Pushups Made Easy With These Two Exercises

There was a time when completing 20 pushups used to be an issue for me. Sometimes, doing 10 would make me feel gassed. I decided to research and experiment with different exercises that would help strengthen and also work the different parts of my chest. Here’s what I came up with.

            The chest is split into two heads. You have the pectoralis major and the minor. According to Schuler and Mejia, “The pectoralis’s main duty is to bring your upper arm inward across your body in a motion called horizontal abduction” (12).  However, if you were to take a deeper look into the pectoralis major, you would be able to see there are three sections to it. You have the upper, medial and the lower pectoralis major. In order to strengthen them you have to do many different exercises from leaning forward dips (lower pectoralis) to incline (upper) and flat (medial) barbell or dumbbell bench press.

Exercises:

Bench Press (flat and incline)

The most conventional chest exercise in the world is the bench press. It seems like it could be an easy exercise to do, right? You just bring your dumbbell or barbell down to your chest and repeat the exercise multiple times. Most people don’t realize that doing this could be set them up for injury or use the wrong muscle group for the bench press.

Here are the steps to doing a proper bench press:

1.     For the exercise, you will use a barbell.

2.     Before lifting the barbell off of the rack, adjust your bench to where your eyes are perpendicular to the barbell. Now, place your hands a few inches past shoulder-width apart. While doing this, maintain a slight arch in your back. 

3.     Lift the barbell off of the rack.

4.     Squeeze you shoulder blade together as hard as you can. Maintain this throughout the repetition. This may be something you want to practice. Once you master the exercise, your strength will improve (Schuler and Mejia 122).

5.     Now, bring the barbell approximately one-inch above your diaphragm.

6.     While maintaining your shoulders squeezed together, push the barbell up where the barbell is perpendicular to your body.

7.     Repeat steps 4-6 10 times. 

8.     Rack your barbell.

Here are the steps to doing a proper incline bench press (many of the steps are the same as the flat bench press):

1.     Before lifting the barbell off of the rack, adjust your bench to where your eyes are perpendicular to the barbell. Now place your hands approximately 3 inches past shoulder width apart. While doing this, maintain a slight arch in your back.

2.     Lift the barbell off of the rack.

9.     Squeeze you shoulder blade together as hard as you can. Maintain this throughout the repetition. This may be something you want to practice. Once you master the exercise, your strength will improve (Schuler and Mejia 122).

3.     Bring the barbell to the middle of your chest.

4.     While maintaining your shoulders squeezed together, push the barbell perpendicular to your body.

5.     Repeat steps 4-6 ten times. 

6.     Rack your barbell.

Why worry about doing as many pushups as possible now that you have the opportunity to see your true strength? See really how strong or weak your pectoralis muscles are, maintain extreme focus on these muscles, and see the progression from weak to strong, then strong to stronger.