My Favorite Exercises: Push-ups

Let me share with you some of my favorite exercises, year in and year out.

Today, I want to talk about probably my favorite exercise, push-ups.

When I do an upper body workout, I warm up and then my first exercise is push-ups. Why?

Engages all your upper body muscle groups. Push-ups work every muscle in your upper body: your chest, back, shoulders and arms.

Gets your blood flowing. Even with good breathing, my entire upper body turns red from all the blood pumping when I do my push-ups. I get warmed up fast!

No equipment required. You can do push-ups just about anywhere, any time. You are using your own body weight for push-ups. Do these when you travel.

So what kind of push-ups should you do? Do you have to do "men's" style or can you do them on your knees? It really doesn't matter. If you can't do the full-body push-ups, by all means, do them on your knees. The important thing is to use good form. Lift and lower the entire body. Often, I see women (and men), lifting and lowering only the shoulders. Funny how people like to cheat themselves of the full benefit of an exercise. Do it correctly or don't do it at all. Your body should remain straight, and it should move like a see-saw, in one piece.

Can women get strong enough to do full-body push-ups? Of course. I have never been able to do pull-ups unassisted, but I built up sufficient strength to do full push-ups. If you want to learn to do them, try what I did.

• Get in a good push-up position with arms full extended and body straight.
• Lower as much as you can and then push back up.
• Next time lower as much as you can and then go a little lower. At first you may collapse. Over time, You will be able to go a little lower and then a little lower and then push back up. One day you will surprise yourself by going to the point where you can just about touch your chest to the ground and then lift yourself back up. That's when you will have achieved the full push-up. Once you can do one, adding reps is easy. You'll see.

You may want to build up to full push-ups for no other reason than you'll impress yourself and your friends. Not that many women do them. But I know you can.

I do four sets of 12 push-ups. I change up my hands to get a slightly different workout for my muscles. I generally do a set with my arms directly under the shoulders on my knuckles (left over from karate days) and then a set with flat hands. Then I do two sets, knuckles and flat hands, with my arms wider apart.

Knuckle push-ups have the added benefit of strengthening your wrists. They are really no harder than flat push-ups. Give them a try.

I'll be covering more of my favorite exercises in upcoming posts. In the meantime, send me your comments. Let me know what your favorite exercises are and why.