Keeping Fit During COVID-19 - Push Ups

Photo by Sam Owoyemi on Unsplash

While everyone is stuck at home and, in some cases, finding themselves sitting down much more, moving around less and feeling like you're constantly snacking, we need to make sure we are keeping on top of fitness. When we are all allowed to get back to our regularly scheduled lives at work, you want to be the one that comes back to the office looking stronger and leaner than you were the last time everyone saw you.

How can you do that? You can't go to the gym right now. You don't have a barbell and a squat rack in your home. What are your options? Thankfully, you should have everything you need to keep yourself strong and get in even better shape for when you get back to the office.

We can start with the classic bodyweight movement, the push-up. There are so many variations of the push-up that, regardless of your current level of fitness, there is a way you can do push-ups and get stronger. No matter how old you are or how strong you are, push-ups can be a great tool in your toolbox. Plus, they can be done just about anywhere and, for the most part, require no equipment or tools or anything like that.

The basic premise of the push-up is this...the higher your shoulders are compared to your feet, the easier they are. Also, the closer your hands are together, the more involved the arms are than the chest. As you move your hands outward, it's more chest and less arms. The higher your feet are compared to your shoulders, the more difficult they are. Let's take the two most extreme cases:

The easiest push-ups you can do are "Wall Push-Ups." To do these, stand facing a wall and just far enough from the wall that, when you extend your arms toward the wall with your elbows straight and palms flat against it, you should be standing basically upright. Your hands should be just below shoulders, vertically, and even with your shoulders horizontally. Allow yourself to lean toward the wall while bending at the elbow and keeping the elbows roughly close to the body so that they almost rub against your sides. When your forehead just barely touches the wall, push yourself back up to the upright position. Once you can do three sets of 30 of these, you can move on to something more difficult.

On the opposite end of the scale is the "Handstand Push-Up." This takes a while to master as it requires excellent balance in addition to insane strength. If you have difficulty doing a handstand, you can try placing your feet against a wall to help you balance. The closer your hands are to the wall, the more vertical you will be. But, it's best to do this without this kind of help. That should give you an opportunity to learn how to do a handstand before you get to the Handstand Push-Up. If you've already mastered this movement, you can work toward the ever-impressive "One-Handed Handstand Push-Up." If you can do that...my hat is off to you. That takes incredible strength, balance and coordination. Still not enough for you? Find a back-pack and a bunch of books to add weight and make it even harder.

For those versions in between, moving from easier to more difficult, you can do "Inclined Push-Ups" by keeping your feet on the floor and placing your hands on a counter-top, the top of a chair, a staircase, or some other stable surface that you can use to keep your upper body raised above the floor. As you progress, move to a lower surface until you can finally have both hands and feet on the floor.

Once you are at floor-level, if standard push-ups are too difficult, try doing them from hands and knees on the floor. From there, if you start elevating your feet, the movement gets harder. These continues all the way up to the "Handstand Push-up." Some other things you can do to make push-ups more challenging; place one hand higher than the other (on a small stack of books, for instance), or move both hands outward from the body, move both hands further above your head, add weight (using a backpack and filling it with something heavy like books...or have a small child sit on your back), or lift your hands from the floor when you are at the bottom of the push-up to maximize the range of motion.

Another thing you can do is make your push-ups more explosive. When you push yourself up, do so with such force that your hands leave the floor. If possible, clap your hands in between push-ups. Try to push up hard enough to clap multiple times. Try making it so that you can clap your hands behind your back and get them back down in time to catch yourself.

Other fun variations include things like "Pike Push-Ups" where you set up with hands and feet on the floor and your butt up in the air so you look like an upside-down 'V.' Or, "Cobra Push-Ups" which start like the Pike, but as you go down, you continue to move your chest downward and then forward between your hands, lowering your hips and then pushing your upper body back up with hips still almost touching the floor so that you look like you're doing a Cobra pose. Then you lower your chest and raise your hips back up until you are back to the Pike position.

Spider-Man push-ups can be fun. Start like a classic push-up, but as you go down, bring one knee out to your side (it should like like you're Spider-Man climbing a wall) and then back to the classic position before you do the same with the opposite knee.

There are many, many more variations of push-ups you can try, but hopefully that gives you plenty of things to keep you busy for a while. Have fun with it and impress your co-workers by being lean and muscular when you return to your normal workplace.