Make Push Ups a Part of Your Everyday Routine

The secret to building muscle is to stimulate muscle while making sure not to over train. For all of those that don't belong to a gym, you can still work out with out spending over $50 a month on a gym membership; do push ups at home. Simply follow these easy steps for a healthier life and stronger upper body.

Start the first week by doing as many push-ups as you can COMFORTABLY DO. When you feel some meaningful strain, stop. This might be as few as 5 or 10, maybe even less. You need to start small in order to get best results.

Repeat your set of pushups as many times a day, every other day at the maximum frequency, (so your body has time to rest sufficiently) as you can comfortably do. You will want to work up to doing 10 sets a day, but, for starters, 3 is probably a good number to shoot for. If you punish yourself now, you will not keep up your program for very long.  

Make sure your push-up form is correct. It is easy to put your butt up in the air and/or not go all the way down to the floor, or otherwise "cheat" on your form. But, if you do this, you will not be getting the value of your exercising. Your knees should be nearly locked, and your arms will be carrying the full load of your push-up. Your chest should nearly (but not quite) brush against the floor. With each push-up, your arms will be completely extended (but not locked) when you raise yourself up fully.  
Make sure that you get a lot of water to stay hydrated. Do the number you are comfortable with every day or day and a half, as this leaves time for your muscles to rebuild, strengthen and get bigger. You can take one day a week off, if you are feeling the effects of your routine too much.  

Once you can do your normal number several times every other day, add a few more push-ups to your routine. Be sure to tighten all of your muscles and they will build. You will need to be able to push yourself to get to your set goal for that week.  

You can do pushups nearly anywhere. During a TV commercial, before your shower, in a vacant room at work. It will only take a few seconds for each.  

If you feel like this is an impossible task, find an exercise buddy. They can cheer you on or even do it alongside you.  

Once you are able to do more than 15 push-ups slowly and with perfect form, add more resistance to the push-up in order to continue challenging your muscles and stimulating growth. You can increase resistance by wearing a weighted vest, having someone sit on your upper back or push down on your upper back, using a resistance band, or even filling a backpack with weight and wearing the backpack while doing push-ups. Also, you can vary the push-up routine in order to challenge your muscles in brand new ways and increase resistance.