Doing push up is a regimen that each of us should try to administer on our regular workout routine. Along with losing weight, gaining muscle mass should also be part of our fitness goals. This kind of exercise focus on the upper body part which improves strength, endurance, and muscles. So the answer to the question “Do push-ups build muscle?” is an absolute yes. Powerrack.com.au encourages the regular exhibition of push up as it benefits the body in many ways.
Regular Push-ups to Build Muscle
Building muscle is one of the topmost goals of fitness enthusiasts. Having a strong and lean muscle is almost equivalent to being physically strong and fit. So what exactly is the role of push-ups in order to build muscles? Aside from everyday exercises, incorporating a specific physical activity in your routine will also improve certain body parts and muscles.
Push up is a kind of exercise where you will be facing the floor while supporting your upper body by pressing your hands on the floor. Your body needs to be in the proper posture to maximize the benefits of this exercise, keep you back straight and prevent crouching your legs and hunching your shoulders.
Benefits of Push-ups
The regular push-ups we know which incorporate pushing the body in an up and down manner is good for building muscle mass in the upper body and other muscle groups. This exercise works on the core, shoulders, and abdominals. With the correct posture and form, it could strengthen the back and abdominal muscles.
Aside from its ability to build muscle, push-ups can also be a body strengthening kind of activity. Doing this every day will most is a powerful upper body exercise that will slowly increase your muscle mass.
In addition to this, it is one of the many physical activities that require no fitness equipment. You can literally do push-up anywhere, anytime. For more pleasing results, you can moderately increase your push-up counts every after one week.
It also improves overall health by increasing metabolism when then leads to lower body fat and it enhances the cardiovascular condition.
Risks of Push-ups
Performing push-ups every day could escalate a condition called plateauing. This is the stage where you will no longer get the exact same benefit that you used to get when you were just starting.
This occurs because your muscles have already developed their functions making it easier for them to adjust to tension. To prevent its occurrence, it’s advised that you continually adjust or increase and decrease the stress that you put in your push-ups.
One more thing that puts you at risk while doing push-ups every day is the possibility of getting injured. Many people tend to execute this exercise without knowing the correct form. Pain in the shoulder area and lower back usually indicates that you are not doing it correctly.
Exercising every day, in general, puts anyone at risk of having injuries, but for push-ups, it can specifically injure the wrist if the arms are not correctly positioned and if the pressure of body weight is not distributed to its right places. If this occurs, seek professional help immediately as ignoring it may only worsen the situation.
How Do Push-ups Build Muscle
Gaining muscle mass can only be accomplished with dedication and hard work. Even if you exercise every day, the result will depend on how you executed the physical activities. By doing push-ups, your neural system adjusts to the pressure it’s receiving, thus, making new motor units to work. Each motor unit is composed of muscle fibers and neurons, with regular push-ups, your body, particularly your upper body, shoulders, arms, cores, and legs will unfold new muscle fibers which then results in increased muscle mass.
The results and physical changes can be noticeable immediately or otherwise, depending on your body’s ability to build muscle in a specific period of time. It’s also impeccably affected by other factors like your diet, lifestyle, and workout intensity.
The Correct Way to Do Push-ups
In performing the ordinary push-ups, put yourself in a kneeling position, put your feet close to each other, and slowly bend your upper body part to form a high planking position. Put your palm firmly on the ground facing ahead, and make sure that your shoulder is placed just above the location of your hands. Keep your back straight and your abs tucked in.
Now that you are in position, slowly lower down your body to the floor without changing the position of your limbs, hip, and waist. Make sure that your back stays straight all the time and that your hips don’t move incorrectly.
Continue on lowering and pulling your body upwards by using your arms. In pulling upward, you should be able to extend your arms in full before lowering your body again. Your starting position should always be the final position whenever you press up.
Beginners may opt to do 10-15 push-ups with intervals, you can always increase your push-up intensity if you are starting to get the hang of it.
If you wish to do push-ups to build muscle, you can try to attach certain movements that will make your exercise more challenging. Rolling push-ups, for example, will let you do the traditional pus-up with additional force and power requirements. From the word itself, you will need to perform a regular push-up but instead of lowering down your body, you will raise your right hand in the air as you roll your body into a side plank. Put your left arm back on the ground as your body faces outward. Do this in repeat by using both left and right arms to roll.
You can also try the leg lit push-up. Position your body in an ordinary push-up form, and lift one of your legs as you do the exercise. Simultaneously do this to each of your legs to get an equal amount of benefits for both legs.
Different Kinds of Push-ups
- Decline push-ups
- Incline push-ups
- Diamond push-ups
- Clapping push-ups
- Wide hands push-ups
- Pike push-ups
- Spiderman push-ups
- Staggered hands push-ups
- Archer push-ups
Push-up Requirements To Build Muscle
The main question in muscle building is how intense or how frequent should you do a particular exercise before you see the results.
For beginners, a count of 10 push-ups every day is recommended for the body to slowly adjust and get the strength it needs as you slowly increase the intensity.
Once you feel that your body is starting to be more capable of performing more than 10, increase your push-ups count accordingly. Based on professional fitness programs, if you can reach 50 push-ups in one training, you can exceed your limit by getting motivated to do 150 push-ups instead. People who can do 75 push-ups can maximize this exercise by doing 250 to 300 push-ups twice a week.
Overdoing push-ups will not do you any good. To get the best results, you must know when to push yourself to the limit and when to rest your body. Your muscles and body need some time to recover from each extreme workout routine you do, overexercising will only drain your body as well as your mental health. It will also leave you susceptible to risks and injuries because your body is no longer able to perform outstandingly. Just like your meals, your physical activities, whether push-ups or others, need to be balanced too.
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