apart your hands are, the more the pectorals are worked, whereas having your hands close together shifts the focus to the triceps.
Push-ups Try them with only one leg on the ground to work the stabilizer muscles more. Try them with only one arm. Elevating the feet will make them harder; elevating the hands will make them easier. (This applies to all variations.) For beginners do them on your knees. an intermediate maxes out at about 30. An advanced and strong athlete can do at least 50. Placing your hands wide grip will work your chest more while close grip works your triceps.
Push ups require strength endurance in the chest, front portion of the shoulders and triceps not to mention strong abs and lower back held isometrically while performing the exercise with proper form. To figure out what is your problem pay close attention to where you fatigue on a set to failure meaning, do as many repetitions as you possibly can. If you start to sag or collapse in the middle, then your core (abs/back) needs work; if you can’t push up from the floor, your chest is weak; and if you can’t lock out at the top of the movement, your triceps are the limiting factor.
Elevated push-up. Put your feet on a chair or anything that is elevated. Perform push-ups so your head dips down at the bottom of the movement. This allows for a full range of motion, which makes the exercise more difficult rep-for-rep. For intermediates and higher.
Dips. This is by far my most favorite tricep exercise because of it's effectiveness. If you're going to do these at home, find to things that are close in height. Hold yourself up wioth one hand on each object and slowly lower yourself down with your arm until you feel your triceps being worked and then push yourself back up. If it's too easy hold a weight in between your legs to lift more than your body weight.
Handstand Push up This can be done against a wall or in the free for more advanced people. From a handstand, bend your arms until your head touches the ground, and then straighten them again. You can work up to this by lowering yourself down without pushing back u or by bending your arms as far as you can and pushing back up, and gradually increasing the depth of the push-up. When you can do a full, head-to-ground handstand push-up the next step is to elevate your hands on chairs or whatever so that you can dip your head down between them. The next progression is the one-arm handstand push-up.
These are just a few of the tricep exercises I have planned to show you. In the mean time I'll be making a video compiling ALL of the tricep exercises for your ease and for better understanding.
Now here's what I want you to do from now on. I call this workout the pyramid of failure, because in the end you're going have to fail to finish. NOTE: YOU WILL VERY SORE IN THE MORNING! Find your max number of pusups you can do. If you can't do any do as many as you can on your knees. Everyone has to start somewhere. Taking your max, complete one set, rest 30 seconds and do one less than the lest. For example, if your max is 30, then do 30 pushups, rest 30 seconds, then do 29, rest, do 28, rest and so on until you reach 0. This is very tough, but what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Do this once each day, i recommend before dinner. In no time I guarantee you will be stronger.
On an ending note I will be getting to other body area exercises and then nutrition very soon. Thanks for reading! Get Fit. Get Strong!
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