It doesn't cease to amaze how many people are missing out on the wonderful benefits of push-ups.........If there was one type of calisthenics that could give you strength, flexibility and endurance plus not to mention an awesome physique it would be the push-up and its variations. Many physical culturists around the globe for the last thousand years made the push-up they're ideal training exercise.
Now a lot of people plus the "experts" say the push-up only works the triceps, shoulders, upper back and chest and if they want to be stronger they should do the bench press. Now if you really looked beyond then just running your mouth you would know that the push-up actually works more muscle groups then the bench press.
It takes good strength/endurance to work all those muscle groups at once. There are hundreds and hundreds of variations of push-ups and even the most basic ones can turn you into a beast of a man, for women your working the muscles you wanted toned. When you hear someone say "when you do 50 or more push-ups you're only building endurance not strength" well how many people can actually do 50 push-ups even better how many can do 50 push-ups using a different variation, like:
Handstand Push-ups
Planche Push-ups
One-Arm Push-ups
Fingertip Push-ups
Superman Push-ups (Arms Extended)
Now point someone to me who can do any one of these 50 times in one set full range......
Never fall for the "push-ups are ok but Bench will make you stronger." You can get strong on the bench no question but with a heavy price, the heavier you lift the more prone to injury then doing push-ups.......When you master the push-up and the way you are comfortable positioned you can have not only an awesome physique but the strength, flexibility and endurance to show it.
2 comments:
Good points, great post!
Let's just play devils advocate and say that it is true that the pushups only work the triceps, shoulders, chest and upper back. ONLY those. That's still a pretty damn good amount of work for one exercise.
It doesn't though. It does way more than that. I wrote about this not too long ago...
http://thebodyweightfiles.blogspot.com/2008/02/pushup-vs-bench-press.html
Keep pushing up dude!
Take care,
Justin
Great post! I am a big supporter of the humble push up. It works the core really well too, other than the muscles you mentioned, and for me, core exercises are very important.
Keep it up!
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