Build Muscle Up with These Pushup Variations

Most people don't realize that you don't need a full home gym to build muscle -- in fact, standard bodyweight exercises like pushups can be effectively used to build muscle up.

Frankly, it's easy to underestimate how effective pushups can be at getting results. On the surface, pushups are plain and almost boring: down up, down up, down up -- that's it. And that's true to an extent. But many people outside of fitness enthusiasts are only familiar with the standard pushups that they learned in their high school phys ed classes.

There are many kinds of pushups that you can perform to isolate different muscle groups, but we're going to focus on five styles in this article. These are not necessarily the best five for all people, but they should open your eyes to the variety possible in simple bodyweight 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.

Diamond pushups: Diamond pushups, also referred to as "heart to heart" pushups, require you to place your index fingers and thumbs together in the shape of a diamond during your push up workout. While diamond push ups tend to work your triceps more than your chest muscles, the benefits of modifying your hand placement during pushups, even if only a tiny bit, are undeniable.

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 styles to achieve muscle weight gain: wide, fly, diamond, military, fist, yogi, decline, incline, deep, stacked, 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 repetitions. 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!