Why push-ups? We have beendoing push-ups since we were babies, to get our faces off the floor and see what the big world was about.
Building our upper body strength came naturally as we played with toys on the floor, crawled around under tables through imaginary forts and castles, and dug in the dirt outside.
Simple play gave us upper body strength.
(Just try doing everything a playing toddler does for an hour; it would exhaust an Olympic athlete.
) Army drill sergeants have been demanding push-ups from generations of soldiers because they work.
Pushing yourself up off the floor is an elemental exercise that primarily works the upper body and secondarily works the abs, hips, and legs, and requires no equipment.
Push-ups are the perfect free at-home fitness exercise.
But most of us can't do a push-up any more.
We lost upper body strength as we grew up spending less and less time physically interacting with our world.
Some of us had bad experiences in Physical Education classes, creating negative associations with exercises that used to be as natural to us as breathing.
As we get older and heavier our bone and muscle strength lessens without exercise, while our need to maintain strong bones and muscles to prevent injury grows.
Push-ups help prevent bone loss and injury.
Research shows that Bone Mass Density (a measure of bone strength) naturally increases until about age 30.
After about age 30 Bone Mass Density is naturally lost faster than it is built, bad news for adults hoping to stay healthy and active well into retirement.
In addition to strong bones we need strong upper body, core and hip muscles to prevent injury during a fall.
Everyone trips or slips at some point but your arms will not be much help if they cannot support your body weight.
The good news is you can maintain and even increase your muscular and skeletal strength by practicing weight bearing exercises.
Weight bearing exercises like running, jumping or dancing strengthen your lower body muscles and bones while arm exercises with weights or push-ups strengthen your upper body muscles and bones.
Activities such as swimming and cycling are great for your muscles and cardiovascular system but they do little to improve bone strength since they are not weight bearing activities.
Push-ups are easy to relearn and easy to integrate into your daily life.
We need weight bearing exercise all our lives to prevent brittle bones.
If you have not been able to press out a push-up for years you can gently recondition your body by starting with much easier stair or counter push-ups, working up to floor push-ups as you get stronger.
And you will get stronger if you integrate these exercises into your daily life.
Find a time every day when you can make it a habit to press out a few.
Waiting for the microwave is a great time to lean forward onto the counter and push yourself away a few times.
Putting on your shoes in the morning or trading shoes for slippers in the evening are good times to do a few floor push-ups.
Make them a habit and they will start being fun.
Commit to doing one a day and you will find yourself doing more and more because you can and because they make you feel better.
Wake up those bones and muscles and joints, regain the strength you need for a healthier and more active life, and rediscover the perfect free at-home fitness exercise.
Building our upper body strength came naturally as we played with toys on the floor, crawled around under tables through imaginary forts and castles, and dug in the dirt outside.
Simple play gave us upper body strength.
(Just try doing everything a playing toddler does for an hour; it would exhaust an Olympic athlete.
) Army drill sergeants have been demanding push-ups from generations of soldiers because they work.
Pushing yourself up off the floor is an elemental exercise that primarily works the upper body and secondarily works the abs, hips, and legs, and requires no equipment.
Push-ups are the perfect free at-home fitness exercise.
But most of us can't do a push-up any more.
We lost upper body strength as we grew up spending less and less time physically interacting with our world.
Some of us had bad experiences in Physical Education classes, creating negative associations with exercises that used to be as natural to us as breathing.
As we get older and heavier our bone and muscle strength lessens without exercise, while our need to maintain strong bones and muscles to prevent injury grows.
Push-ups help prevent bone loss and injury.
Research shows that Bone Mass Density (a measure of bone strength) naturally increases until about age 30.
After about age 30 Bone Mass Density is naturally lost faster than it is built, bad news for adults hoping to stay healthy and active well into retirement.
In addition to strong bones we need strong upper body, core and hip muscles to prevent injury during a fall.
Everyone trips or slips at some point but your arms will not be much help if they cannot support your body weight.
The good news is you can maintain and even increase your muscular and skeletal strength by practicing weight bearing exercises.
Weight bearing exercises like running, jumping or dancing strengthen your lower body muscles and bones while arm exercises with weights or push-ups strengthen your upper body muscles and bones.
Activities such as swimming and cycling are great for your muscles and cardiovascular system but they do little to improve bone strength since they are not weight bearing activities.
Push-ups are easy to relearn and easy to integrate into your daily life.
We need weight bearing exercise all our lives to prevent brittle bones.
If you have not been able to press out a push-up for years you can gently recondition your body by starting with much easier stair or counter push-ups, working up to floor push-ups as you get stronger.
And you will get stronger if you integrate these exercises into your daily life.
Find a time every day when you can make it a habit to press out a few.
Waiting for the microwave is a great time to lean forward onto the counter and push yourself away a few times.
Putting on your shoes in the morning or trading shoes for slippers in the evening are good times to do a few floor push-ups.
Make them a habit and they will start being fun.
Commit to doing one a day and you will find yourself doing more and more because you can and because they make you feel better.
Wake up those bones and muscles and joints, regain the strength you need for a healthier and more active life, and rediscover the perfect free at-home fitness exercise.
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