What Do Push-ups Help With?

Being physically fit can help improve your balance and coordination. Doing push-ups can help you increase lean muscle mass while promoting stamina. Push-ups also work numerous upper body muscles, which makes you stronger.

Push-ups Build Muscle

Push-ups are a form of resistance training which uses your own body weight. When you do a push-up, you bear all or most of your weight on your arms. As you complete repetitions and increase the amount of time you do them, you'll begin to build muscles in your arms, back and chest. Push-ups work your entire upper body.

Increased Core Strength

When you perform a push-up, you also engage your back and stomach muscles. Using proper form while doing push-ups will increase your core strength as you continue to keep your back straight and abs tight. You'll find that as you build core strength, it will become easier to perform other exercises that use core strength, such as exercising with an exercise ball. Having a strong core will also assist with coordination and balance.

Increased Stamina and Endurance

Push-ups can help you measure your fitness level, according to the MayoClinic.com. If you're just beginning to exercise, you might not be able to do a regular push-up and may have to do a modified push-up instead, in which you balance on your knees instead of your toes or lean up against a wall instead of on the floor. As you become fit, you'll be able to perform regular push-ups and you'll be able to perform more of them at one time. Doing push-ups while you're out of shape isn't easy and you might not be able to do very many, but that will change as you continue to work out.

Considerations

If you're just beginning to exercise, consider working out with a personal trainer. A personal trainer can help you make sure that you have proper form and may recommend whether or not you should do modified push-ups. If you don't have proper form, you may not build muscle and could injure yourself.

References

Article reviewed by Lisa Dittrich Last updated on: Jan 17, 2011

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