The 3 push up variations where your legs are in alignment with the body are simply “standard” push ups positions where your body is parallel to the ground. The only thing that changes is the distance that your hands are apart; close-grip, standard-width, and wide-grip.

The other variations are in height; legs elevated, legs in alignment (body parallel to the floor), and upper body elevated.

The idea is to change the angle of attack on the pectoral (chest) muscles. By changing the position of your hands and your feet, you work the muscles from every conceivable angle, which equates to more results.

It’s a glorious thing!

Thanks!

As a general rule, 3 sets of any given exercise is a good idea. That way you get to fatigue the muscle, you get to work it while it is fatigued, and then you get to over-work the muscle it while it is fatigued.

Yes, there are other ways to do that as well, so I am not saying that the “3 set rule” is the only way you should ever exercise. However, if you want to get better at push-ups, then yes, 3 sets at each push-up position would be a great place to start.

The thing to keep in mind here is that the push up workout on this page is just that – an entire workout. It targets all of the push up muscles over and over again, and from many different angles, which is exactly why it is so effective.

However, if you target a specific muscle over and over again, and work it out intensely, it will never grow completely unless you give it a chance to fully recover. Remember – when we exercise, we BREAK DOWN muscle tissue, we don’t build it. The building part comes from proper recovery, and proper nutritional intake during that recovery.

All of that being said, these concepts are what we call “best practices”. In other words, following proper workout and nutrition tips will get you the best results, in the shortest time, and with the least chance of injury.

That isn’t to say that it’s not physically possible to do tons and tons of push ups and get good results from that. The goal, however, is to get the BEST results possible, in the SHORTEST amount of time, with the LEAST chance of injury.

Hope that helps to clear things up!

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That is WAY too many push ups to be doing every day. Your body never has a chance to recover, so you’ll never see the results.

My advice would be to practice quality over quantity, and reign in the number of push ups that you are doing, as well as the number of days per week that you are doing them.

Use this post and Part II of this series to give you ideas about different types of push ups to do, practice picture-perfect, controlled form on every single repetition, and give yourself two days to recover from every push up workout.

You can do other exercises during those recovery days, but not push ups, or any “pushing” movements that use your chest, triceps, or shoulders.

Also, make sure that you are getting plenty of high-quality protein. If you don’t get enough protein for muscle repair, your chest will never grow.

Hope that helps!

I would not recommend only doing this workout. This is a great upper body workout that will challenge your shoulders, triceps, and your chest muscles, but that still leaves plenty of other muscles that need attention in order to maintain a balanced, injury-free level of fitness.

I would also check out the lower body exercises section of this site, as well as the cardiovascular training section. Here are the links to both:

http://www.fitnessdestinations.com/category/lower-body-exercises/

http://www.fitnessdestinations.com/category/cardiovascular-training/