Doing the Perfect Pushup

Article by Stephen Mcclure

If you’re a guy or girl who wants to increase his or her chest muscles, I’m sure you’ve done pushups at some time or another. Or, if you’re an athlete, I bet you’ve done pushups during conditioning and practice. Pushups are one of the most common, but least understood body weight exercises out there today. If you take your time to learn how to do push-ups correctly, it will make all the difference in your chest muscles. I’ll go over some of the most important components of the “perfect pushup”.

The first thing to remember while doing pushups, is that form is EVERYTHING. If you have good form throughout the entire push-up, it will isolate your chest muscles much better and you’ll get superb results. Start with your entire body straight as a board, from your toes to your head, keep your hands shoulder-width apart and keep your head looking straight ahead. As you are moving up and down during the motion of the pushup, you must keep your back straight, DO NOT, let it dip and arch, which is the natural tendency because it makes the pushup easier. I see people “cheating” like this all the time when doing pushups, and they really are only cheating themselves outta stronger, better-looking chest muscles.

As you drop down and push yourself up again, make sure to do it nice and slow the whole way with your tricep and pectoral muscles. If you’re doing it right, you’ll feel a strong burning sensation in both muscle groups. Do not shy away from that feeling, that is what will get you good results! Squeeze every once of burning sensation as you can, pinch your pectoral muscles (chest muscles) together at the climax of your push up. This reall works the pec muscles hard and that is what you’re aiming for, because the more you tear them down, the bigger they’ll build back up!

Keep doing the pushups until you can’t get yourself up off the ground anymore. Then, give yourself about 4-5 seconds of rest and heave yourself up to the upper, elbows locked position. Next, drop back down one more time, as slowly as possible. Fight the drop the whole way down, keep your muscles as taut as possible. Your chest muscles are exhausted, so you will inevitably fall, but if you fight against it the whole way you will experience intense burning and stretching in your pecs. Don’t worrry, that is what you want! After you hit the floor, lay there for awhile and catch your breath. Now, only 2 more sets and you’re done! Do that a couple times a week, and you’ll see real nice gains after only 2-3 weeks.

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