Archive for the ‘Push Up Exercise’ Category
Here’s a push up exercise that will seriously challenge you. Don’t be scared because there are several levels of difficulty. This push up exercise I’m referring to is called the jackknife push up.
Let’s first start on the floor:
- Put your hands down on the mat as you would with a wide grip push up.
- Now walk your feet in closer to your hands.
- Your hips and butt are pushing up into the air, like a jackknife.
- Lower your upper body toward the floor, trying to touch your nose to the floor.
- Push back up to a start position.
- Repeat. Do as many as you can.
By bringing the legs in closer to your hands, this push up exercise works more of your shoulders. If the hands are closer together, you’ll hit the triceps harder. Now, to make this push up exercise more challenging, put your toes on a bench, hands on the floor. Start out with just toes on the bench and work on regular push ups. You can gradually work your hands back toward your feet, so you are almost 90 degrees. The closer the hands are to the bench, the more difficult this push up exercise will be.
To add intensity, and more core work, place the toes on a stability ball. Place hands on the floor, and do this push up exercise. Gradually walking your hands closer to the ball, stick the hips and butt up in the air and execute your push up exercise.
How about the push up!! It’s a great upper body workout, chest, shoulders, back, abs, just about everything. Today, I’m going to give you a new twist, literally, on the push up, so you can add this to your push up workout routine.
This push up exercise is called Fly Push Ups. This is performed just like a regular push up on the toes. The hands are directly under the shoulders, abs tight. Inhale on the way down
and exhale as you push up. When the arms are extended, you’ll want to lift the left arm off the floor, and rotate the body left, into a side plank. Rotate the body, facing down and execute one regular push up. Then lift the right arm and rotate body to the right into a side plank. Repeat and do as many as you can. It is imperative to keep the abdominals tight for control.
To modify this push up exercise, it’s ok to put your knees on the floor. As you lift your left arm and rotate your body to the left, keep the right knee on the floor and extend the left leg above it. Just reverse legs as you rotate to the right, left knee stays on the floor, and extend the right leg above it. It is important to maintain a straight hard body.