By CK Clark

So you're stranded on a deserted island... How do you keep your muscles bulging and ripped?... Push-ups of course! Push-ups along with a few other simple body exercises such as (body squats and sit-ups/crunches) could keep you looking buff in almost any situation (yes, even on a deserted island).

Here's some basic push-up information to get you going:

Performing The Basic Push-Up:

 

Lie face down with your body parallel to the floor.
Place your hands palm down slightly beyond shoulder-width apart. Make sure your arms are positioned next to your shoulders and not too low next to your belly button or too high next to your head.
Look up and ahead rather than down to the ground.
Slowly raise yourself up keeping your body straight from the back of your heels to your head.
Exhale on the way up
Once your arms are very close to being fully extended pause just slightly.
Begin lowering your body back to the floor while inhaling.
Once your chin touches the floor (remember your head is looking ahead not down!) pause momentarily. This constitutes 1 repetition.
Begin raising your body back up to repeat the process.

Key Points:

It's very important to do the motion correctly for maximum benefit. Keeping your body straight is essential. Tighten your abs throughout the entire movement to prevent your butt from raising too high or lowering too low. If you have access to a ground level mirror (or even a reflection from a glass door) try watching your body position a few times until you get it right. Don't waste your time doing push-ups the wrong way.

Use slow, controlled movements. Going fast may allow you to do more push-ups in a set amount of time however, you will receive less benefit from each individual push up. Many times people who go really fast don't work their muscles through their full range of motion. Remember the goal is to build muscle not your ego. 10 well-formed, controlled movement push-ups are better than doing 25 sloppy, incomplete push-ups.

When To Do Push-ups:

Push-ups can be used as one of your primary upper body exercises or as a replacement when you can't do your regular workout routine. Personally, I love to do push-up workouts when I'm traveling or don't have access to a gym for a particular reason. I generally use a push-up routine to replace any missed Chest/Shoulder/Tricep weight-lifting workouts.

Push-Up Workouts:

There are probably thousands of push-up workouts out there to choose from. One of my favorites is what I refer to as "countdowns." The idea is to progressively lower the amount of reps performed for each set as your muscles become more fatigued. This allows you to achieve maximum benefit for each set with out sacrificing form and technique. Here's an example: We'll start with 20 push-ups for our first set. Each set we will reduce the number of push-ups attempted by 2 until we get to 0. We'll rest only moderately (15 seconds to 30 seconds) between sets.

So in this case it would look like this:

Set 01 - 20 reps
Set 02 - 18 reps
Set 03 - 16 reps
Set 04 - 14 reps
Set 05 - 12 reps
Set 06 - 10 reps
Set 07 - 08 reps
Set 08 - 06 reps
Set 09 - 04 reps
Set 10 - 02 reps

Note: This workout can be adapted to suit your needs. If this seems too hard try starting at 10 reps and counting down 1 each set (10,9,8,7 etc).

If a 20 rep starting point is too easy you could always increase the starting count to 40 or 80 reps and count down 4 or 8 reps respectively (40, 36, 32 etc or 80, 72, 64 etc). Final Thoughts: Push-ups are a tremendous tool for muscle building when done properly. They can be used as a primary workout or just to keep fit while on the road.

Practice perfect push-ups and you'll find that they are one of the most useful tools in your fitness arsenal.

CK Clark is a fitness author, fitness advocate, and founder of http://www.bestmuscleprograms.com which provides reviews of the top internet muscle building programs.

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