Maximize Your Push-Up Results: The One Method to Progressive Overload

The One Method

Have you been working out using push-ups, but not seeing the desire results? Or maybe you're looking to maximize your gains. I can help you on both of the things I just wrote, so you can get the best out of this reading. 

To get more out of your pushups, you need to progressively overload the muscles that is being used. This method I will show you will help you maximize your results more.

But first we need to explain what the push-up form should look like.

Form

The placement of the arm actually matters on what muscle you want to focus on. The closer your hand placement is to the chest, the more it works on the triceps. Meanwhile the farther away it is (On a horizontal level) the works more on the chest. I like doing the traditional way, which is around shoulder placement level. (Stick your arm out in front of you on shoulder level)

The common 3 things you should keep check while doing the push-ups are.

• Chest touching the floor, and not the stomach.

• Contracting your abs, and glutes

• Pushing to failure

Chest To the Floor

The chest touching the floor is an important aspect of the push-up to gain more strength and a stronger chest, even though it's such a small difference. If your able to do 40 push-ups (not including the chest to the floor) then the moment you add this one thing, your push-ups could go from 40 to 10-15 or maybe less.

Contract Abs and Glutes

Contracting your abs and glutes is a way for your body to adjust some parts in the form. In the pushup, most of the time your muscle relaxes then it will sag (lower back) and can lead to lower back pain, to prevent this you would contract your abs and glutes. 

Failure

Pushing to failure is the number one reason for muscle growth and strength aside from a diet. When you keep doing pushups in a certain of succession without stopping and reach failure. The muscles will break down muscle tissues and recover stronger.

The Method

Now that you have a good grasp of the core concepts of a pushup, I can now tell you what to do. It's nothing crazy but the requirement you have to do is to keep doing a pushup until failure. Then quickly after that dropping your knees to the floor and doing knee push-ups and do them till failure.

    This is so effective because your able to go to failure in a normal push up, and then transitioning to a knee push up which is an easier progression of a pushup, so your able to go more pass failure of what you normally can reach. In return you will get more gains for it.

Can't do a push up? No problem.

Don't feel discouraged if you're struggling with pushups. Everyone has to start somewhere. I know I did. A great way to build up to a full pushup is to start with an easier variation, such as a knee pushup. If that's still of a challenging, try a wall pushup, where you place your hands on a wall and do a pushup while standing. Remember, it's not about the number of pushups you can do, but the quality of each one. And if you're still really struggling, start by laying on your back with your arms extended to the sky at eye level, and bench press the air.