Web About Health - Women's-Issues

Your Bra Does It, Can You?

Few exercises can have a more dramatic impact on a mom’s body than push-ups. It's an easy, convenient exercise that gives you a lot in exchange for a little. Here's why:

The push-up is a total body, compound exercise that stimulates every major muscle group with either a dynamic or static muscle contraction. Few exercises can claim this much contractile bang for the buck.

Push-ups build functional strength useful to everyday life. Ever push open a door, open a jar, get up from the ground, hold a baby or push a stroller? Push-ups can make your everyday activities easier.

Do you want firmer, higher breasts? Push-ups got their name for a reason. The exercise is great for increasing the tonus of the pectoralis major muscle that lies beneath breast tissue, reducing sag and complementing shape.

I could go on listing more benefits, like sculpted arms, a more defined jaw line (yes, push-ups will firm your neck musculature, resulting in a sharper jaw line) and more defined abs, but you'll just have to trust me.

Here are the greatest advantages of push-ups:

- You can do them anywhere!

- Your progress is easy to measure (you can either do them or you can't)

- No equipment is needed. So, there are zero excuses not to do them. You can get thrown into a Turkish prison and still not have an excuse to not do push-ups. It doesn't get any better than that.

MY MOMMY MUSCLE PUSH-UP PREDICTION

Here's what I believe. If every mom (and dad) set a workout goal to “do their age in push-ups” (one push-up for each year of life) on three non-consecutive days each week they would be amazed at how their world continuously changes for the better - year after year. The exercise is that powerful.

I Digress

As a personal trainer, I worked with a 50-year-old woman who couldn't do one full push-up. She told me I was insane (literally) when I suggested it would be possible for her to do 50 or more in one set. We established a clear plan, took it one workout at a time and in less than 8 months, to the amazment of several bystanders and her family, she did 51 full push-ups from the ground (lowering her chest slightly below her elbows, like the picture above, on each rep).

This was a mother of two college kids and she could do more push-ups than her sons and husband did combined. She was thrilled with the physical results she achieved. She was lean and defined. But her greatest result was mental - she accomplished something she thought was impossible.

There is magic in doing things that are physically impossible for you to do. The bridge from the impossible to the possible is a simple plan, executed one day and, one 7 minute push-up workout at a time.

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