These tips will help you learn how to do more push-ups, build your upper body strength and endurance, and ace your next fitness test.
- Review the principles of exercise science.
Before you begin your push-up training workout, it's helpful to understand these six principles that explain the science behind fitness training. With this knowledge, you'll learn how to improve your fitness in a safe and systematic way. If you understand the concepts of overload, progression, adaptation, specificity, etc., you will be better able to train effectively.
- Perfect your push-up form.
Before you start cranking out multiple reps, you need to make sure your push-up form is perfect. If you don't already know how to do it right, go back to the beginning and practice.
- Determine your baseline repetitions.
To find the number of repetitions you should perform in each set, do as many push-ups as you can in two minutes and divide this number by three. This is your baseline repetition count. Each workout will generally include 3 sets of this number of repetitions.
- Start with the basic push-up workout.
Do a push-up workout every other day (such as Monday, Wednesday and Friday). Warm up with a slow jog, cycling on a stationary bike, or jumping rope. Perform your basic workout with three sets of repetitions with a 30 second rest between sets. Each week, add 2-3 repetitions to your sets. Retest yourself every four weeks and set a new repetition baseline.
- Add variety by varying your hand position.
There are an endless number of ways to vary your push-up workout. Consider changing your hand placement during repetitions. Mix it up by starting your reps with a narrow hand placement, and progressively widening your hand placement during each set. This is a great routine that you can use for each push-up workout for a month at a time.
- Add variety by varying your body position.
Just as you can move your hand position during a push-up, you can also change your body position to increase or decrease the intensity of the exercise. Try decline push-ups (with your feet elevated), stability ball push-ups, or plyometric push-ups (clap your hands between reps).
- Add resistance to your push-up.
Elevating your feet while doing push-ups (as above) will increase the resistance, but it also changes your range of motion. To increase resistance during a standard push-up, you can add a weighted vest, or wear a close-fitting backpack filled with sandbags or water bladders.
- End your push-up workout with the plank exercise.
The last minute of your push-up workout can be dedicated to improving core strength and stability, which is essential during the push-up. The plank exercise is a perfect way to round out your upper body workout. Try to hold the plank for 30 seconds to one minute, and finish with a long, slow, prone back extension at the end of the workout.
- Get adequate rest and recovery.
If you are performing push-up exercises to fatigue, you will need to allow at least one day of recovery between push-up workouts. Practicing push-ups every day, if done to fatigue, can back-fire and result in a decrease in strength and endurance.
- Also See: How To Do More Situps.