How to Build Muscle for Women: 8 Types Of Push ups For Women And Their Benefits

8 Types Of Push ups For Women And Their Benefits

Push ups is a calisthenics exercise which is probably the most famous exercise ever. It has a large number of variations and focuses on strengthening the upper body and core along with the triceps. Being able to do nth number of push up exercises and variations is something that almost every fitness freak longs to boast about and there is a reason why it is such a hard feat.

For a woman or an overweight man, it is very hard in the beginning as this exercise requires the contraction of the upper body muscles, and women in general tend to have less upper body strength. Also, when men tend to turn obese, they start losing muscle concentration in the upper body, more than in their lower body. The benefits of push ups is that it can counter act all of these problems and control you fat deposits.

However, with some patience and perseverance, this exercise can be easily done by anyone looking forward to get fitter. The first and foremost requirement is that you need to be mentally ready in order to be completely exhausted and still have enough strength left to push yourself up farther.

That being said, let’s get started.

When you are starting off, you can do a half push up, also known as the girl pushups.

1. Girl pushups:

During this step, you need to place your knees on the mat as shown in the picture and then lower yourself to the ground just like in a normal pushup pose, but you have the support of the knees to give you more balance. You can keep doing these pushups until you can do around 10-15 sets without feeling winded and then you can move on to standard pushups and then on to further extreme variations.

If you cannot even manage to do the half pushups, then what you need to do is the counter pushups, or for the absolute beginners, the wall pushups.

In the counter pushups, you can use the kitchen counter as the name suggests, but certainly you do not use your kitchen space to workout. So, use a chair (make sure its stationary) or a bench or even the bed. Any horizontal surface at the right height would do. You should position yourself on this surface and use that balance to push yourself up and down while balancing on your toes. Like this:

2. Simple Pushup:

And for the ultimate rookie, try doing the wall pushups.

[ Read: Exercise For Triceps ]

To do this, place both your hands on a wall slightly wider than your shoulder width, then kick your legs out and stretch your body till you are on your toes. Push forward towards the wall using the balance of your core and hands, and then push back to the original position to complete one pushup. Repeat this till you are confident enough to move to the counter pushup, then to the half pushups and then to the standard pushups.

Pretty soon, a wall push up for you might start to look something like this:

After a while of doing normal standard pushups, there are an endless number of variations that you can do, like:

In this pushup, you place yourself either in half pushup or even full pushup position and you lower yourself like the normal pushup but when you come up, you push up with real force and clap your hands and then come back to the ground on both your hands.

[ Read: Weight Loss by Walking ]

5. Diamond Pushup:

Instead of placing your hands at a width wider than your shoulders, here you make a diamond shape with your hands and then do a normal pushup, while balancing yourself on your hands. This will make your body demand more work from your muscles to balance yourself and hence, will give your core a better workout.

6. Spiderman Pushups:

To do this pushup, start on your normal plank position and then while you raise yourself up, bring up one of your knees toward the elbow as much as you can and then push it back as you return to the initial position.

7. The Elevated Pushup:

Once you get to a position where you can do all these variations, you can do a reverse version of the counter pushup by putting your feet upon an elevated surface and doing a push up in that position. This will make your body work harder.

There are also variations such as: