Can you develop pecs with pushups

Increase the intensity by trying more challenging push-up variations. Warning Do not sacrifice technique to achieve the recommended sets and repetitions.

Pushing yourself beyond your fitness level and using poor form may lead to injury and halt your progress. If you experience pain during your workout, stop and consult your doctor. Push-Ups: Muscles Worked Unlike many weight machines that target specific muscles, push-ups work many muscles in your body. When doing push-ups, muscles targeted include the pectoralis major, triceps brachii and deltoid, advises ExRx.

Regular push-ups primarily focus on the pecs while close-grip push-ups shift the focus to the triceps. Other muscles that help stabilize the movement include the biceps, quadriceps and core muscles. To do a push-up, your hands should be placed slightly wider than shoulder width. Keep your spine in a neutral position and your body straight from your head to feet.

Lower your body by bending your elbows; then push your body back up until your arms are straight. For a close-grip push-up, move your hands in so that they are slightly narrower than shoulder width. Read more: Proper Push-Up Technique Tip While your push-ups do help build muscle mass, be sure to add other exercises to hit muscles not directly targeted in the push-up like the biceps and leg and back muscles.

Add Weight to Increase Intensity To gain muscle mass, you'll want to be near muscle failure after completing your sets. While you may feel this level of fatigue from a bodyweight push-up when first starting out, as you get stronger, you may need more challenging variations. One simple way to increase the intensity is to do a weighted push-up. Have a partner put a weight plate on your back between your shoulders as you do the push-ups. It is important that your partner help guide the weights as you exercise so that they don't slide off your back and injure you.

These pushups become valuable weapons in your chest training, placing greater load on a single pec and also challenging your core and glutes. Can you keep your hips and shoulders square on a post pushup, which is just a half-step away from a single-arm pushup? Doing so places great load on your chest, and your entire body.

Time Under Tension and Pauses: You can also level up moves by adding time-under-tension and pauses. Pauses cancel out the momentum and "elastic energy" that allows you to "bounce" out of reps.

On the bench press, you sometimes need that assist. By eliminating it on pushups, you add challenge to the move. More Reps: And of course you can load up on reps. But first, you can aim to challenge yourself with pushup variations, which is what you'll do in this workout. You'll do three moves in this all-pushups chest workout, and each move will challenge your chest in a slightly different way. Do this workout up to three times a week, resting at least one day between sessions yes, you may actually be that sore.

On days you don't do this workout, aim to train your back with pullups and rows, critical moves to help maintain shoulder health when you're challenging your chest. Do 4 sets per side of this pushup dropset, which combines a standard post pushup with classic pushups for a serious chest pump. Next up, hit the half-typewriter pushup, which once again has you unilaterally loading your chest, then adds time-under-tension as you typewriter your torso halfway across before pressing back up.

Do 3 sets of 8 to 10 reps per side. Finish your chest off with 3 sets of this 3-step pushup series, which features a little bit more unilateral loading and starts to incorporate your triceps too.

Want to rock your triceps a bit in the process too? Yes, they got work in the first three moves, but they'll take on added responsibility if you throw in one to two sets of this extra move, a "game" that pushes you to be explosive and pile up a few extra reps. United States. Type keyword s to search. Today's Top Stories. Bend at your elbows. The angle of the bend changes depending on the variation you use, but for the standard push up, make sure that they are around a degree angle.

Lower yourself, as far as you can go while keeping your form, aiming go low enough to at least make sure your elbows are in line with your shoulders. To do this move, get into the standard push up position, except move your hands out so there is more distance between them.

As you lower yourself, your elbows should be around degrees again. The close grip push up is similar to the standard push up as well. When you bring yourself to the ground, keep your elbows tucked in quite close to your body. Dominant muscle worked: triceps and chest. In this push up variation, you begin in your standard push up form with your back straight and legs engaged.

However, your hands are going to join together with both your index fingers touching each other as well as your thumbs, creating a diamond-shape. Then do the push up from there. The pike push up goes against the standard push up form, starting in a downward dog position. Your hips will be in the air with your hands and feet just slightly wider than shoulder-width. Your arms are slightly in front of you. You will look like an upside-V, forming a triangle with the ground.

In a slow and controlled movement, lower your head to the ground until it touches it, bending the elbows at a degree angle. Then lift back up again to your starting position. This is where incline push ups come in. You can grab a chair, table, bench or anything else that gives you that extra height. Then complete the push up but with your hands on this higher surface.

Just as you would adjust the weight distribution of the push up to make it easier in the incline, we can change it to make it more difficult.