Pushups

Pushups are the most fundamental and all-around best exercise for the chest of all-time, allowing you to increase your strength, muscular endurance, and flexibility all at the same time. In contrast to the bench press, this exercise also works the core and stabilizing muscles as you are forced to balance yourself as you raise and lower your torso. To perform the exercise correctly, support your body off of the ground on your hands and toes. Your arms should be extended with your hands placed a little wider than shoulder-width apart. Bend at the elbows to lower your chest towards the floor without bending your back. Only your arms should be moving while the rest of your body remains rigid.


Lower yourself until you are just a few inches above the floor, then extend your arms to raise yourself back up.

Tips

* This exercise mainly works the pectoralis major. The triceps, anterior deltoid, as well as the serratus anterior are all used to some degree as well.
* When you place your hands wider than shoulder-width apart, you will focus most of the effort of this exercise in your pectoralis major. Conversely, the closer your hands are placed together, the more the triceps and anterior deltoid will come into play. As a result, if you are using pushups as a means to increase the strength of your chest, you should keep your hands placed fairly wide apart as you execute this movement for optimal results.
* Keeping your feet together will make it more difficult to maintain balance as you perform the movement and thus, increase the effort of the core.
* Performing long sets can lead to wrist strains. To avoid this, try doing the exercise on your fists which will prevent you from having to bend your wrists. An additional benefit of doing the exercise on your fists is that it makes it harder, seeing how you will increase your range of motion by a few inches. Of course, long sets like this can be hard on the knuckles as well. Try alternating which way you perform the exercise to prevent any pain or discomfort from either variation. You can also place some small towels on the floor to relieve stress on your knuckles when you try doing the movement on your fists.
* To increase the intensity you can also try lowering yourself slowly, with numerous pauses. Try lowering yourself one-third of the way down, then pause for three seconds. Lower yourself another third of the way down and pause for another three seconds, followed by a final three second pause at the bottom of the movement before lifting yourself back up.


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