Welcome to the first step to building upper body strength! You are starting a gradual process that can take months or more, but your efforts will yield a better muscle tone, an optimal posture, improved sports performance and a general increase in your ability during daily tasks which require physical effort.
The traditional push-up is one of the best exercises you can do to develop strength and endurance, build upper body muscle, strengthen the joints and even help coordinate the muscles of the core and the lower body muscles. However, the young, the elderly and people not at their fitness peak can struggle to complete even a single regular push-up. This is why you don’t jump into push-ups – you wean yourself in. We must first prepare and develop some strength before we seriously attempt regular push-ups. There are several exercises that we’ll go through, but we start with the wall push-up. The wall push-ups will strengthen your arms, shoulders, and chest and you can do them right there in the living room (during a TV commercial break, maybe?).
Performing
- Stand a little farther than arm’s length away facing a wall, with your feet shoulder-width apart;
- Place your palms on the wall at shoulder height and shoulder-width apart;
- Start bending your elbows as you slowly breathe in until your forehead almost touches the wall – the final position;
- Breathing out, slowly push yourself back to the starting position and repeat.
Exercise Notes
Wall push-up is the first exercise in the series which will consist of 10 levels and, apart from some simple technique, doesn’t require much in the way of strength. Everyone, the young and the elderly, should be able to perform this exercise. As a matter of fact, the wall push-up is often the first therapeutic exercise used during the healing process of injuries or post-operation recovery – it will gradually get you into shape without unnecessarily stressing the body. Wall push-ups gently engage and stimulate the most traumatic parts of the body: the elbows, wrists and shoulders and most importantly, the delicate rotator cuff. They also increase blood flow and strengthen and tone your upper body. Beginners should strive to accurately perform this exercise, following the technique explained above and tracking their performance.
Training
| First level | 1 set of 10 reps |
| Second level | 2 sets of 25 reps |
| Final level | 3 sets of 50 reps |
Technique
Most people are able to do this exercise, perhaps with a few exceptions of the seriously injured or otherwise debilitated. Even in the process of recovery this exercise can show the current fitness level of the patient or athlete, which is the starting point in building a program for further rehabilitation.
After overcoming the Final Level of the wall push-up continue with the next exercise – the Incline Push-Up.
