The Pushup

Life: One rep at a time About the pushup! For the last two weeks we have had a pushup challenge that so many have attempted. For this I want to say thank you. I want to tell you why I chose this particular exercise. First, just about everybody can do it. But more importantly the pushup is quite possibly the best exercise any athlete can do. Most people associate the pushup with just chest and triceps, but they are a great exercise for upper back strength, lower back strength, shoulder proprioception, and torso stability (core). The scapula is allowed to go through it’s full range of motion during the pushup, not so doing a bench press. Also a muscle called the serratus anterior is activated during the pushup. Usually this muscle is a commonly inactive muscle and is quick to shut down at the first sign of shoulder problems. So keeping it active is very important. And let’s not forget about all the great core stability and strength we can acquire from the KING PUSHUP! Every throwing athlete needs to do pushups, every striking athlete needs to do pushups. This is just about all athletes. Also the variations we can establish with the pushup are almost limitless. Upper body stabilization, lower body stabilization, explosiveness in upper, lower and complete body chain. It’s one hell of an exercise and I will always incorporate it in my training and my clients training.