I’ve been doing a quick, fantastic circuit of different bodypart exercises including the fantastic deep push ups along with some explosive cardio. No rest until you finish #4, then rest for one minute.
Use a countdown timer.
3 sets of:
- Barbell Squats – As I’ve preached before, if you don’t have a squat rack use a small enough weight that you can easily press over your head when you’re done with squats.
- Deep Chair Push ups – 2 child chairs around 16″ off the ground + a 16″ step for my feets. Let your body go WAY down past your hands. These super deep push ups build your pecs like a MOFO!
- Pullups – ’til failure
- Long Jumps – Stand with both feet together, squat down slightly, swing the arms forward and jump as long as you can, not necessarily as high as you can. As soon as you land with both feet, squat way down to absorb the impact, then spring up like a crazed monkey swinging your hands, and long-jump again. 12 jumps, baby!
TIP: as you land, lean forward a lot since your momentum is taking you forward anyway. If you don’t, you might feel like you’re going to fall backward when your feet hit the ground. Leaning forward on the landing will allow you to continue jumping many times in a row. These absolutely killed me.
LONG JUMPS!
Be sure to squat all the way down before you spring back up and swing those arms so you get distance AND height, ok?
DEEP PUSH UPS!
^ These are fantastic! But you don’t have to raise yourself that high though; just as long as your chest goes really deep without making contact with the floor.
They’re also called “Atlas Pushups”, named after Mr. Charles Atlas. I actually learned these from his program too. He taught to do these morning and night. I don’t remember how many sets, but you’ll definitely see major pec improvement with these! They round-out your pecs and especially build up the sides and middle giving your chest that split in the middle. Plus, if you position the chairs so that your hands are farther out in front of you, it’ll give you the angled lines going from your shoulders up toward your center chest. That’s because you’d be doing the incline equivalent which builds up your upper pecs. They also widen up your chest by building up the outer sides of your pecs.
And she’s raising her feet higher than her hands which is GREAT. By raising her feet, she’s ensuring that she’s doing the equivalent of straight bench press instead of keeping her feet and hands at the same height, which would resemble floor pushups. The angle of the arms to the body when doing floor pushups actually give you DECLINE pushups which mostly work out your bottom pecs.
That is why you should raise your feet so that your body is parallel to the floor, and perpindicular to your arms. This way, you’ll mostly work out your MID PECS, which in my opinion, is better than working out your lower pecs. If this is hard to understand or you think I’m full of shit, picture her feet being raised even more and pay attention to the angle of her arms in relation to her body. See how her arms are rotating at the shoulders and the elbows are moving closer to her head.
Now, mentally turn her upside down. See how it resembles an INCLINE press?
INCLINE BENCH PRESS!
Either way, it’s the deepness of the pushup that really makes this a damn good exercise. I’d even go so far as to say…
deep push ups are better than bench press!
Oh my goodness. Now I’ve done it! I’ve disrespected the beloved “KING OF CHEST EXERCISES”.
WHY such a crazy idea??
Because with bench press, you’ll avoid maxing out for fear of dropping that shit on your neck! So, you’ll stop early, leaving a few reps in the tank. With deep pushups, or even regular pushups, you’ll go ’til you can’t do any more, ’til failure and then still do a couple more half way pushups just to be sure you maxed out.
Do 3 sets of deep push ups—always ’til failure—and look in the mirror when you’re done, preferably with overhead or side lighting. Pleasantly surprised? Slight chuckle? You’re welcome.
NOW KEEP DOING THEM, BIFF! _____**_____