This is what happens in your body when you practice push-ups every day
There is hardly a more effective exercise for the upper body than push-ups. This is what happens in your body when you do push-ups regularly – and that’s how many you should do every day.
Push-ups are a bit of a problem for many people: While many fitness fans love them and practice them regularly, others are reluctant or even unwilling to attempt the challenging exercise. Push-ups are the ultimate fitness boost and very beneficial for your health. Anyone who regularly incorporates them into their training plan and performs them correctly will quickly enjoy more power and other benefits.
Daily push-ups: This is what push-ups do to your body
1. Stronger arm, chest and shoulder muscles
The first effect is obvious: push-ups primarily activate the muscles in the arms, especially the triceps, chest and shoulders. If you do push-ups every day, you will quickly notice how you gain strength in your upper body. But the core also has to work, more specifically the abdominal muscles and the lower back, to keep you in a straight position.
2. Improved posture
This brings us to the next point: posture. Strengthening your back and shoulder muscles and correctly performing push-ups with your body in a straight line can ensure that your posture improves in the long term and that you stand and walk more upright.
3. Healthy heart
Push-ups mainly strengthen the muscles, but they can actually improve your fitness – especially if you practice them daily. In the long term, this also strengthens your heart health, as a study has shown.
4. Increased risk of injury
With a demanding exercise like push-ups, there is of course a certain risk: if you do not do them correctly, you run the risk of injuring yourself. This particularly affects the lower back, wrists and elbows. You should therefore pay particular attention to the following points:
- When exercising, the body should always be in a straight line.
- Also tighten your abdominal muscles to protect your lower back.
- Perform the exercise slowly and consciously.
- Take regular breaks.
This is how many push-ups you can do daily
If you want to incorporate push-ups into your daily fitness plan, you should start slowly. How many repetitions you do per day will of course also depend on your individual fitness level. If you are a beginner, you should definitely only do as many push-ups as you can really do cleanly – even if that’s just one or two at the beginning. The fitter you get, the more repetitions of the exercise you can do. Ten to 20 a day is a good guideline to work towards.
If you are very fit and are looking for a special challenge, you can also do 100 push-ups a day. You should divide these up, for example into ten sets of ten or four sets of 25. Just be careful not to overdo it – this is especially true if you train every day. Ultimately, it is less about the number of push-ups than how cleanly and effectively you do them.