I get a lot of fitness questions from people asking me what they can do to tone themselves up a bit and add some muscle. In most cases whether you’re a student or an adult with kids, time is always a factor that hinders you from getting in and out of the gym regularly. My answer to all those looking to get a good workout without having to leave your room: pushups.
Pushups are probably the best all around exercise you can do. They’re relatively simply and can be done anywhere in your home at anytime. The pushup most resembles the exercise of the bench press so it mainly targets the chest and the upper body, however, when you do pushups your also forced to stabilize yourself which in turn hits the core muscles as well, so it’s really an all-encompassing workout.
If you are really looking for a solid pushup routine but don’t know how many sets/reps to do heres the solution, in one sitting do as many pushups as you possibly can without compromising your form. Do them until you psychically cannot do another then take the final number of pushups and divide that number by 3, and do 3 or 4 sets of that number. So let’s say you maxed out at 60, you would want to do 3 or 4 sets of 20 pushups with about a minute or 30 seconds of rest in between.
When you do pushups your hands should be even with each other at about should width apart. Widening the position of your hands would target the chest more allowing your chest to look more full, while putting your hands closer together now focuses on the triceps and other arm muscles more. You should lower your body all the way down and elevate it all the way up at a steady 1-2 pace. While doing your pushups your neck and head should be up, and eyes looking straight ahead, this constricts the neck muscles and forces your back to stay straight, giving you perfect posture and in turn giving you a better workout. While your doing your workout don’t forget why, remind yourself that you’re doing it for you, to get healthier and build confidence.
Well now that we’ve discussed the magic of the pushup and how easy it is to do their are no excuses and no reasons to not push yourself to get in better shape. For all you fighting fans and other great articles on fitness and nutrition check out my boy Mike Caulo’s (twitter- @mikecaulo) site http://mikecaulo.com/blog/ and MSC-Fitness.com
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