Push Ups – Most Useful Exercise For Your Upper Body

One should never do an exercise without fully understanding the implications it has on the body and overall health. Doing push ups should not be about taking up your gym buddy’s challenge on how many push ups you can complete versus his before the timer runs out.

Even though the ultimate purpose is fitness, each person has a different goal, motivation and purpose for exercising. Consider the following points to know the powerful benefits of push ups. Understand what makes this classic cardio exercise the most useful exercise for your upper body. 

1. Push ups are done as a strength training exercise as it builds muscle power and endurance.
2. In particular, doing push ups regularly, strengthens the core muscle group that will enable you to perform physical activities in your daily life with ease.
3. Push ups work on other parts of the upper body as well such as the back, shoulders, chest, arms and wrists.
4. It is a versatile exercise. There are many variations of push ups that can be used to shift the emphasis and work specific upper body muscles harder. For example lifting your feet off the floor will force your upper chest to work harder. Or tuck your arms in closer to your sides if you want to activate and build strong triceps. 
5. Push up trains your upper body muscles to become strong enough to carry your entire body weight.
6. Because it requires you to lower and raise yourself with your body parallel to the floor, it activates your core muscles to help keep your back straight. This is also how push ups help in sculpting and defining your upper body and are helpful in improving your posture.
7. Push ups is a strenuous high intensity cardio exercise that is useful in burning excess calories. This makes it a perfect exercise for fat reduction and weight loss so you get flat, trim and well toned abs.
8. Doing the ideal number of push ups as per your body, can be useful in building and maintaining muscle density. This gains importance as we get older when muscle mass tends to reduce.       
9. Apart from upper body strength and endurance training, push ups also helps to create balance and stability by training the microscopic nerve fibres that keep the body balanced.
10. The standard push up is useful to protect the shoulder joint from injury by working the stabilizing muscles surrounding the rotator cuff joint.

How To Do The Standard Push Up

Start with doing just a few push ups daily as even that is sure to get you results. Push ups is a classic full body workout that activates and strengthens your core muscles.

• Get into a plank position with your body in a straight line.
• Feet should be together with toes mounted firmly.
• Arms should be straight and close to your sides, in line with your shoulders.
• Roll your shoulders back, bend your elbows, pressurise your hands and lower yourself to touch the mat or floor.
• Immediately lift up to original plank position.
• Try to do at least 10 reps to begin with.  

In the process you will also gain strength and endurance to stay active all day and experience reduced fatigue.

While practising tough exercises such as push ups and using heavy strength training equipment one needs to be careful. Make sure you are applying the correct technique or else it could lead to injuries. A medical emergency can strike without warning. That is why it is best to be prepared for such unforeseen eventualities. This is where health insurance has an essential role to play in protecting your finances should an accident, sudden illness occur or immediate hospitalisation be required by you or a member of your family.

It is advisable to buy a health insurance plan that can give you maximum benefits such as cashless hospitalisation cover at network hospitals, critical illness cover, pre and post hospitalisation expenses coverage, lifetime renewal and 24x7 call assistance. Do compare plans and insurers to find the one that best suits your requirements. Purchase health insurance online from a reputed health insurance provider and be rest assured that you have taken a wise and smart decision to secure your health and finances.  

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