In this series of articles, I will focus on type of training necessary for the army test, world wide there are three important meausures for army physical fitness test (APFT), Push-ips, sits-ups and timed run. The test is designed to measure flexibility, muscular endurance and aerobic capacity.

Whether you planning on joining the army, or looking for promotion, it depends very much on how well you do in these tests.
The test requirments also depends on age, and they are not impossible, you dont need to be a sport world champion to pass, no matter what age your are and current fitness level, with the right training program and commitment, you can always improve and pass.

In this part we will focus on push-ups.
Everyone is familiar with push-ups, its a basic movment we learn as kids in school, a good one for building strength and endurance especially for the upper body.
while many people do push ups, its rarely done in the right way, so the first thing we need to learn is the proper form of doing push-ups, once its done, you can build up the number of push-ups needed.

Basic Push ups

As the name suggests, this is the very basic form of push ups. If you still are having hard time performing basic push ups, then you have to start with bent knees push up for awhile till you have enough strength to do this.

How to properly perform push-ups:

• Place your hands on the ground at shoulder level slightly wider than your shoulders, feet close together and parallel to each other. Keep your legs straight and your toes tucked under your feet. Make sure your body has proper alignment.
• Head looking forwards and chest very close to the floor, now exhale and push your body up extending your arms and contracting your muscles in a steady motion.
• Pause for a moment and inhale while lowering your body to the floor, bending your elbows and going down in a steady controlled motion.
• Repeat

You would probably be asked to do somewhere between 20-50 push-ups for the test, and the more you do, the better ranking you you get.
 

How to improve your push-ups?

You probably have heard or done the 5-10 push-ups during the day, or doing sets of 10-20 as a workout, with rest between them, while it may be a good start, it wont actually helps much in improving the total amount of push ups you do.
remember if you do what you always did, expect what you always got, so doing 10 set of push-ups with 10 each, everyday, wont go along way in improving your push-ups, doing failure sets would help though, as each time you reach failure and push your body more, the body try to adopt to the new force, strengthing the muscle fibers and endurance.

Of course many ways can be done, but looking at it from science point of view, will make be the best.

Lets take alook at muscles targeted with basic push-ups exercise:
Primary Pectorals Major (chest)
shoulders
triceps
Abdominals and supporting muscle group (body core)
Back muscles - as an anti agonist and stability muscles

Strengthing each muscles, will result in better outcome on the number of push-ups, strengthing these muscle can be done individually using resistance training exercises as we will discuss next.

Pectorals Major (chest):
best exercises choices should be put in training program:
Bar bench press (variation: incline, flat and decline)
Dumbbells Press (variation: incline, flat and decline)
Machine press
Dips

shoulders:
Bar Army press
Dumbbell press
machine press

Triceps:
Cable press down
close grip bar press
overhead dumbbells

Abdominals
sit-ups
leg raises
medicine ball crunshes
side crunches

Back
chin ups
lat pulldown
bar or dumbbells rows
machine rows
hyper extension
deadlift

these are the best exercises, a good way is to choose an exercise from each muscle group each time, and end up with 5 basic exercises, you just created a small program, if you do it daily, then choose other exerices the target muscles differently, if you choose flat bench press today, choose incline or decline tomorrow, and make sure you dont train more than 5 times a week with this, while changing exercises, this stimulates the muscles in a good way and gives time for recovery.

the reptition will also be different than normal bodybuilding exerices, for bodybuilding its is usually 6-12, being the best range for Muscular Hypertrophy, but with push up we arent looking for hypertrophy, we need to build anaerobic and areboic strength & Endurance, which make the optimal range of reps 15-20, for 3-4 sets.

Push-ups for more push-ups

the resistance exercises and program we mentioned will help along way in improving your push-ups in the long run, but what best to improve your push-ups than push-ups itself!

using push-ups to improve your push-ups is the best way, it can even be done alone with great benifits, but combined with resistance training will give better results.

a simple way is simple going to failure with push-ups, then rest for 2-3 min and do another set to failure and keep repeating for a total of 3-5 sets, this will work well, going into failure itself will stimulate strength.

another good method is using depletion push-ups, its works as follows:
first set timed 1 min, do as much as you can within this 1 min. rest for 1-1.5 min and do anther set with 45sec, rest again and do another set of 30sec.
finishing these 3 sets, take a rest of 5 min and do another 3 sets.

These two ways of push-ups can be used by themselves, or as part with resistance training mentioned earlier.

Push-ups variation:
there are many push-ups variation that can increase intensity and focus and target different muscles groups, combining these push-ups with your workouts, can result even in a greater results.

Incline push ups

This variation focuses on training your lower pecs, begin with the standard push up position with a platform or stepping box directly in front of you and perform the push ups .The only difference here is that your hands will be on a higher platform than your body , everything else remain the same as  basic push ups.
This is a pretty easy push up since placing your body in a semi vertical position will make you lighter to push , if you want  to increase the resistance you can wear a backpack filled with weight as you can handle .

Decline push ups

This variation is harder than basic and incline push ups, its performed as the basic push ups except your feet with be on a higher platform, like a bench or stepper, you need to make sure your back is straight during the movement, as it may have the tendency to arch, so make sure its straight all the time, abs tight as well.
This can be done with feet on an unstable thing like training balls to put a great stress on your stabilizing muscles.

Wide grip push ups

This variation is performed exactly like the basic push up, except arms are position wider than shoulders width, just like bench press, this takes lots of loads off the triceps and put more load on the chest muscles bringing on the outer Pecs, it’s a little harder than normal push ups and may put some pressures on the shoulders and elbow joints, so you need to be careful doing it.

Deep push ups

Same as the basic push ups, except you place two platform a little higher than the floor , and place your hands on them and  perform the push ups , adding the platform will give you a bigger range of motion and you can go deeper than normal push ups .

Close grip push ups

This performed similar to basic push up, except hands are positioned close together under the middle chest, just like close grip bench press, this takes lots of loads from the chest and put more load on the triceps. Also while lowering yourself close to the floor you have to keep your elbows close to your sides, to focus more on the triceps.

Ball Push Ups

Same as the basic push up, except you balance your hands on a ball (ex. basketball ) and perform push ups. This works stabilizer muscles, and is a bit advanced; most people will have a hard time doing them.

This pictures shows how various grips width affect different muscles.

 
Warm up and stretching

These are two very important parts of any training session, warming up gets the blood flowing and heart beat higher so your body is prepared for the workout, it should be done as a whole body warm up, like biking, running, rope jumping. Any activity that would make your heart rate elevated.
Another warm up needed for the muscles targeted for in the training , for push ups its mostly the chest, shoulder and triceps, you can warm them up by down light movement or the body part, an example would be doing some bent knee push up before moving to harder ones.

As for stretching, it adds plenty of benefits to your workout, improved flexibility, more range of motion, and it prevents injuries.
Stretching the chest would be most beneficial, the easiest chest stretching and most simple one is stretching your body against the wall, just step further from a wall, extending your arm on its edge and make it parallel to the ground, twist into and stretch, you will feel the tension on your chest, do it for 10 breathes, and then do the other side.

Important notes:

• Always warm up before starting your exercise.
• Make sure you move gradually between push ups exercises from the easiest to the hardest one, once you master one move to another or add variation to make it harder . Don’t jump start to hard ones, it will only increase you chance for injuries.
• In all kinds of push ups be sure to have proper body alignment: a straight back, with ears, shoulders and hips in a straight line. Hold abdominal muscles in tightly.
• One of the most common mistakes is having your buttocks sticking out; make sure that your body is straight.
• Breathing is very important here, exhale ( breathe out ) as you push your body off the ground ( positive part ) and inhale  ( breath in ) as you bend your elbows and lower your body to the floor level ( negative ) part .
• On the top of the movement, do not lock your elbows, by time it will cause problem in your joints.
• Avoid overtraining, your muscles will need recovery, recovery will depends on many factors such as nutrition, rest and individual response.

In this part we focused mostly in push-ups, you can build up your specific program with this info, and start improving your maximum number of push-ups, it doesnt happen over night, but with commitiment and strong well, you will get to your goal.

Next part will focus on timed running for the military tests.

Shady Eid is a certified personal trainer, writer and competitive bodybuilder based in UAE. For questions and comments you can contact him at: Shady@arabianmuscles.com