One of my favourite exercises, and one of the oldest exercises out there, is the push up! It's simple, effective, and versatile. Not only is the push up great for increasing upper body strength, shoulder stability, and core strength, but it can also help improve your flexibility and mobility! Few people regularly venture beyond the basic push up and a few simple variation such as decline push ups, diamond push ups, or wide push ups. It's a shame because they're missing out on a whole world of variations that can challenge their strength through new ranges of motion at the same time as they improve their mobility.
I've written about dozens of variations in my Ebook's "The Body Weight Solution" and "Ancient Training For Modern Results", but today we'll look at on of my favourite push up variations.
The Hindu Push Up!
The Hindu push up is one of the oldest push ups around, in fact it actually pre dates yoga. It's been used for centuries by Hindu wrestlers to help improve their strength conditioning. The Hindu push up is actually one of the stepping stones I use while progressing a client towards performing their first handstand push up! The Hindu push up hits the chest through a much larger range of motion, when performed correctly you can actually feel the tension "roll" through your pecs. Moving from the downward dog position, to push up, to upward facing dog, attacks your upper body in such a unique way. During the Hindu push up you'll be actively passing the tension through the shoulders, down through the chest, and back to the shoulders and even through your core/abs. Strength conditioning aside, the Hindu push up is also a dynamic stretch! Simple moving through the Hindu push up in a rhythmic pace stretches out the hamstrings, low back, abdominals, shoulders, and calves! On top of that, it forces your shoulder joint to move through a greater range of motion, lubricating the joint, and improving it's range of motion! The Hindu push up strengths you through a greater range of motion, trains you to pass tension between muscle groups, and improves your flexibility and mobility all in one movement! For these reasons, the Hindu push up is always the push up my clients (barring injury) move directly into learning how to perform once they have mastered their basic push ups.
Here's a really old video of me describing in detail how to perform the Hindu push up! Enjoy!
The Hindu push up is the gate way push up to almost all other intermediate and advanced push up variations! It's also an excellent push up to add into conditioning workouts even when you have mastered more difficult push up variations, in fact it's probably the push up that I use the most even in my own workouts. If you're not already using the Hindu push up, I highly suggest you become familiar with it and add it into your program ASAP! You're body will thank you and the gains in strength, mobility, and flexibly will be significant.
Just one of the variations you might be able to perform once you've mastered the Hindu Push Up!
- Tim
WWW.JUNGLE-FIT.COM
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