Doing push ups should never get old or boring to you. Push ups are excellent training methods for your body and there are so many different ways to do one that you can exercise a myriad of the muscles in your body. They can be hard to do, but that is the point — they are a tough to do, but they are worth it!

Push ups are a superb upper body exercise that promote balance, strength, and stability. They also help to increase overall fitness, range of motion, endurance, and flexibility. They develop muscles such as your triceps, your deltoids (shoulder muscles), the scapular muscles (rotator cuff), many upper back muscles, and of course, your pectoralis major in your chest. Using your own body weight in exercises is the safest way to go. Adding weights can always make you stronger, but a lot of times, you really do not need that extra weight to gain that extra strength. You should always strive for a perfect push up with each that you do in order to prevent injury and to build correct muscle memory.

There is a right way to do a push up. How many you do is up to you, but you should do them correctly. Doing 100 terrible ones is worse for you than doing 10 good ones. When doing a push up, you should fully extend your elbows from at the start and to the finish of a push up. Your toes should be on the floor and your legs, hips, and back should be parallel with the floor and straight as well. When doing a push up, make sure that you are going down far enough. Have someone make an upright fist and put it under your chest– see if your chest touches their fist and don’t cheat by getting someone with a large fist! Your chest should be slightly lower than parallel to the level of your arms.

There are many styles of push ups. Some include one handed, clap, fingertip,  diamond, knuckle, and more. Each will work out a different set of muscles, so make sure you know what you’re in for!