Blog Post: The Perfect Upper Body Exercise

Your basic push-up is one of the best upper body exercises a person can do to build their upper body strength as well as work on their core.

The push-up is considered a compound movement, meaning you use more than one joint during that movement. You are using many different muscle groups to perform this exercise making it a great calorie burning exercise as well as a strength building exercise. The push-up utilizes your chest, shoulders, triceps, back, abs and even the legs for a great all over workout!

To start a push-up, get onto your hands and knees, if you are a beginner keep your knees on the ground.
- Place your hands slightly wider than your shoulders. If you can, come up on your toes keeping your body in a straight line (if you stay on your knees move your knees back so your body is in a straight line).
- Don't let your mid section sag, you want to keep your hips even with the rest of your body (flat as a board).
- Your feet can be close together or slightly wider depending on what is comfortable for you.
- Now contract your core by pulling your belly button into your spin.
- From this point you will inhale and lower down until your elbows are at a 90 degree angle, if your shoulders are okay, you can work on going a bit lower.
- Now you want to exhale a push yourself back up without locking out your elbows.

Try to repeat this movement as many times in a row as you can, take a break and do it again. With a little practice and consistency you will have nice toned arms and your core will be stronger than ever!

There are many different variations you can preform with a push-up. At ferrum fitness we work on all types of push-ups to help the overall fitness level of our members and clients. If you want to learn some variations on push-ups take advantage of our 2 week pass and come on in and get fit!

Jessica Unbewust
co-owner
ferrum fitness