Push Ups are a great exercise to make you stronger!
If you had to choose one, which exercise would you pick to be the best ever?
I would have to choose the push-up and all of its variations as being the best all-around exercise, especially for men over 50.
A close second, would be the squat.
The reason being is that both exercises recruit the most muscles in performing the compound movement.
A compound exercise is one that calls on many different muscles instead of an isolation exercise where you are concentrating on specific muscles.
Compound movements add to the functional fitness of your body.
As we get older, one of the options for staying in shape is Calisthenics and the push up fits in this category.
Did you know that men over 50, who can do more than 40 push-ups are not as prone to have heart disease as someone who can do less than 10?
According to Justin Yang, a researcher from Harvard University, cardiovascular health is in direct correlation with how many push-ups a middle-aged man can do.
The findings stated that it’s easier to determine cardiovascular health by push-ups over even say a treadmill cardio test.
Now with that said, it’s a really good all around exercise.
The muscles covered in the push-up include chest, shoulders, arms, and abdominals, or you could say pectorals, deltoids, triceps, and core muscles.
We can’t forget the serratus anterior just below the armpits.
Some push up variations include, wall push up, modified, standard (or military), feet elevated, diamond, archer, and anything you can come up with on your own.
Since your body weight creates the resistance, you can add more by wearing a weighted vest.
Wall Push-Up
I would say the easiest push-up variation would be the wall push-up.
It is good for beginners and people with a shoulder injury.
You perform it by standing facing a wall an arms length away, placing your palms against the wall.
Bend your elbows until your nose almost touches the wall and push away from it.
Check out this quick video of a wall push-up from Convict Conditioning.
Don’t confuse this with the advanced inverted wall push up where you put your feet elevated on the wall and do a reverse handstand push up.
Modified Push-Up
The modified push up or knee push-up is the next hardest.
If you can’t do a standard push-up, do these until you can.
Eventually the standard push-up will be your go-to exercise.
Start by getting down on your hands and knees, then walk your hands out underneath your shoulders.
Now you just basically perform a push-up with your knees being the main point of contact on the floor instead of your feet.
Standard Military Push-Up
At some point in our lives I think all of us have done a standard push-up.
Studies have shown that hand placement will have different effects on muscle stimulation.
Just tighten your glutes and keep your back straight during this exercise.
Again, lower your torso until your nose chest touches the ground.
You may want to stop just before your nose touches.
Just keep a controlled movement in all push up repetitions.
One Electroymygraphic (EMG) study performed had the test subjects do push-ups with their hand placement shoulder width, wide, and narrow.
Results showed that the narrow hand placement had more muscle activation than the other two in the chest and triceps muscle groups.
You can mix things up a little bit trying the different hand placements,just always stay safe in your movements.
Remember that if you are doing a wide push-up, your elbows will tend to flare out. This can be dangerous for your shoulders.
I personally do not do this anymore and prefer to stay closer in with the narrow push up hand placement.
Decline push-up
This is a push-up where you raise your feet to different levels to increase the difficulty of the exercise.
Remember, with all of these push-ups you can change your hand placement to make it easier or more difficult.
If you are new to this, start out with putting your feet on something about the height of a normal stair step.
As you get better at it, you can increase the elevation, which will make you stronger by increasing the resistance.
Here we have Jeff Cavaliere performing the different angles of push-ups. Athlean-X.
When performing normal push ups, you may want to check out a set of dip bars.
I use the Lebert Equalizers because you can do over 100 exercises with them.
They allow for a deeper movement.
Plyometric push-up
Here is a push-up where you push up to the top of the movement with enough force that your hands leave the ground.
You can also clap at the top of the movement and catch yourself before going to the down position.
I personally think men over 50 shouldn’t be doing this.
Because you can get very good muscle stimulation from the other push-ups, without the risk of a wrist injury.
Use discretion when trying this exercise.
Diamond push-ups
Hand placement on this push up is similar to a close grip bench press.
You are still hitting your chest and shoulders but your triceps are getting more stimulation than normal.
I would avoid these if you have wrist problems, because they do put more tension on the wrist area.
Hindu push-ups
I first learned about Hindu push-ups back in 2002 while reading Matt Furey’s book Combat Conditioning.
I started working out every day doing 2 sets until failure along with Hindu Squats and only took a rest day when I felt I needed it.
The key was very slow controlled movements.
Here is a video demonstrating the Hindu Push Up.
I do not do them as quickly as this gentleman does.
I like to do them with a slower more deliberate movement and my muscles have more time under tension.
By doing them this way, I cannot do very many and as I go down into the sweeping motion I slowly let my nose just graze the floor.
Also, I am not as flexible as the young man in the video and do not arch backwards as much as he does.
Push-Up Overview
I think the push-up is one of the best exercises we can do as we get older.
There are many variations and we can do them just about anywhere.
I do some form of Push Ups every day, just not to failure.
Our bodies build back stronger when they are at rest.
That means you may want to do them every other day for a while.
As far as repetitions and sets go, I would let your body tell you when enough is enough.
We are all familiar with the basic 3 days a week, 3 sets of 10 repetitions.
That is a very safe way to work out, but is also geared for weight training where you are putting heavy load on your joints and tearing down more muscle tissue.
Body weight push-ups are a little easier on the body and you will adapt a lot quicker.
That is why you can do them everyday.
Just stop before failure.
Some guys are doing 100 push ups every day for a month.
I did and really liked it, but I go more for every other day now when doing a higher volume of repetitions.
If you want to get stronger, do push-ups.
Just do safe movements and get the rest you need.
Listen to your body!
SOURCES
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16095413
https://www.youtube.com/watchtime_continue=58&v=vQsQAiE0NQo&feature=emb_logo