You don’t need the newest gym equipment to work out your chest. Luckily Mother Nature gave you what you needed to build the bust of your dreams – gravity!
First let’s begin with basics. You work your chest by pushing out from your pectorals. The angle at which you push determines the exact part of your chest that isolated. This may sound complex but it really isn’t.
On a typical bench press, for example, the further your elbows are out, the more you isolate the front of your pectorals. The closer they are to your body, the more you work out the upper and lower quadrants.
This general rule is true whether you are forming a bench press doing push-ups or parallel dips or doing any other chest exercise. One reason the dumbbell flies are such a good exercise for the pectorallis majors is because it exaggerates the placement of your elbows relative to your body.
Let’s look at a push up, one of God’s greatest exercises. Not only does a push-up workout your pecs, but depending on how you do it, you can isolate your triceps and even your abdomen.
The standard push-up position should be familiar for anyone who’s been in eighth grade gym class. Lie on the ground facedown, with your arms even to your body and your legs straight back, feet touching words lately apart. I bring your hands up so that they’re even with your sternum. Keep your elbows tucked toward your body and push out.
Congratulations you’ve just done a push-up. Essentially you’re using the same muscles as you would doing a bench press. There is slightly more stress put on your wrists doing a push-up.
You can adjust your position to hit different muscles. The wider your hands the more you will isolate the lateral part of your pecks. The closer hands are together the more you isolate the sternal head of the pec major – that is the center of your chest.
If you needed another challenge, put your feet on a chair which will reposition the way even more to your chest. Put your feet on an exercise ball to work your core or balance your hands on two medicine balls for a killer workout. Add an explosive element to your workout by propelling your body off the ground and clap your hands together.
In which you’ve mastered the basic form of the push-up, you can try many variations. If you want to work your core you create a bird-dog or plank like position, perhaps as a means to finish off the exercise. You can try one armed push-ups or put your feet against the wall new vertical push-ups.
There are very few exercises as versatile as a push-up and it requires no gym equipment to do.