How To Upgrade Your Pushups

Push ups are boring, right? No way. In fact, once you build some strength and develop a strong foundation to work with, push ups can be all kinds of fun. Not only can you get creative with your form and your movement, but with subtle tweaks you can target muscle groups that a traditional push up couldn’t touch. Knuckle push ups, Spiderman push ups, tiger push ups and tons more can provide you with a workout unlike any push up you’ve ever done without needing any additional equipment.

Are you ready to power up your push ups? Read on and learn how to build that solid foundation, master the basic push up and, from there, try your hand at the more advanced moves.

Start Small

There’s some stigma surrounding the dreaded “girl push up.” You know the one. It’s exactly like a regular push up, but your knees are on the floor. Let’s get one thing straight right off the bat: it’s not a push up for girls. It’s a push up for people who need to build strength. When you’re just starting out with push ups, it’s better to do modified exercises that are going to increase your arm, shoulder and core strength than it is to do three basic push ups and crap out.

When you’re building push up prowess, start small – even smaller than a push up on your knees if you have to. LiveStrong suggests starting with wall push ups, moving on to inclined push ups and then the popular knee push ups. Once those feel like a piece of cake to you, move on to the standard, tried and true push up.

Master The Basics

If you want to upgrade your push ups, you need to have a strong foundation – literally and figuratively. Walk before you run. A solid, perfect push up can work your core, your legs, your butt, your arms – pretty much everything, according to LiveStrong. It’s worth taking the time to get it right. Here’s exactly how to perfect your form so you can have a solid base to work with.

Start from the ground up. Muscle & Fitness says to start out by laying facedown on the floor with your hands, palms down, in line with the center of your chest, just wider than your shoulders. Keep your fingers forward and use their pressure to grip the ground. From there you can raise yourself up into a pushup position, making sure that your hips aren’t sagging.

While you lower yourself to the floor, make sure your elbows are bent back at a 45 degree angle from your torso. As you push yourself back up, keep your core engaged, fire up your glutes and don’t let your midsection sag.

Target Other Muscles

One way to upgrade your push ups, once you’ve built a solid foundation of strength and mastered the basics, is to start using the movement to target specific muscle groups. By making subtle shifts in your arm placement, your incline or your range of motion, you can target individual muscle groups that a traditional push up would not.

According to Men’s Fitness, there are loads of variations that will help you target specific muscle groups left behind by regular old push ups. Wide grip push ups will help you engage your shoulders more. Push ups with a closer grip will fire up your triceps. Lift one leg off the ground to engage your core more. Put yourself on an incline to work more of your lower chest and triceps. A decline will engage your upper chest and shoulders. Jillian Michaels says that to target your biceps with a push up, try an “inside push up,” with your hands no more than three inches apart.

Get Creative

Now that you’ve got your base and you know a few variations that will target different muscle groups, you can finally start having fun with your push ups. Yes. Push ups can be fun and creative. Use what you know and the upper body strength you’ve already built to get a little crazy.

Start with the knuckle push up so often seen in martial arts movies and work your push ups on fists. According to Greatist, this can help you strengthen your wrists, toughen up your knuckles and improve your balance. We’re not saying it’ll make you look like Chuck Norris, but it might make you look like Chuck Norris. If tough-as-nails knuckles aren’t your thing, try a Spiderman push up. As you lower yourself toward the floor, bring one knee up the side of your body. Keep working with your same knee forward, switching after a few reps, or go back and forth between sides each time you lower yourself. This push up will squeeze your obliques and improve much needed web-slingin’ balance.

Not crazy enough for you? Get crazy like a tiger. According to Greatist, a tiger push up is going to work your triceps – hard. “At the bottom of the push up, flatten the forearms to the ground while raising the butt into the air and pulling the body slightly backwards. This should look a little like a tiger ready to pounce. Reverse the movement and push up.”

If you’re a serious push up devotee with outstanding core strength, give a handstand push up a shot. (It might be worth having a spotter around. It’s that serious.) BodyBuilding.com has a step-by-step guide to the craziest push up of your life. Start with your back to the wall and bend at the waist, putting both hands on the floor about shoulder-width distance apart. Kick your feet up the wall with your arms straight so your body it upside down and your arms are fully extended. Now for the hard part. Slowly lower yourself down until your head nearly touches the floor, then exhale as you push yourself back up until your arms are fully extended again. Take it slow to avoid taking a header into the floor.

For more push up inspiration, check out Performance Inspired Nutrition on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Mark Wahlberg’s arms in your Instagram feed are enough to motivate anyone to push harder.

Looking for Push Up Variations and Exercises check out 113 Killer Push Up Variations and Exercises by Man vs Weight.