Today's focus is the almighty Pushup, and a bodyweight movement which many of you have never seen before, but will be cursing my name after you try it, the Reverse Skull-Crusher (all credit to a fantastic coach by the name of Nick Tumminello for this exercise).
There are 2 ways to completing today's workout - it can be hypertrophy based (meaning, we'll be doing lot's of Pushups each set etc....for both muscle toning and fat burning goals) or strength/power based (we'll be doing more advanced variations of the exercises, which means not as many completed reps, and much more effort and focus - the athletes, or the wannabe-athletes, in the crowd should go for this option). Or, we can mix and match, and get the best of both!
Spidey is wasting his time with this exercise
What you'll need: Just some open space today, and the more advanced guys may need a chair.
Warmup: Nothing over strenuous here, just do a simple set or so of the basic Pushup. If you can manage 10 Pushups normally, warmup with 5, so essentially, warmup with sets of HALF the amount of Pushups you can normally do. I want the warmup kept to a minimum as you'll fatigue too fast when performing your proper working sets of Pushups. For those following the more advanced version of today's workout, I want at least 2 warmup sets from you before you move onto the workout.
Touch your chest to the ground each time to ensure proper depth and form
Basic: Start by performing 1 Pushup, then rest for 10 seconds. Next, perform 2 Pushups, then rest for 15 seconds. Continue on this pattern of doing 1 more Pushup each time, and adding 5 seconds of rest, until you hit 2 Pushups short of what you are capable of (if you can do 10 Pushups, keep going to you hit 8 Pushups in a set).
Using our 10 Pushup maximum as our example, you'll go: 1 rep, rest 10 seconds, 2 reps, rest 15 seconds, 3 reps, rest 20 seconds, 4 reps, rest 25 seconds, 5 reps, rest 30 seconds, 6 reps, rest 35 secnds, 7 reps, rest 40 seconds, 8 reps, rest 45 seconds. Then, we go backwards! Next set will be 7 reps, rest 40 seconds, 6 reps, etc.....until you end up back at 1.
For those who struggle with Pushups, you can perform them on your knees, or elevate your hands to alter your body's weight being pushed as shown here:
1. Elevate the feet:
(Ignore the weight plate on his back)
Performing either of those 2 variations will make performing endless reps of Pushups much more difficult!!
After we are done with the Pushups, the fun starts - burning out with Reverse Skull-Crushers. What do I mean by 'burning out'? Simple - you'll perform one, all out set till ABSOLUTE FAILURE! I don't want you to be able to barely pick yourself up off the ground by the end of this set, to know that you hit it with all you've got!
A Reverse Skull-Crusher is simple - think of it as a Plank, but trying to push yourself up into a finished Pushup position. Take a look:
Go crazy on this exercise. I don't want you to sell yourself short here, really smash it!
And that is it! However, for our guys wanting to get the best of both, we simply add 2-3 sets of Plyometric Pushups before we start our pyramid of Pushups (after the warmup), and then for our pyramid work, we will skip the odd number of reps, and only do the even numbered sets. So you'll do a set of 2, rest, then a set of 4, rest, etc....until you reach your target, then back down you go. Still finish with the crazy burnout set!
A Plyometric Pushup looks like this:
Don't forget to finish with some light stretching, focusing on your chest, lats, shoulders and triceps, as follows:
The Pushup and its variations are terrific exercises, so get good at them and watch your upper body development take off!
All things Pushup related are GOOD.
Yours in training,
Matt
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