6 Benefits of Push Ups

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By Alex
Last updated on

The benefits of push ups are numerous. Assuming you know how to do push ups correctly, they can be quite effective for achieving your strength and muscle building goals.

Benefits of Push Ups. Check out the 6 amazing push up benefits in my list below:

  1. Build Bigger Chest, Shoulder & Arm Muscles. The push up is underrated in its capacity to build a muscular upper body physique. Probably because it’s a bodyweight exercise that you’ll “outgrow” in terms of strength. Luckily, there’s plenty of advanced variations to keep your body challenged and your muscles growing.
  2. Get a Full Body Workout. The push up is a compound exercise, meaning it is a multi-joint exercise that works multiple muscles. It also requires that your stabilizer muscles come out and play. It improves the strength of the chest, as well as the triceps, shoulders, and abs. It even hits the back, legs and glutes (albeit to a lesser extent), thus providing a full body workout.
  3. Use Push Up Variations. As mentioned earlier, there are several ways to modify the bodyweight push up by simply changing your body position or utilizing equipment. This means that you can always have a productive push up workout regardless of your strength and experience level. You can make push ups easier by doing band-assisted, incline or knee push ups. Or you can make them harder by elevating your feet, wearing a weighted vest or using a stability ball, to name a few.
  4. Increase Your Bench Press Strength. Even if you can bench press a mega amount of weight, it doesn’t mean doing push ups are a waste of time. To the contrary, they will actually improve your bench pressing strenth. Why? Because they train your stabilizer and core muscles muscles in a way the bench press doesn’t; you’re moving and controlling your body with your hands stationary. Whereas, the bench press involves moving weight with your body stationary.
  5. Burn Calories & Fat. If you’re looking to burn extra calories to become more chiseled than a Greek god statue, then you’re in luck. Push ups can be great as part of a cardio/endurance workout. However, you’ve got to first build up enough base strength where you can do at least 40-50 non-stop. Otherwise you’ll end up exhausting your muscles before exhausting your cardiovascular system.
  6. Do It Anywhere. Are you on vacation? Traveling? Don’t have access to a gym? No problem. You can get a decently intense upper body workout with push ups (add in pull ups to hit the back, too). They can be performed anywhere you find a safe surface!
Alex from King of the Gym
Author
Hey! My name is Alex and I'm the founder and author of King of the Gym. I've been lifting weights seriously since 2005 in high school when I started a home gym in my parents' basement. I started writing about fitness in 2009. Then, in 2014, I got into writing home gym equipment reviews and I haven't looked back. My current home gym is in my own house and it's constantly growing and evolving. My goal is to help you build the home gym of your dreams! Read more about me here.

1 thought on “6 Benefits of Push Ups”

  1. Brilliant exercise and it pumps up the upper back muscles too unlike bench pressing. The diamond push up is good for the upper pectorals. Great add for the push up that you have here.

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