Health & Fitness
Pushups 101, or Why Personal Trainers Love Pushups
A good friend and I decided to join a 30 Day Facebook Pushup challenge. We have to do 100 pushups a day for the month of May.
A good friend and I decided to join a 30 Day Facebook Pushup challenge.
We have to do 100 pushups a day for the month of May. We are also both writers and part of a blogging group, so we decided to blog about pushups for the month of May as well.
I think it’s going to be more of a challenge to think of a multitude of things to say about pushups than it’s going to be to do them. I did mine in sets of 25 today while I emptied the dishwasher; 25 before silverware, 25 before bottom shelf, 25 before top shelf, 25 to celebrate being done with the dishwasher, ba-bam. Done. Then I sat around and mulled about what to say in a blog post for several hours.
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So, here it is, Push-ups 101, or Why Personal Trainers Love Pushups.
Pushups are really efficient.
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They primarily work the chest, or the Pectoral muscles, and Triceps, but virtually every other muscle in the body gets in on the fun. As you push up off the floor the Pecs and Triceps do the work, but the Trapezuis, Deltoids, Biceps, and small shoulder muscles are the resistors on the way back down.
The Rectus abdominis, Obliques, and Transverse abdominis, the Extensor muscles of the forearms, neck muscles, not to mention the Quadriceps, Gluteals, and Hamstrings all work isometrically as stabilizers for both the pushup and the let down phase of the exercise.
Even your heart gets a workout. You will notice when you join me in this little exercise (because I know you’re inspired now) that your heart rate will go up pretty high and you’ll be puffing a little at the end of a set.
That’s a lot of muscles for one little exercise.
Pushups don’t take any equipment and can be done anywhere.
When I was a trainer I was always hauling heavy objects around so my clients could play with them. This gets old when you have 4 or 5 clients a day, you’re teaching group exercise classes, and you want to get your own workout in. It’s so much easier to say, “Drop and give me 50!”
For the consumer, this is nice as well. You don’t have to watch infomercials, order stuff for 39 easy payments of $39.99, and wait for UPS. You can just start. Now. Today.
It’s May 1. Drop and give me 50!
