Get Pushin' With The Push-Up

Alrighty, first post of the Bond year (as in 007, as in 2007, get it? heehee), and we're getting back to basics. We're going to review one of the first exercises that everybody learned way back when. In P.E. class, it you probably did something like jumping jacks, squats, sit-ups, and push-ups as a part of the class. But once we found the iron in the weight room, alot of people tend to forget these first few classics. Fortunately for us, true classics never go out of style.

If exercises were words, the push-up would be the word "the". It's that basic and fundamental. I've taught 4-year olds and 84-year olds how to do a proper push-up, because it's simply an important movement to know.

Strength coach Alwyn Cosgrove has said that his clients have to "earn the right" to use weights by first mastering bodyweight exercises, including push-ups and squats. While I may not be that strict, I do believe that everyone should be able to do a handful of push-ups before getting too involved with free weights or machines.

Five push-ups is a bare minimum. That's just the starting point. A rough guideline I often set for clients is to eventually be able to do their age in repetitions for one set, or for the over-40 crowd, half your age. Sorry 30-somethings, you end up with the most work, but it's worth it.

I actually wrote an article explaining a bunch of push-up how-to's for the women's fitness website f-heit.com, but the information is absolutely applicable to anybody. I covered the basic push-up, the close grip push-up, the 1-leg up push-up, the monster big daddy T-push-up (a.k.a rotating push-up),and for bonus points, I explained the plank. The entire article can be read here.