You likely know that more exercise can be good for your health. At the same time, you may still want to know about the specific benefits pushups offer.
These will include both unique aspects of pushups and more general health benefits of implementing a resistance training workout.
One thing to note is that you want to make sure you implement a good pushup technique. Neglecting this can lead to injuries.
1. Pushups work a few muscles
Pushups are a bodyweight resistance training exercise that can help you build muscle mass, improve muscle strength, and improve muscle endurance.
Many people build muscle for the visual effects but it also benefits your health in a variety of ways.
Some of the muscles you work with pushups include:
- Pectoral (chest)
- Triceps (back part upper arms)
- Front deltoids (front part of main shoulder muscles)
- To some extent your abs
Keep in mind that just doing a few repetitions here and there and even 100 pushups a day are not always useful.
To grow and strengthen the muscles you work, you want to do the right amounts of pushups, rest enough, and provide your body with the nutrients it needs.
How many pushups should you do depends on your training goals. Something like 3 to 6 sets of 6 to 50 pushups can be helpful for muscle growth.
That being said, at some point, the percentage of your body weight used in pushups may stop being enough resistance to build extra muscle mass with this exercise.
To resolve this, more advanced lifters can consider doing pushups with extra weights. For example by wearing a backpack or weighted vest.
These can benefit how many results you can get and how fast.
Something else to note is that you can do pushups with a narrower or wider grip to change in what ratio you work the muscles above.
2. Pushups can help you lose weight
To achieve weight loss, you need to get in a situation where you use up more energy than is coming in from your diet.
Pushups can help weight loss because of two main reasons.
First of all, the pushup movement requires more energy from your body than most standard daily activities.
Exactly how many calories pushups burn is hard to predict perfectly but there are a few estimations.
The average person can burn around 89 to 152 calories while doing pushups at a vigorous pace for 15 minutes.
Secondly, doing pushups in good repetition and resistance ranges can help you build muscle mass.
Since your weight influences how many calories you burn, adding muscle with pushups will help you burn more calories throughout the day.
One important thing to note is that your nutrition and other lifestyle habits still need to be good enough to actually make this benefit of pushups happen.
3. You can do pushups almost anywhere
Many sports and exercises require you to be in a specific location.
This can still be worth the extra fun and effectiveness but on the other hand, it does add a lot of transport time to your workouts.
Even if you just have to do a 10-minute car ride per workout, the amount of time you spend on the road really adds up.
On the flip side, one of the benefits of pushups is that you can do them basically everywhere. The only things you need are your body and a flat surface.
This aspect of pushups can also make it easier to stay consistent with your exercise routine. All you need is a few spare minutes and you can work your chest, triceps, and front deltoids a nice amount.
4. Pushups are easy to modify
While the standard pushup is still one of the top bodyweight exercises, you can modify this movement in a variety of ways.
For example, you can do decline pushups where you elevate your feet to make the exercise harder for your muscles.
Another option is doing knee pushups if you can’t do the regular version enough times (yet).
You could even do something like a clapping pushup to focus on muscle power instead of growth and strength.
One or more of these pushup variations could align more with your training goals or simply make your workouts more fun by switching things up.
5. Pushups are budget-friendly
Another thing that stops people from exercising more is the cost involved.
Putting money into your health can often be a great investment but there are also many cases where you can get a lot of positive effects with less.
One of the benefits of bodyweight exercises like pushups is that they don’t require a big fitness budget. Especially if the no-equipment version is challenging enough for your strength level.
And even if you need pushup equipment, certain options like resistance bands and weighted vests are relatively budget-friendly (and can be used for other exercises).
6. Pushup workouts can be time-efficient
Many people think getting in shape requires hours of exercise every day. Luckily, this is often not the case.
Relatively short workouts can already offer a lot of valuable benefits. Especially when it comes to resistance training exercises like pushups.
All you need to do is pressure the muscles you work enough to cause repair and growth processes.
This does require some time but as you can see after doing a set of pushups to muscle failure, these workouts can be relatively time-efficient.
If you are interested in this benefit, it can be smart to do weighted pushups when you are strong enough.
Additionally, there are other weighted pushup alternatives that can be good options if you want to save some time.
