Spot Toning

Many people don’t realize that you can build muscle without using any fancy gym equipment — in fact, standard bodyweight exercises like pushups can be used to build muscle up the old-fashioned way.

It’s understandable that you might not realize how effective the grand-daddy of exercise moves is at building your chest and arms. At a glance, pushups are simple and repetitive. And that’s true to an extent. But what you might not realize is that there are nearly endless opportunities for pushup variations that you never learned in high school gym class.

There is a wide variety of pushups that you can perform to isolate different muscle groups, but we’re going to focus on five types in this article. These will not be the best five for all people, but they should open your eyes to the variety possible in simple bodyweight exercises.

Wide pushups: traditionally, pushups are performed with your hands being placed at shoulder width. Wide push ups, sometimes called “wide-stance pushups”, require you to extend your hands beyond the width of your shoulders. Wide-stance pushups work your chest muscles more heavily than military-style pushups, so if chest definition is what you are looking for — wide pushups are one exercise that will help you meet your goals.

Fist pushups: Sometimes referred to as “knuckle” pushups, require the use of your fists, instead of the palms of your hands, to bear your body weight during the pushup. Fist pushups are beneficial because they target different areas of your body than traditional pushups, and may actually increase the effectiveness of your workout.

Yogi pushups: also referred to as “divebombers,” you start the pushup in the yoga downward dog position, which is similar to a pike. On the down rep, you transition into the upward dog position in a motion that is similar to sliding under a fence, reversing this movement on the up rep. These pushups are brutal and really work your shoulders.

Incline pushups: Incline pushups are the exact opposite of decline pushups — instead of placing your feet higher than your head, your head should be higher than your feet for this exercise. Any sturdy surface that will allow you to perform the pushups unencumbered can be used. Incline pushups work your lower pectoral muscles.

Deep pushups: If you are working out at home, you can perform raised pushups with the help of three sturdy chairs. By placing each of your hands on an opposite chair, and your feet on the third chair, you can increase the depth of your pushup and thereby increase the effectiveness of your workout routine. A similar, but less intense, movement can be performed with pushup stands. The “Perfect Pushup” bars work wonders.

Here is a more comprehensive list of pushup styles to achieve muscle weight gain: wide, fly, diamond, military, yogi, fist, decline, incline, stacked, deep, prison cell, and inchworm pushups.

Tips to increase the effectiveness of your pushup workouts: remember to add some weight once the pushups begin to get easy. You don’t want to push out 50 easy repetitions. Rather, struggle with 20 or 30. Also be sure to add variety by varying your hand position for each of the above types of pushups.

Push ups are a great way to strengthen your upper body and exercise, build muscle at the same time. If you keep it interesting by mixing up your hand positions and trying a few different styles of pushups you can increase the effectiveness of your at-home exercising and relieve the boredom!