With push alone you can build impressive body, especially upper body, it is also very convenient for everyone as it can be done anywhere without any cost, you can do it in your home, your office, even on the side walk.
It won’t make you the next Arnold or Monica Brant, but you can still have impressive body with it, it great exercise for strength, toning up and some muscles gain as well.

Push up can be done for all levels, with its many variations, it offers great benefits to all, whether you are just starting exercise to improve your body, or you are pretty advanced and want to improve you bench press, push up will help all.

In this article I will explain the proper way to do push ups, different variations and their effects, and the most common mistakes doing them.
I will start from the easiest form of push and moving to the harder ones:

Bent Knees Push ups

This kind of push up is suitable for females and beginners who just started and can’t do normal basic push ups yet, it’s also pretty good for females. You can start by doing them regularly till you are strong enough to move up to next level push ups.

Muscles targeted:
Primary Pectorals Major (chest), shoulders and triceps, Abdominals and supporting muscle group

How to perform:

1- Lie with your stomach flat on the floor as showing in picture A, bend your knees bringing your heels towards your buttocks to form a 45 degree angle.
2- Exhale as you push your body up by extending your elbows, do not lock your elbows totally, keep them semi locked.
Now you should be feeling the contraction your chest, shoulders and triceps muscles, abs and back should be contracted to make sure your body has proper alignment.
3- Inhale while lowering your body to the floor, bending your elbows and going down in a steady controlled motion.
4-Repeat

Basic Push ups

As the name suggests, this is the very basic form of push ups, you have to fully master this before you can start doing other variations.
If you still are having hard time performing basic push ups, then you have to go back to bent knees push up for sometime till you have enough strength to do this.

Muscle targeted:
Primary Pectorals Major (chest), shoulders and triceps, Abdominals and supporting muscle group.

How to perform:
1 - 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.
2- 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.
3- Pause for a moment and inhale while lowering your body to the floor, bending your elbows and going down in a steady controlled motion.
4- Repeat

Now after mastering the basic push up, let’s check the variations that can be added on it.

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 arms 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. 

One arm push ups

This is a very high level kind of push ups, it puts all the stress on one side making it so difficult to push up, and this requires lots of strength.
The starting position is similar to the basic push up, but with one hands on the side of the body and the other resting on your lower back, in this exercise feet can also be wide apart on the ground for a better balance. And performance should be done in a slow controlled movement.

 
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 or even crazy dancing. 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.

Taking advantage of push up can be as simple as doing some sets in a break, or it can consist a complicated schedule involving the variation of push up to hit different muscle group differently.
So start pushing up for a great body.

Shady Eid

Shady Eid is a certified personal trainer, writer and competitive bodybuilder based in UAE.
For questions and comments you can contact him at: Shady4pt@yahoo.com