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It’s important to know the essential push-up variations to enable muscle activation from various angles.
You must understand that push-ups primarily impact the pectoral and tricep muscles. Keeping that in mind, you must know what type of push-up impacts which part of the chest and triceps.
As a beginner, it’s important to add push-ups to your workout routine. It’s a bodyweight exercise that has significant value when it comes to building strength and muscle endurance.
Essential Push-up Variations
Here are the six essential push-up variations you must add to your workout routine. It’s important to not avoid push-ups if you want to develop and tone your muscles while losing body fat. Let's get started:
1) Standard Push-up
This is the variation you must begin with. It’s the simplest form of push-ups. You will be able to work on your pectoral muscles using this variation.
Keep your arms shoulder-width or slightly wider, and do push-ups. Try to keep your back and hips stable, and lower yourself as much as possible before pushing yourself back up. Keep a strong muscle-mind connection so that you engage your pectoral muscles and not the triceps.
2) Incline Push-up
Incline push-ups are similar to standard push-ups, but you need to keep your hands on an elevated platform while your feet are on the ground to do this push-up variation.
3) Decline Push-up
Decline push-ups are the exact opposite of incline push-ups. To do this push-up variation, tou need to keep your palms on the ground while the feet are on an elevated platform.
4) Pike Push-up
Not all essential push-up variations work on the chest and triceps. For example, the pike push-up works on the shoulders.
To do this exercise, keep your feet on an elevated platform and palms on the ground. Ensure that the palms are closer to the platform so that your posterior is slightly upwards.
When you do the push up, your head should be between your arms, and the pressure must be on the shoulders. It’s possible to feel nauseous during this exercise, as the blood can rush to your head. If you feel uneasy, you must stop the exercise immediately.
5) Close Grip Push-up
The close-grip push-up works on the triceps. They’re similar to standard push-ups, but you need to keep your hands closer together to do this push-up variation.
Moreover, this workout should be done with a close grip so that the pressure is on the triceps.
6) Explosive Push-up
This is an uncommon push-up variation. Explosive push-ups can help with maintaining stress on the muscles and boosting strength and endurance.
It’s important to do this exercise only if you have enough wrist strength. If you feel like your wrist is weakening during the exercise, you must stop the workout. Exerting too much pressure on your wrist can lead to serious injury.
Bottom Line
When you’re focusing on push-up variations, don't forget to keep a strong muscle-mind connection for the proper muscles to engage during the exercises.
Ideally, you should focus on your chest first before moving to other body parts, where push-ups can benefit you.
