Building Your Chest With Push-Ups

One of the muscles that every guy wants to build is their chest otherwise known as pecs or pectorals.  A bigger, broader chest helps give you a better look with your shirt on and off.  It gives you tht strong bull-like figure or that gladiator look.  The bench press is one of the most common ways to build your chest, but that requires equipment.  You need a bench, a weight bar, weights, and maybe a spotter.  Many of you have seen P90x and the results people have gotten with it.  There's no bench pressing in P90x, there are push-ups.  Push-ups are a great way to build you chest, and all you need is a few square feet of floor space, if you want to kick it up, you can also throw in a chair.

Hitting All the Angles

When I want to do push-ups, I try to hit my pecs from different angles.  Just like you would with a bench press, if you vary your hand width, you will vary what parts of the chest are affected.  I like to work push-ups with 4 different hand positions from widest to narrowest:

• Wide Width - about 6 inches outside your shoulders
• Standard Shoulder Width
• Military - Hands under shoulders, elbows go back along your sides, not out
• Super Narrow - hands touching directly under the center of your chest

The wider width push-ups work your outer chest.  The more narrow your hands are, it will work the inner chest more.

Now that you know how to hit the inside and outside of your chests, you have to make sure you work the upper and lower chest too.  Push-ups with your feet and hands on the ground, works the middle of the chest.  To work the upper pecs, put your feet up on a chair.  This is a similar motion to an incline press.   To hit the lower pectorals, keep your feet on the floor and put your hands on a chair.  Note that this position doesn't provide alot of resistance, but with many reps, it is still effective.  If you need to lessen the load as you are getting started, keep your knees on the ground instead of just your feet.

How to Do a Push-Up

1. Get your hands and feet into one of the positions described above
2. Make sure your body forms a straight line from your neck to your ankles.  Don't let your butt rise and don't let it sag.
3. While inhaling, carefully lower youself to the ground, stopping when your chest is inch or two from t
4. With a forecful exhale, push your body back up into the starting position.
5. Repeat

Push-Ups for Women

Many women are afraid of push-ups, fearing that it might cause you to bulk up.  It's not going to happen without lots of effort and lots and lots of training.  The pecs are a major muscle group, and developing them can lead to better overall health and body composition.

Kick It Up a Notch

To bring it a little harder, try these variations.

• Vary your speed both up and down.  Going really slow will quickly build up lactic acid.  Faster reps ignite different muscle tissue.
• Put your hangs and feet of a chair to increase your range of motion and force more stabilizing muscles into action.
• Do one-arm pushups with only one hand on the ground and the other behind your back to work each arm indpendently.
• Raise one of your legs to add in core work so that you don't topple over.
• Put your hands and/or feet up on a medicine ball (or basketball, soccer ball, etc) to force the arm and leg stabilizers into the picture.

Push-ups are a great way to build a major muscle and you don't need a single weight to do it.  If building muscle is part of your plan, you have to work your chest.  Push-ups are a very effective exercise that you can start doing right now.