Conventional workout equipment like weight machines, barbells and dumbbells give you many exercise options and plenty of resistance to build your body. Push-ups are bodyweight exercises that require nothing but a room large enough to fit your body. Not only do push-ups elevate your heart rate, but they also incorporate a number of muscles.
Identification
Exercises are isolation or compound. Compound exercises, also known as multi-joint, work more than one muscle at a time. Isolation exercises only work one muscle. Push-ups are multi-joint exercises.
Muscles Worked
A conventional push-up is performed from a face-down position on the floor. When you perform it, your elbow and shoulder joints both get activated. The primary muscles involved with these motions are the pectorals, deltoids, triceps and biceps. The pectorals are the chest muscles which contract when your upper arms move toward the midline of your body. The deltoids are the muscles that give roundness to your shoulders and they get activated when you raise your arms forward and sideways. The triceps are found on the back of the upper arms and the biceps are on the front of the upper arms. These muscles contract when you bend and straighten your arms. The rectus abdominis, or "abs," and quadriceps also get worked. They are used isometrically to keep the body in good alignment. Isometric means there is no lengthening or shortening of a muscle.
Variations
By changing the position of your body, you can shift the emphasis to different areas when you do a push-up. Decline push-ups for example, place more emphasis on the lower pecs and front delts. These are performed by placing your feet on a bench or chair and placing your hands on the floor. Incline push-ups are performed with your hands on the bench and they place the emphasis on your lower chest. By doing a conventional push-up with one leg raised in the air, you will place more emphasis on your lower back and legs. The additional muscles that get targeted are the erector spinae, glutes and hamstrings. The erector spinae run down the vertebral column, the glutes are the butt muscles and the hamstrings are on the back of the thighs.
Considerations
Once your push-ups become easy, you can increase the challenge by wearing added resistance. Strap a weighted vest around your upper body or wear a backpack filled with heavy books. Weighted vests have small compartments that you can slip little weights into. Start out light and continually increase your weight as you get stronger.
Benefits
Whenever you do multi-joint exercises, you recruit a high amount of muscle fibers and build muscular strength. With push-ups, you also build muscular endurance, which is the ability to perform many repetitions against a given resistance for a prolonged period of time, according to the Sports Fitness Advisor website. This is beneficial when you play sports that include soccer, basketball and football where you are constantly in contact with opponents and pushing yourself off the ground. Push-ups create muscular endurance primarily in the upper body.
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