While these phrases are cliche and quickly dismissed nowadays, it’s important to remember why these phrases became so popular in the first place.

In exercise, you truly do not make any gains without pushing your limits. Think about it. If you drop and do 20 pushups without a single problem, what did you accomplish? Well, you’ve taken a small step to help maintain your current fitness level, but you didn’t actually make any progress. After all, your body could already do 20 pushups no problem. How do you expect doing 20 pushups to make it any stronger?

Look at your workout regimine and ask yourself, “are the workouts I am doing helping me to increase my overall fitness level or simply maintain my current fitness level?”

If your goal is merely to maintain your current level of fitness, congratulations on reaching a point in life where you’re comfortable just going into cruise control for the rest of your life.

For the rest of us, let these cliche phrases like “push yourself” and “no pain, no gain” be an important reminder that without constantly pushing ourselves during every workout, we would be naive to ever expect an improvement in our overall fitness level.

So don’t just drop and do 20. Drop and do as many as you possibly can and then do two more. Get it? Or drop and do 20 so many times throughout the day that by the end of the day, 20 becomes challenging again. That is how you make gains in your fitness level: by pushing your body past its capabilities thereby telling it, “I need you to be able to do more than you can actually do now, so pick it up!”

Find a local school with a standard length track. The track should be one quarter mile long when ran from the inside lane. How much you run and how many pushups you do depends on your level of fitness. You should be able to attempt to run at least two miles, which is eight laps around the track. After every lap, drop and do a series of pushups. The number of pushups should be done in an A-shaped fashion allowing for a build up followed by a cool down.

After your first lap, drop and do 10 pushups for a quick warm-up. After the next lap, do 15. After that, 20. After that, 25. After that, do as many pushups as possible effectively “maxxing out”. From there, back track so that you end your workout with a 10 pushup cool down.

The key to this exercise is to avoid the temptation to stop for breaks. By never allowing your body the chance to rest, you’ll keep your heart rate increased and blood flow at a maximum. This entire exercise should only take about 20 minutes, but it will strengthen your chest and shoulders while aiding your cardiovascular health.

Keep things creative by varying the type of pushups that you do. You can do close-handed pushups after some laps, wide grip after others, and you can even use the bleacher stairs to do incline and decline pushups.

Just remember, above all else, keep pushing yourself! There’s no gain without some pain. This jogging and pushup exercise will be pretty painful, but you’ll see some noticable gains almost immediately!

One thing I do is travel around to poker tournaments. At these tournaments, players are given a break every hour or two. I make it a point to do 30 pushups on every break. Some people could do more, some people could do less. Thirty just so happens to be where I’m at right now. The goal is to find an amount of pushups that you can do 3-5 times throughout the day to completion. When I started this regimine, that number was a mere 15. It took just a little over two months before I was able to crank out 30 of them five times a day with little trouble.

Anyone could follow a routine like this. It’s impossible to be too busy to “drop and do 20″ a couple times a day. It literally takes like 30 seconds! One way to follow this routine is to do pushups during commercial breaks. The average person watches four hours of television per day. Let’s just say that you’re an exception to that rule and you only watch an average of one hour of TV per day. I’ll bet you’re still probably sitting idly through three or four commercial breaks. From now on, treat commercials as your prompt to do your daily pushups!

You’d be amazed at the results you can get from following this regimen. Our bodies need to be exercised. We weren’t meant to be inactive. The response you will get from an exercise routine as simple as just a few dozen pushups each day will be highly noticable. The resulting increase in confidence will pay countless dividens in other areas of your life.

If you can’t make exercising a huge priority in your life, don’t worry, that’s pretty common. However, anyone can drop to the ground and do pushups a few times a day. I’ll even do it in public. If people give me funny looks, I just tell them with a smile, “it was time for my pushups!”

Dwan and his friends like to bet on anything and everything, including when the lights will come back on following a power outage. The stakes? Not very high. The loser has to do ten pushups.

While this might seem like nothing more than a quirky story, I there’s more to it than that. Since reading that article, I decided to start making pushups more than just something I begrudgingly force myself to do each day. I discovered that using pushups as a social tool lead to not only pushups being more enjoyable, but also to doing a higher number of pushups!

For example, my friend and I recently watched a speech delivered by Barack Obama. I got the idea that every time Obama said the word “change”, I would do five pushups and every time he said the word “hope”, my friend would do five pushups. Well, if you’ve been following politics at all this year, you might be thinking, “you guys should have picked some different words!” By the end of that speech, we were exhausted!! My body was so tired that I would have sworn it felt like he was just saying “change, hope, change, hope, change, hope,” over and over again just to spite us!

The purpose of this example is to plant a seed of creativity regarding your pushup regimine. Pushups don’t have to be something you arbitrarily force yourself to do! By incorporating them into your life in a fun, competitive way, you can do more pushups and have more fun doing them.

Some ideas on how to incorporate pushups into your daily routine:

• Use them to settle small disputes amongst friends (ie: whoever is wrong does 20 pushups).
• Do a pushup for every point the opposing team scores on your favorite football team.
• Force yourself to “pay” the penalty of 20 pushups each time you can’t say no to dessert.
• Stop and do 10 quick pushups every 10 minutes during your walk or jog.
• Every time you’re late for a date or an appointment, force yourself to do a pushup for each minute you were late (advice: wait till you get home to settle a pushup date for being 6 minutes late to a fine restaurant!)
• If you’re counting calories, force yourself to do a pushup for every 10 calories you ate beyond your daily limit.

You get the idea!

The point is… pushups don’t have to be dreadful or boring. Spice up your pushup routine by adding some fun and uncertainty to the whole thing!

Quality vs. cost

If you’re only looking for a jump rope, it probably doesn’t make sense to buy a $30 brand-name product with special neoprene handles and other bells and whistles. You can probably find a suitable model in the toy department of a dollar store. Of course, if you do take the budget route, be careful of any item that you can injure you. For example, make sure the handles on your jump rope are sturdy and won’t break with regular use and check for any sharp edges around the connection points.

On the other hand, if you’re planning to make a big investment in major home exercise equipment, make sure you do your research! Don’t just buy the cheapest treadmill or elliptical trainer you can find – if it doesn’t have the features you want; you won’t be likely to use it. Look up other people’s opinions at ConsumerReports.com and ePinions.com. If people have overwhelmingly reviewed one machine negatively, don’t buy it – even if the price is right.

Safety and durability

Don’t just buy an exercise machine off the internet – make sure you can see it in person before you commit. Evaluate any potential item for safety purposes before you buy – see if it looks sturdy and check the areas where metal and plastic join. Metal can easily wear into the plastic, which can snap or give way, resulting in injury. This is especially important to check if you’re purchasing larger pieces of equipment that will support your whole body.

If cost is an issue, don’t compromise on a lower quality machine. First, find out which brand of equipment you want to own and what specific model number you want to own. See if you can find any second hand items available for purchase through classified listings or garage sales. Of course, while this may help you cut costs, it’s also important to examine every item carefully before you purchase it. You might be able to find a like-new piece of equipment for pennies on the dollar.

Choosing equipment that you’ll use

Each year thousands of treadmills, exercise bikes, rowing machines and cross trainers collect dust in people’s homes. Aside from not doing anything to improve fitness, these items cost money and take up valuable space and resources. If you aren’t 100% sure you’re going to use your home fitness equipment regularly, try visiting your local gym to test out various pieces of equipment before you buy. This will help you determine if you really want to pay to have similar machines in your home for daily use.

Today, you can find exercise equipment in almost any store. That said, before purchasing these items, it’s important to make sure that they’ll meet your unique needs. If you have concerns about any particular item, you may want to wait until you can look in another store, or find out what else is available. Once you’re committed to exercise, having the right items on hand at home is a great step in the direction of achieving your fitness goals.

Bent Knee Pushups

If you haven’t exercised in years or lead a sedentary lifestyle, you may need to start with bent knee pushups. Start on your hands and knees and then walk your hands forward until your back is straight. Complete the pushup using your hands and knees as the only contact points on the ground.

Doing pushups in this position is much easier than in a full, military-style pushup, so it’s a great way for beginners to start building up their arm strength. This style also makes it easier for you to lift your body off the floor and focus on keeping your back straight. With your knees bent, your risk of falling on your knees and causing damage to your knee caps and ankles is much smaller. Later, as your upper body becomes stronger, start incorporating traditional pushups into your routine.

Vertical Pushups

Another great beginner’s exercise is the vertical pushup. Stand with your feet about three feet away from a wall, then lean over until your chest is touching the wall with your hands in a pushup position. Slowly push away from the wall by extending your arms until they’re straight. Adjust the distance of your feet from the wall to make this exercise more or less challenging.

Even though pushing off from a wall or vertical surface may not be technically considered a pushup, it does achieve similar goals. Your back, shoulders, and arms are still in motion, building strength in these muscles. If you can’t do a bent knee pushup properly, you may want to try vertical ones until your back and shoulders improve in strength. If you’re simply looking for some variety, vertical pushups can offer you a fun, easy way to achieve that goal. Just make sure that you have a mat in place on the wall so you don’t bump your head!

One Arm Pushups

For the more advanced pushup students – change up your workout with one arm pushups. While one arm pushups may look very difficult, consider that even body builders had to start somewhere. Start by trying just one on each side – if you can’t handle it, work on building your arm strength further before tackling this goal. As you get stronger, remember to be careful – make sure your wrist, arm and shoulder stay in proper alignment or you risk serious muscle injury.

Unfortunately, many people get discouraged from doing pushups because of the tremendous arm strength required by the traditional variety. In many cases, trying out some variations of this exercise can help you build strength and achieve your fitness goals. For the most part, as long as you don’t have a medical condition that precludes you from doing pushups, you can gain a great deal of benefit from them. As you try out different forms of this exercise, you may even find that you want to include them in special, more focused upper body workout sessions.

Get a medical checkup

Even if you think you’re perfectly healthy, it’s best to have a physical before you start exercising. During this exam, let your doctor know that you’re planning to start exercising at a gym. This is an ideal time to ask if there are any exercises that you shouldn’t perform – especially if you have a history of any major injuries or illnesses. Work with your doctor to determine what precautions you need to take while you’re exercising.

Hydration and food

If you aren’t physically fit, your eating habits probably also need improvement to give you the energy you’ll need to workout regularly. If you skip breakfast, eat too many sweets or fall into any one of a number of dietary traps, you may not have the energy to complete your workouts – and you certainly won’t see the results you want. Work on switching to a diet rich in whole grains, fruits, vegetables and lean, healthy proteins.

In addition, while you’re at the gym, it’s best to keep plain water on hand. As you sweat, it’s crucial to make sure that the water from your body is replaced as quickly as possible. This is especially important in the beginning, as you may not even be aware of how often your body suffers from a lack of sufficient hydration. If you do more than an hour of strenuous physical activity, you’ll need to replace electrolytes lost through sweat, but otherwise steer clear of expensive energy drinks – most of them are full of calories.

What to include in your gym bag

If you’re planning to go to the gym on a regular basis, you’ll need a gym bag. If you live far away from the gym – or if you plan to go before work or other activities – it’s also likely that you’ll want to shower there. If this is your plan, you’ll want to carry a towel, a complete change of clothes, your own soap, shampoo, conditioner, and grooming accessories, and a pair of flip flops for the shower. If you don’t want to carry huge bottles with you, small plastic bottles are available that you can use to hold liquid soaps.

Modern gyms offer members many things that they need in order to achieve fitness goals – from personal trainers to group fitness classes and more. Despite all these amenities, people get discouraged or drop out for a variety of reasons. In some cases, simply being prepared for certain situations before you go to the gym will make it much easier for you to continue working toward your fitness goals.

Toning Your Back

While pushups don’t increase the amount of weight on your back through the use of external weights, the muscles in your back will be gently toned as you work to keep it straight during the exercise. If you can’t keep your legs even with your back at first, you can bend your knees and do a modified push up to keep your back straight. This modified pushup will still help tone your back without causing injury. As your fitness level improves, you may want to go back to a more traditional form of pushup to increase the strength of your back.

Building Shoulder Strength

Pushups are well known for improving shoulder strength and mass. When you do pushups, you’re leveraging most of your body weight on your shoulders. Because the shoulders are working together, you’ll strenghten the muscles that cross your chest and upper back. In most cases – unless you’re interested in body building – pushups combined with other simple exercises should be enough for your everyday fitness routine. Even if you want to go beyond this level, pushups should always be a part of your home fitness routine.

Strengthening Your Arms

In addition to your shoulders, your upper arms and forearms also derive benefit from pushups. As you push your body up off the floor and lower it back down, the muscles in your arms are forced to expand and contract with the added resistance of the weight of your body. As you might expect, when your whole arm is involved in the exercise, you have a better chance of exercising each muscle group. If you do pushups on a regular basis, you may find that your arms will gain tone and muscle definition more quickly than with exercises that work only one group. And – perhaps best of all – you won’t have to spend any money on weights or other forms of equipment.

As with any other exercise, you should check with your doctor to make sure that it’s safe for you to do pushups. If you have shoulder, back, elbow, or wrist issues, you may want to make sure that these exercises will not add to your problems. When done properly and with safety in mind, pushups serve a vital role in toning and strengthening your back, upper body and arms. Without a question, they have served this vital purpose for millions of people in a way that is easy and cost effective.

As a general rule, push-ups that are significantly challenging (and thus hard to achieve more than just a couple repetitions) are more suited for those looking to gain mass. Anyone looking to trim themselves down, or increase their lean muscles mass should stick to push-ups that allow for a higher number of repetitions.

There’s a reason the basic push-up is, well, the “basic” push-up: it’s safe, effective, and easy-to-learn. Some of the push-ups we’ll mention in this article are quite challenging. It’s important to always take stock of your fitness level. Some of these push-ups aren’t capable of being completed by everyone. Be aware that injury can occur when one is attempting a push-up beyond the scope of their fitness level.

Fist Push-Ups

As the title might suggest, fist push-ups are done with your knuckles as opposed to the palm of your hand. Physically, these push-ups differ from a basic push-up in that there is less surface area on which to distribute your upper body weight. In other words, the knuckles are smaller than the palms. With less surface area shouldering the weight of your body, the chest, shoulders, and triceps will have their work cut out for them. In general, most people can only do about 75% of the number of fist push-ups as they otherwise might normally achieve through regular push-ups.

One-Handed Push-Up

This is perhaps the most challenging push-up one could attempt. Quite simply, place one hand directly below your chest. The other hand should be placed across the small of your back to help balance the body. From there, lower yourself down and breathe out as you push up. It is important to note that this push-up places a significant strain on the elbow, so use your head and keep things reasonable if you attempt a one-handed push-up.

Pyramid Push-Up

These push-ups are also commonly referred to as “closed-grip push-ups”. While in a normal push-up position, bring your hands together and make a diamond with your thumbs and index fingers. These push-ups are harder than a basic push-up, but still quite achievable. By bringing your hands together, you place more emphasis on the triceps to complete the exercise. This, in addition to “dips”, are a great way to isolate the triceps without needing assistance from weights or machinery.

Wiide Push-Up

The opposite of pyramid push-ups, wide push-ups require you to spread your hands far apart. This takes pressure off of the triceps and forces your chest and shoulders to bear a heavier load to complete the movement. A wide push-up stance reduces the range of motion you will achieve during the exercise. Depending on how wide your position, it may be impossible to push yourself more than just a couple of feet off the ground.

Rocky Push-Up

I forget if it was the first Rocky movie, or Rocky IV (where he fights the Russian) in which Sylvester Stallone made famous the “Rocky push-up”. This is a very challenging push-up that should not even be attempted by anyone but those of the utmost fitness level. The Rocky push-up is essentially nothing but one-handed push-ups with one little twist: you change hands after each repetition without taking weight off of your toes. So on the upward motion of this push-up, it is important to launch yourself into the air enough to take the hand that did the push-up and place it on the small of your back, and to take the hand that was on the small of your back and place it into position to do the heavy work for the next repetition. This is almost impossible to achieve without a very wide foot stance. By spreading your feet 2-3 feet apart, the body is more balanced and thus capable of enduring the chaotic movements of the upper body. Truthfully, this push-up is more useful as a stunt than it is as an exercise.