You know that exercise is good for you, but do you know where to start? Maybe you’re self conscious about going to a gym and having people watch you. Pushups may just be your answer. They are perhaps nature’s best exercise.
Push ups activate virtually every major muscle group in your body. They will help you with core strength and improve your spinal health and stability.
You can modify them so that no matter your fitness level, you can do them. Of course, you should have a goal to eventually do an unmodified, complete chest to floor pushup.
You will stretch your back and arm muscles. When doing your pushups chest to floor, this will allow for greater than a 90 degree bend at the elbows. You will create beneficial stretching of your back and arm muscles.
Pushups will enhance your cardiovascular system. Do as many as you can before you give out and your heart will definitely be racing.
If you haven’t done much strength work, your connective tissue may be weak. If this is the case and you need to start with wall push ups, feel good about doing something more this week than you did last week. You can gradually advance to doing incline pushups and then eventually a complete, chest to floor push up.
Now for the question of how many pushups can you do consecutively. As we age it is natural for our strength to decline. However, it is typical for a sedentary person to decline much faster than they ought which will lead to decreased core strength, decreased proprioception feeding the cerebellum and more serious chronic degenerative disease and cognitive decline.
Because pushups can be done virtually anywhere it makes them the almost perfect exercise.
A 50 year old male should be able to perform 40 chest to floor pushups consecutively without stopping for a rest. A 50 year old female should be able to perform 20 consecutive pushups
.
Using this chart, do a self test this week and see where you sit and then make a goal to improve.