How to vary the push up routine

Push ups are a great work out that exercises your chest, shoulders, triceps, abdomen and lateral muscles (connecting to your back). They're also extremely easy to do and are a more than adequate alternative to bulky equipment or costly gym memberships. Still, they can be awfully boring if they're the only thing you do, and boredom is the death knell of a consistent exercise routine. As well, you might not be maximizing the workout potential by doing traditional push ups only. Get more from your push-up routine.

Difficulty:

Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need

• A stack of books or push-up handles

1. First, make sure your performing regular push ups correctly. This is the foundation for everything else that you do. Place your hands, palms down, just below your shoulders. You feet should be about should-width apart with your toes curled under pointing toward your hands. Many believe that your feet should be together, but this place additional emphasis on your shoulders and triceps, taking away from some of the chest workout. It can also cause your hips to sag or drop when keeping your body straight and flat is essential. You're head should be up, eyes forward, and you should drop down until your arms are bent at about 90 degrees.

2. Widen your hands a bit, moving them just outside of shoulder-width. This is a wide-arm stance. It requires more effort from the outside of the pectorals with less help from the triceps. This form compensates for wide-grip bench. It also helps to create that "v" shape that the chest can form.

3. Spread your legs out a bit to match your hands, and push your weight back behind your arms, forcing your hips into the air. This is an awkward start position for the "wrestler's push up." The form begins from this position before your chest scoops down and forward, making a sweeping motion across the floor. You'll then raise up once your chest is even with your hands as your body extends forward in a breach, of sorts. As your hips follow your chest, they will drop and glide across the floor, as well. This push-up form is more undulating, less rigid than the up-down form.

4. Try diamond push ups. Place your index fingers and thumbs together, making a diamond shape with your hands. You'll go up and down as you would with a traditional push up, but this concentrates much of the workout in your triceps.

5. Using two stacks of books, or push-up handles if you've purchased them, do raised push ups. Place your hands on the stack of books or the handles. Rather than stopping at 90 degrees, extend you motion down until your chest is even with the books or handles. You should only try this once you're comfortable with regular routine as this is much more strenuous. The higher you raise the stacks, the more difficult these become. This supplements the decline bench press, reaching the pectoralis minor, which is harder to exercise, residing underneath the pectoralis major--the primary chest muscle.

6. Elevate your feet 6 inches to a foot off the level ground (again, use a stack of books or a cinder block). This is the converse of the raised push ups. Your hands will remain on the floor, while your feet are raised. This supplements incline bench press. You'll notice the top of the pectorals, receiving the brunt of the exercise here, will be a good bit weaker than the center chest. If you've only done traditional push ups up to this point, you'll be surprised at how taxing these are.

7. Do resistance push ups or "negatives." If you've worked out with free weights, then you're probably familiar with these. Usually, it means a partner is applying resistance to light weight, against which you're having to push. This can be done with push ups on your own. Perform a slow, controlled push up, concentrating on form above all else. The down motion should occur during a five count or five seconds. The up motion should require a three to five count. The motion should be evenly distributed across the count, with the entire range being consistent. You don't want to go down slowly for the first three seconds and drop quickly on the last two. It's going to get harder at the bottom, but that's how it's supposed to be.

8. Incorporate a pyramid routine. With weights, this meanings decreasing repetitions as you increase weight on subsequent sets until you reach a peak, and then repeating the first half of the routine as you return to the starting weight. You can do this with push ups, as well, even though you aren't adding weight. Instead, you'll be increasing reps as you proceed rather than decreasing. Across multiple sets, it will look something like 20-25-30-35-40-35-30-25-20. If you're new to push ups or exercising, start out a bit smaller, like 5-10-15-20-15-10-5. Obviously, you can play around with this as appropriate for your strength and experience. Your rest between sets should match the number of reps you did for that set. So, for instance, if you did 20 reps, rest for 20 seconds. If you did 25, rest for 25 seconds. In the first example, you wouldn't rest for longer than 40 seconds. This is crucial to keeping a consistent workout.

9. Burnout. At the end of the pyramid in the gym, you usually complete the routine by throwing on lighter weight than your initial set and doing as many as you can until you have, well, burnt out. Do the same thing with push ups. Only for this, place your knees on the ground--again, about shoulder-width apart--and keep your back straight. Keeping your back and hips locked in a flat position is important, as your hips tend to sag or drop when you're in the position. From here, perform the regular push-up motion. Don't move to quickly or slowly. Just proceed at a consistent pace, concentrating on form. Naysayers don't like knee push ups. But if they have any energy left by the time they get to a burnout, then they haven't been working hard enough to begin with.

10. Mix and match steps 1 through 9 as you see fit. Typically, you will do either a pyramid or a sampling of a few different forms--not both. The pyramid should be performed, more times than not, with traditional push ups. Otherwise, do at least two sets of one push-up form before moving on to the next. So, do two sets each of the following: traditional, wide-arm, diamond, hand-raised and feet-raised.

Tips & Warnings

• Warm up before hand by stretching or even taking a light jog just around the block to get your heart pumping.

• If you do get tired in the middle of a set, don't stop. Drop to your knees and finish out the set. If you're in the middle of a full routine, then finish the routine on your knees if you must. It's important to complete a full exercise routine for consistency's sake. Make it your goal each time to do less and less on your knees until you've master, and then increase reps or sets.

• Keep the form. No matter what, stick to form. When your muscles tire, your midsection will want to drop toward the floor, and your head will look down, not up. This can cause a poor workout and potentially cause injury.

• Don't push too hard unless you're confident of your physical condition. Newcomers can tear muscles by doing more than they ought to.