So, the basic pushup is hands directly under the shoulders, keep your body stiff as a plank, and then bend at your elbows and shoulders so that your arm forms a 90 degree angle. Not too hard. I could do 93 when I was really into high rep pushups.
The problem with high rep pushups is that they barely build any muscle. They mainly build endurance. Endurance is good. It helps with athletics... but it doesn't build much power, which I want for my sports.
Lower rep ranges build more power and mass. 1-8 reps is the best (usually) rep range for building up mass and strength. I can't do that yet because of my shoulder, but I can at least bring down my rep range so that I get more out of my pushups.
We do pushups at track a couple times a week. We usually don't do many, the highest amount of reps in one set was 15. Now, I can't do 93 pushups anymore, but I probably can do in the 70s or 80s. 15 reps won't do much for me if I can do so many more reps. So, I want to make them harder.
How so? Well the easiest way to make pushups harder is to slow down! Cranking out 50 pushups in 30-40 seconds don't build much muscle, and that isn't great for your joints. Try going real slow on your pushups. This will also let you use more of the muscles in your chest, and shoulders because when you do them fast you actually are only using some of your muscles. You're only really pushing on the bottom half of the rep when you go fast. Your momentum carries you up the rest of the way. Granted, this is good when you're in a contest, but don't train like that. Your joint don't like it as much.
Next basic way to make pushups harder bring your hands closer to your hips. Your hips are your center if gravity when doing a pushup. Your hand and feet split up your bodyweight. Putting your hands directly under your hips puts much more weight on the hands, and less on the feet. More weight=harder=less reps=more muscle. You won't get hugely jacked doing this, but you'll get much more out of this than regular pushups.
Another way to make them harder is bring your hands closer, and then eventually into a diamond pushup. This is much harder, but isolates your triceps more than your chest. So if you're trying to gain some chest strength, this one won't be much good to you. A note of cation; this puts a lot of strain on your elbows. Even if you have the strength to do a lot of these, go into them slowly. You don't want elbow tendonitis! Stretch (as usual) after this exercise.
You can make pushups really hard by going out wide. This isolates the chest, but I don't really recommend it. The wider your hands, the more strain is on your rotator cuff. Maybe doing a few of these would be good. They also don't give you full range of motion, so be sure to work a full range of motion exercise as well.
Going deeper can increase the difficultly of a pushup as well. Some people have a problem with just going to 90 degrees. Maybe going deeper would be better for them so that they don't cheat by mistake. I have seen people say this can be worse for your shoulder joint, and I've seen people say it's fine for it. So if you feel like this is irritating your shoulder(s), don't do it. Try some other variation.
Another way to make a pushup harder is put your body in a decline position. This loads you're arms with more weight. Only problem might be if you're trying to work your chest, a higher incline will put more weight on your shoulder muscle, and less on the chest. You can use a physio ball to make your feet unstable to increase the core work.
Speaking of physio balls, try putting your hands on one, then doing a pushup, balance is key. Probably give you a good core and shoulder workout.
There are plenty of other ways to make a pushup harder, but I don't have the time to write more about that... but I want to cover three more kind of pushups.
Try taking a limb out of the question. First off, a leg. This will put a little more weight on your hands and require you to use a little core. Make sure to switch legs to balance out your core. Once you've mastered most of these variations, try taking an arm out. One hand pushups arm pretty hard. I can do them with wide legs, but I can't do them with close legs yet.
The next kind of pushup is a handstand pushup. This one is super tough if you don't use a wall for balance. It isolates your shoulders, and does nearly no chest... but is a great shoulders, triceps, and core workout!
Lastly, the Planche pushup. Yeah. It's like a pushup, but with your feet off the ground. This one requires much more balance and core than the handstand pushup because of the body angle. This is an insane exercise. You're lifting your entire bodyweight in pushup form. Your chest and shoulders are doing a ton of work to hold the body up, while you're entire core is trying to balance the body. This is my long term goal. Probably will take ms at least a year, if I stay constant with my work to the get to this pushup.
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