Hello everyone, I'm Yumi Love Fitness.
When it comes to chest training, many people first think of push-ups because it doesn't require any equipment and can be operated by finding a vacant lot.
Others will choose bench press because it can constantly increase weight, but also exercise arm and shoulder strength, the training effect is very good.
Push-ups and push-ups, they are good pectoral exercises, but the form of movements is completely different.
Some people think push-ups are good, and some people think that bench presses are the trump card action.
So the question arises: if push-ups are used instead of push-ups now, can you practice full chest muscles?
1. The difference between push-ups and push-ups
Push-ups are freehand movements, hands and feet leaning over the ground, while also using the core to stabilize the neutral position of the back, at this time form three support points, complete the process of flexing the elbow down and extending the elbow to push up the body.
Bench press is an instrumental action, the entire upper body and lower limbs are lying on the stool, at this time formed with "upper back, hips and feet" three support points, to complete the process of flexing the elbow and extending the elbow to push the barbell.
Although both movements require arm flexion and extension, there is a clear difference between the two:
Push-ups require more core strength and create more lower back pressure. At the same time, the distance between the hands is closer to "shoulder width", and after a slight external rotation, the risk of shoulder injury is less than that of bench press.
Bench press requires higher strength of the arms and shoulders, and also requires the participation of diamond muscles, the middle and lower parts of the trapezius muscles and other upper dorsal muscle groups to ensure the stability and balance of the body, and it is easy to form the asymmetry of the pectoral muscles in the later stage.
However, bench presses can use larger loads to boost overall muscle strength faster.
2. Can push-ups instead of bench presses practice thick chest muscles?
Two little brothers on the Internet personally did the experiment:
The first guy, he chose to do 100 push-ups a day.
After 1 month of continuous persistence, the pectoral muscles did thicken, but the body fat rate also increased, the most obvious of which was that the stomach fat became more.
From the comparison in the figure: this little brother has a certain training foundation, and may increase the intake of carbohydrate in the later stage, and at the same time, there is a chest-containing posture when taking pictures.
The second guy, he chose to do 300 push-ups a day.
After the same 1 month, the thickness of the pectoral muscles did not change much, but the seams in the pectoral muscles became more pronounced, and the trapezius muscles were higher than before.
From the comparison in the figure: this little brother usually has a training foundation, but the body fat rate is too low, the fat content is not enough, resulting in insufficient overall muscle thickness.
Through these two examples, it can be found that the effect of push-ups on the exercise of the pectoral muscles is very limited, and under the premise of training foundation, push-ups can further improve the pectoral muscle morphology, but cannot continue to increase the thickness of the pectoral muscles.
If you are very thin, even if you insist on doing push-ups every day, you can only improve your muscular endurance, increase the number of push-ups and the difficulty of the movement.
The final training result is that you can do 80-100 push-ups in a row, you can also do a variety of fancy push-ups, and the movement speed will get faster and faster, but it is always difficult to practice full chest muscles.
3. Why is the chest muscle exercise better?
Because the pectoral muscles belong to large muscle groups, the amount of high-intensity training required to continuously stimulate can quickly increase the tension at the bottom of the pectoral muscles, especially the middle of the pectoral muscles, which can increase the circumference of the pectoral muscles during the recovery phase.
Bench presses can warm up from light weights and then choose fixed weight training, or you can increase the intensity of training through the "pyramid training mode", both of which can improve the pumping effect of the chest muscles.
Push-ups rely more on their own weight to train, too fast can only exercise muscle endurance, too slow and easy to exhaust in advance.
As the body gradually adapts, the pectoral muscles can only be stimulated in the later stages by increasing the number of movements and the time of the bottom pause.
These methods tend to affect the quality of movements, resulting in a stronger sense of force on the triceps and anterior shoulder bundle, and even the abdominal core can be exercised in place, except for the pectoral muscles.
Overall: If you want to make the pectoral muscles thicker and fuller, you need to do more lying pushing, and push-ups are more suitable for warm-up or exhaustion at the end.
Written at the end:
Many people are obsessed with the amount of push-up training, simply think that push-ups can practice thick chest muscles, but do not know that others are also quietly practicing bench press, this is where you can't see.
For those who are really freehand trainers, the muscle circumference is not large, and the chest muscles are not as thick as the back muscles, which is the basic norm.
But all the pectoral muscles you can see are normally trained through various forms of bench press, as well as other instruments, and are generally heavy weight.
Push-ups are good, but bench presses are the best choice for thick chest muscles – Yumi loves fitness