Patriot Health Digest
Fitness entrepreneur, influencer, and strength Youtuber Jeremy Ethier has made videos which showed common pushup mistakes to not do and some of the top weighted exercises for getting a large chest.
Now, in a brand new YouTube video, he says that when it comes to creating size and power in your chest, pushups are really all you require.
He cited 2018 research which studied two approaches for creating strength in your chest: the first group used progressively larger weights on a bench press, while the second used simply increasingly hard pushup variations. After four weeks, the pushup group showed the same increase in muscle growth and upper body strength as the bench press group.
Ethier used this study to support his equipment-free chest workout routine, consisting of three pushup workouts each week, with a focus on different elements: like strength, skill and endurance. These workouts use certain variations depending on the amount of upper body strength you start with. He recommends you start by testing your ability, performing as many pushups as you can, ensuring that you are completely extending your arms with every rep.
If you managed to do 1 to 10 reps, you are a Level 1. 11 to 30 reps and you are a Level 2, and Level 3 is anything more than 30 pushups.
For the skill day, Ethier recommends that Level 1 people begin with with incline pushups. “Choose a good height, and lower it over as you get stronger,” he says. “Use a height that allows you to get 3 sets of 6 to 8 reps.” For Level 2 people, he recommends sticking to normal pushups, and do 70 percent of your pushups to a maximum amount of reps for 3 sets. Level 3, meanwhile, can get slightly harder by doing hand release pushups. Those involve bringing your hands up momentarily at the bottom of the move when your chest is hitting the ground, in order to stop the stretch-shortening reflex and cause your ascent to be harder on your muscles. Ethier recommends 3 sets of half of your pushups to be at your max.
Author: Steven Sinclaire
