Muscle Weight Gain the Old-Fashioned Way

Most people aren't aware that you don't need fancy gym equipment to build muscle -- in fact, simple bodyweight exercises like pushups can be effectively used to build muscle up.

Frankly, it's easy to underestimate just how effective pushups can be at building your chest, shoulders, back, and arms. Pushups might appear plain and boring at a glance: up down, up down, up down -- that's it. And that's true to an extent. But most people outside of the fitness circles are only familiar with the standard pushups that they were taught in their high school gym classes.

There are many kinds of pushups that you can use to isolate different muscle groups, but we're going to focus on five types in this article. These might not be the best five for all people, but they will make you aware of the variety available in basic functional exercises.

Military pushups: military pushups are similar to standard pushups, except that you move your hands underneath your shoulders and tuck your elbows tightly to your side. This variation works the triceps more than the chest.

Fist pushups: Sometimes referred to as "knuckle" pushups, require the use of your fists, instead of the palms of your hands, to bear your body weight during the pushup. Fist pushups are beneficial because they target different areas of your body than traditional pushups, and may actually increase the effectiveness of your workout.

Fly pushups: adding another layer to wide pushups, fly pushups require you to begin the pushup with your hands a normal width apart at the top position. When lowering your body to the ground, you should slide your right hand out roughly 12 inches, and then slide it back to normal width on the up rep. On the next repetition, you would perform this motion with your left hand. Hint: place your hand on a towel, piece of cardboard, or similar item to assist with the slide, or "hop" your hands in and out.

Decline pushups: Instead of placing your feet on the floor, or using your knees, place your feet on a platform so that your head is lower than your feet.  You can use a chair, a stepstool, or a bench -- pretty much anything that will allow you to raise your feet up so that they are higher than your head. These types of pushups work your upper chest muscles.

Stacked pushups: with stacked pushups, one arm is spread wide to the side as in wide pushups, and the other is tucked in tight like military pushups. After 5 repetitions, the hand positions are switched.

Here is a more comprehensive list of pushup variations to achieve muscle weight gain: wide, fly, military, diamond, fist, yogi, decline, incline, stacked, deep, inchworm, and prison cell pushups.

Tips to increase the effectiveness of your pushup workouts: add some weight once the pushups begin to get easy. You don't want to push out 50 easy reps. Rather, struggle with 20 or 30. Also be sure to add variety by varying your hand position for each of the above types of pushups.

Push ups are a great way to strengthen your upper body and exercise, build muscle at the same time. If you keep it interesting by mixing up your hand positions and trying a few different styles of pushups you can increase the effectiveness of your at-home exercising and relieve the boredom!