Why it is so important to do push ups?
If you do punches you get more power and speed instead you do push ups.
Push ups are another way to strengthen pectoral and tricep muscles.
Robin
Surrender yourself to nature and be all that you are.
Push ups…
are quite detrimental to upper body internal softness. One can impede the flow of Qi severly thorugh doing push ups, and, well, they are so limiting in their function, its better to do some over all exercise than something like that.
push ups!!!
there are dozens of ways to do them-
if you don’t belong to a gym try this set
15 with your upper body on a table -working you lower chest and upper abs
15 flat (traditional)- working your center chest
15 with you legs raised- focusing more on your upper chest and shoulders
(repeat all 3 sets two more times)
keep in mind the closer your hands are together the more you are working you triceps and the center chest- like i said there are dozens of more ways to do push ups-
stretch aftwards- any chest exercis will tighten you up-
the benefit is stamina-
Thanx for the other 3 workouts…didn’t think about the table 1…
and pushing power can be important, which is developed from pushups…
If you are a grappler you need to be able to push your opp. hard, and pull for complete control…also, it looks funny when someone is starting a fight with you and they push you and you dont budge(rooted)…and u push them and they fall on the ground, hehe, well i get a kick out of it…not to mention it makes ya look good 
“True victory is giving all of yourself without regret”-Ryu
“Your best move is the move you regret not doing”-Fei Long
“Are you prepared to fight today? Someone else is as we speak”-Apprentice
15 with your upper body on a table -working you lower chest and upper abs.
Does someone else want to take this one or should I?
Iron
"Now why the **** would you censor “d.ork?”
Ironman PostLog: 1100 - 11/20/01
oh yeah, Robin, don’t forget pushups will nuke your front (anterior) deltoid muscle as well!
Iron
"Now why the **** would you censor “d.ork?”
Ironman PostLog: 1100 - 11/20/01
it’s all yours, iron
-rtb
why do pushups and a few to try
I find that doing pushup are great for not only the arms and pecs but great for total upper body conditioning. Sometimes I do it for stregth and sometimes i’ll do it for stamina
great ones for the arms are
on the knuckles and with the palms down fingers towards the toes
for conditioning knuckles and on the back of the hands
for upper body
do as many as you could 100
really push it
build character . If 100 isn’t enough
well do as many as possible for 1 minute
( see fang shen do 1 minute working Jan 2001 Inside Kung Fu )
Dennis Momy
Thanks, Iron,
I knew I could count on you. With that in mind, I’ll leave it to you about the pushups on the table working lower chest.
The pushups I do are:
flat: on palms–elbows out and elbows in, on fists (for my poor little wrist), hands/fingers make a triangle.
I also use push up bars because of my rehabbing wrist. I’m at about 90 - 95% with my wrist.
Hey, Iron, have you had any luck with one armed pushups? I imagine those work the stabilizers (abs, back–I haven’t memorized all the back muscles yet) more than regular pushups, taking away from working the pecs and delts. Curious.
Robin
Surrender yourself to nature and be all that you are.
everyone has to have a commment…
shaking head sadly…
OK guys, I know this is a kung-fu forum and all, but why is there always somebody who says (forgive the ‘Return of the Dragon’ quote) “Physical training is quite useless!”
Please pull your head out of the sand. If your internal practice is such that it suffers any time you use a muscle, you need to rethink your training. Hey, have any of you “physical training only hurts your kung-fu” guys ever heard of something called the “yin/yang theory”??? You know, light/dark, male/female, soft/hard, internal/external? Anybody?
“I’ll use my bare hands…against any weapon!”
We are trained in wushu. We must defend the Temple!
robin . ..
please don’t think i’m being an a$$ cause i really am curious about this.
i know i usually do my best to offend people but this isn’t my objective now.
what do pushups do for your boobies?
seriously . . . does it lift them, make them smaller, push them out because of the muscle being built behind, does it do anything at all?
i know what bodybuilding does to boobies, but that’s way differant than toning up with bodyweight exercises … isn’t it?
where’s my beer?
i do an internal style and we do pushups.
where’s my beer?
its not
Why it is so important to do push ups?
–its not.
If you do punches you get more power and speed instead you do push ups.
–if u want 2 b able to strike with power, train striking with power. s.a.i.d rules. push-up mechanics all wrong 4 striking, plane of orientation wrong, recruitment patter wrong, speed of movement wrong, rate & angle of loading wrong.
boppin robin
Push ups are another way to strengthen pectoral and tricep muscles.
–& since the majority of the power production comes from muscle groups other than the little 1s u note ur point would b ?
Answers to everyone’s questions
Swaiing Dragon said:
15 with your upper body on a table -working you lower chest and upper abs
I’ve written in more detail elsewhere on this forum before about this, so I’ll sum it up here:
You cannot work part of a muscle. There is no difference between UPPER abs and LOWER abs. The abdominals are ONE muscle, with 6 heads (which are what you are seeing when you see someone’s six pack). If the abs contract, the WHOLE THING contracts, not part of it. Same thing with pecs… incline bench does not work the upper pecs, decline bench does not work the lower pecs. The pectoralis major (pecs) is one muscle. Either it’s contracting or it’s not. The upper part cannot contract while the lower part relaxes, or vise versa. Same for all muscles, you can’t contract just your lower quads or upper biceps, etc.
If anyone who challenges the above information can send me pictures of them doing the following (and thus proving me wrong), I will retract all my statements. Additionally, they will have successfully proved all anatomy textbooks wrong:
- Flex ONLY your upper pecs
- Flexing ONLY lower pecs
- Flexing only the upper portion of your biceps
- Flexing only the lower quads
People think that such and such exercise works the upper abs, or the lower abs, but they’re wrong 
Hope that clears stuff up. Incline bench works the pecs from a different angle than flat or decline bench, but still the ENTIRE muscle is firing when you do it.
It’s a common mistake to think otherwise, so don’t be discouraged or anything There are still many pro bodybuilders who think incline bench works their upper chest.
15 flat (traditional)- working your center chest
See above
15 with you legs raised- focusing more on your upper chest and shoulders
This doesn’t work upper chest, but you’re right that it does emphasize the shoulders (front delt) more than regular pushups. For even more front delt work, try handstand pushups (against a wall). That’s a hardcore shoulder workout. Don’t forget to work the middle and rear delts to keep everything in balance.
GreatWhiteNorth said:
for conditioning knuckles and on the back of the hands
My old Hapkido instructor used to have us do pushups on our wrists or on the back of our hands. I wouldn’t recommend it. It doesn’t really do much. If you’re looking to strengthen your “wrists” do forearm exercises, after all they are the muscles responsible for wrist movement (with one exception, the bicep helps rotate the wrist and forearm).
Robin said:
Hey, Iron, have you had any luck with one armed pushups? I imagine those work the stabilizers (abs, back–I haven’t memorized all the back muscles yet) more than regular pushups, taking away from working the pecs and delts. Curious.
One armed pushups are pretty cool, but I find they don’t “feel” as solid as regular pushups. However, it’s probably because I’m way more used to standard pushups (or two handed derivatives) and also because as you said, stabilizer muscles are brought more into play than with traditional pushups. Also greater stress is placed on the wrist.
There are two basic ways to do one armed pushups:
1: Arm under your chest, feet spread, this is the way most people do them. Other hand on your back.
2: Sideways. To imagine this, lay on your side and with your bottom hand push yourself up so that when you’re in the top position, your chest is facing the wall and your shoulders are up and down (as opposed to left and right like in normal pushups). Don’t go down all the way, because of the stress placed on the wrist. In fact, when you start you probably won’t be able to go down very far at all. Don’t let your midsection sag, either.
Btw, I forgot who made me think of this, but here is a bit more clarification:
“Normal” pushups work your muscles in a manner closer to decline bench press, not flat bench. Look at the angle of your shoulders while you’re in the top position and this will be clear. However, because your body moves in an arc pushups will never go in a straight line like the bar during a bench press. But as stated above, the higher your feet are, the more stress is placed onto the front deltoid.
Damn I write a lot.
Iron
"Now why the **** would you censor “d.ork?”
Ironman PostLog: 1100 - 11/20/01
“Don’t you get cose to me with that knofe or I’ll have to dofond mosolf!” - KC Elbows
Faster punches
I feel come from learning to relax properly not from bulk amassing in the bicep tricep area with such an exercise as the push-up. Push-ups are quite limiting and altogether the best exercise for faster punches in general.
Personally
I think push ups are a really good exercise. It seems to me that they exercise most of the muscles you use punching, just like a bench press. Plus you can do them plyometrically.
But Iron, here is a serious question - some ab exercises seem to effect the upper or lower end of the stomach muscle. For example, crunches seem to work different parts of my abs than do hip flexes (which I only heard of the other day, and I have now built a hip flexor - two horizontal poles at about chest height, hang and bring your knees up to your chest. Hard, esp. with ankle weights.) So yeah, even if it is only one muscle, is it still possible to work one part of that muscle more with a particular exercise than with another? I am talking with specific refernce to your abs. Thanks
“Some people, irrespective of skill, are just wankers.” -Satanachia
GDA- Its makes them more firm. Keeps ya from sagging, especcially if you widen your arms and bring them up a little. The trick is the strengthen the upper part. Sorry I don’t know the name. It works like a primitive “tuck”. Its nice.
Carpe Diem.
