SA Spotters: Benefits Of Push Ups

Tuesday, June 27, 2017

Benefits Of Push Ups

Push ups have been a favorite exercise for many people across the globe. They have become so popular because they are easy and effective, don't require equipment and can be done almost anywhere without much space. Here is a list of reasons why push-ups are so great.

1. Body-weight exercise

Push ups are a body-weight exercise, which means that they use your own body weight as a resistance, instead of many exercises that require separate weights. Body-weight exercises (like pull ups and dips) are extremely beneficial because they feel very natural to your body's muscular mechanisms. Because this exercise feels more natural, there is a decreased risk of injury and your body can easily adapt by increasing its fitness levels and muscle composition as a response.

2. Compound movement

Push ups are compound movements. This means that it is an exercise that uses more than one muscle group. Push ups stimulate your chest, triceps and core muscle groups. They also use your legs as stabilizer muscles, even though they are not worked as hard. Because of this, one exercise is working more muscle groups in a single movement.

3. Variable degrees of intensity

Another benefit of push-up exercises is the fact that you can control how difficult they are. If you are quite unfit, you can do 'girl push ups', which are push-ups with your knees fixed on the floor. You can also do other variations of push-ups once you build up your strength by expanding or decreasing the width between your hands (wide width focuses more on chest muscles, while a smaller width focuses more on your triceps). You can increase the intensity by doing clap push-ups or elevating your feet.

4. Releases growth hormone levels

Since push ups are compound exercises, doing them will release muscle-growth hormones like growth hormone and testosterone. Don't worry girls: the amounts and effects of this won't turn you into a boy.

5. Increases functional strength

Functional strength refers to strength that you can actually use in real life. Push ups will help increase all your pushing movements. Since push ups require strength from your core (abdominal, oblique and lower back muscle), you will also have better posture and be at less risk of getting back pain. Since your core is stronger, you will also be able to generate more power during other exercises and sustain less injury from sports.

6. Helps with muscle growth and definition

Push ups are a great way to build and define your chest muscles and triceps (back of your arm). They will also define your core and leg muscles over time.

7. Increase fitness

Regularly doing push ups will increase your fitness level. The fitter you are, the more you can do. As you start from a low number and increase the amount of push-ups you can do in one exercise, your fitness will improve. As you get to greater numbers, you cardio-vascular performance will also get better as your heart learns to pump blood more efficiently into your body and your lungs get better at converting oxygen into energy.

8. Burns calories

Push ups burn calories, which help in reaching your weight loss goals and teaching your body to use fat stores as a form of energy. Since they are compound exercises, they burn more calories than exercises that only involve one muscle group (like bicep curls).