Many had asked me this question, “do push ups build muscle and strength?”. The answer is yes of course. Push-ups are one of the best bodyweight workouts anybody can do or should do. Why? It is going to develop muscle growth and targets different body parts such as your chest, triceps, and shoulders.
I’ll show you how to do a simple push-up and different kind of variation so you can build that solid muscle mass of yours. So let us begin!
1. Proper Way To Perform A Push-Up
Keep your body straight especially your lower back. Tuck in your elbows, we are trying to avoid injury. Chest out and slowly go down and reach close to the floor as possible. If you cannot keep your lower body straight then tighten your abdomen, legs, and buttocks.
2. Inhale and Exhale
Before everything else, make sure that you inhale while going slowly down and exhale while going straight up with great force. That alone will stress the muscle thus develop muscle growth and strength. We do want that right!
3. Do As Much Repetition
Track your daily progress and always do as much as possible in one minute. The benefit is that you will improve your endurance. Have so many benefits, so check that article “importance of physical fitness“. If you want to improve muscle growth then make sure that you slowly go down and explode straight up or do resistance training. Enjoy the burn!
For Beginners: Put your knees on the floor and do as much repetition as possible.
Resistance Training: Push-ups
Push-ups, like I said earlier, is no doubt the best workout you can do. It develops not only the chest but also your triceps and shoulders. But, what if you have reached a peak where your regular push-ups seem effortless and simple. Let’s start pushing to a new level of push-ups by putting more stress on your muscle and making it grow even more.
1. Wear Weighted Vest/ Add Weights In General
Yes, it is that simple, but do not overdo it when you add weights. Keep adding every month by 5-10lbs. This will help to further develop your chest, triceps, and shoulders. Also, it will help to improve your strength than anything else.
2. Variations of Push-ups
There are many ways to make push-ups more difficult and making more gains. Also, it is going to focus on specific areas that you want to improve.
- Wide Grip – Focus on chest more than triceps or shoulders.
- Close Grip – Focus on triceps more.
- Clap – Explosion and power especially when developing strength.
- One Leg – Focus on the core.
- Hand Release – Help to ease the tension on the joint.
These variations are important to improve the specific area of your choosing.
Do Push Ups Build Muscle And Progression
Now that you know the basic to the most advanced of a push-up, you must have to push your body. You cannot do regular push-ups and expect to gain significant muscle mass. You must do some variations of push-ups like Wide-grip, Close-grip, One-leg, or increase the weight (weighted vest/friend). Challenge yourself and improve muscle growth. If you stress the muscle, it’ll make it grow. Simple right! It is not challenging then increase the weight by 5lbs. Increase the difficulty and make more progress.
Evaluate Your Progress
Now it is time to see your progress, but they’re many ways to do it. First, the simple way is to look at your self in the mirror. This is mostly what I do if your focus on proportion especially your chest. Second, measure your chest, triceps, and shoulders with a tape. So go ahead and try it out. Finally, track your progress, mostly how much can you do in a minute or how much can you do with weights added. This is a good factor to know how much you improve from the very beginning you step in that gym or home.
If you did not improve any muscle mass or strength then they’re some mistakes you made. The first reason could be, you did not push yourself in the gym. Remember that you must do many reps as possible in the beginning and add weights when it becomes light. The second reason could be, nutrition. Eat a lot of calories and clean food especially good fats, Carbs, and protein. The Final reason is not challenging the muscle group. You must do some variation of the push-ups. You cannot be doing only regular push-ups and expect to gain muscle every day.
Conclusion
This is a good way to improve the muscle, strength, and endurance depending on how you do it. When someone asks you, “do push ups build muscle and strength”, give them the simple answer. Of course, it is the best compound workout you can do. If you do more reps (50 or more) is mainly endurance. If you do less than 30 reps than you are improving muscle (increase weight to stress your muscle or variations). Also, strength consists of less than 20 reps and yes you will develop some muscle growth while doing it, but mainly strength. To get better results, make sure that you eat clean fat, carbs, and protein to recover and rebuild the muscle. So hit hard in the gym and eat clean to recover and get better results. So the question “do push ups build muscle” was quite simple. Regular push-ups are fine, but increasing the difficulty is very crucial for developing muscle and strength.
