Why can’t you pump up your biceps with push-ups and what can you do about it?

≡ April 11, 2020 Category: Exercises by muscle group

Push-ups are an excellent basic exercise that helps the athlete work out a large number of muscle groups. Thanks to simple movements you can pump up your chest, triceps, deltoids, and biceps. You can train at home, on the street, or in the gym. There are many variations of the exercise, depending on which muscle groups you want to develop. Biceps push-ups will help not only increase the volume of your arms, but also develop strength and overall endurance of the body.

Features of the training process

To develop biceps brachii or biceps, it is not at all necessary to train with heavy sports equipment. You don't need dumbbells, kettlebells or a barbell. Push-ups will help pump up the target muscle group without additional load. If you do the exercise regularly, sleep eight hours a night, and eat well, push-ups will have the greatest effect.

Develop muscle groups holistically and harmoniously. If your chest and back muscles are lagging behind, then you will not be able to effectively work your biceps. It is very important to design a training program correctly. Get plenty of rest between exercises.

Correct technique

Before you can specifically train your biceps, you should learn how to do standard push-ups. This technical element is not considered too difficult. The athlete must follow a precise movement pattern to effectively perform the exercise:

• Take a lying position. Lean on your palms. Place them slightly wider than shoulder width.
• Fully straighten your body position. The gaze should be directed downwards.
• Slowly lower yourself to the floor. To increase the range of motion, you can touch the surface with your chest.
• Straightening your arms, exhale and return to the starting position.
• Repeat push-ups several times.

You should be comfortable while moving. Watch the position of your torso as well as your hips. Extend your arms fully at the top of the push-up. Work at a slow pace. Many athletes practice fast push-ups, but this speed of movement is best suited only for experienced gymnasts who are developing speed-strength indicators. In our case, it is necessary to develop the muscles themselves.

Peculiarities

Experienced athletes know that push-ups are usually done for the triceps and pectoral muscles. But is it possible to pump up your biceps with push-ups? It turns out that it is possible. To do this, you should change the position of your palms:

• Point your toes towards your feet.
• Hands should be pressed tightly to the body. Do not spread your elbows to the sides.
• Your body weight should be shifted slightly forward.
• It is best to exercise using a special push-up rack.

The exercise is quite traumatic when performed this way, because flexibility of the hands and correct movement of the elbows are very important. This way you can effectively load your biceps. You need to take a short break between approaches. Rest for one or two minutes. Watch your breathing. You should not feel pain during movements. Change the position of your fingers and hands if you experience unpleasant pain.

Avoid arching your back. Concentrate on contracting your biceps, you should feel the work of your arms. A special stance for this exercise is best for beginners. By the way, you can also pump up your shoulders by doing push-ups with this hand position.

Push-up workout

Typically, you give your body 48 hours to rest before you begin strenuous exercise. During rest, the body has time to recover and become stronger. This is why in many training systems you train your upper body on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and train your lower body on Tuesday and Thursday.

Some complexes allow up to 72 hours of rest before performing the same exercises. But in the army, push-ups were done every day, both as a daily exercise and as a punishment for bad behavior. And this arrangement usually improved the results. Over the years I spent in the military, first as a soldier and then as an instructor, I noticed that people become stronger by the end of the training season.

So I began experimenting with young people, between the ages of 18 and 30, who wanted to improve their push-up abilities. The program is a ten-day plan that requires daily exercise. It has some rules that give the body adequate rest. Below is a program that allowed people to complete 80 push-ups in two weeks, although previously they could do 50.

On odd days

We perform 200 push-ups. We perform as few approaches as possible. In addition to push-ups, we also do cardio. If you already have another program, you can do other upper body exercises if you wish. We try to do fewer approaches, performing the maximum possible number of push-ups in one approach (4 x 50, 8 x 25).

On even days

We perform 200 push-ups per day. You can do small sets of ten every half hour, or you can do fifty in four sets. How much is up to you.

Table of push-ups from scratch to results in 6 weeks

Rule

If your maximum possible number of push-ups is about 50, then do 200 per day. If it is above 75, do 300 per day.

Alternate days for 10 days. Then rest for three days and do not do any upper body exercises. Then, on day 14, take the Army Push-Up Test, trying to complete as many push-ups as possible in two minutes. It is not recommended to do this type of training more than twice a year, because it puts a lot of stress on the muscles.

So that the workout does not seem monotonous to you, push-ups can be done not only standard, but also wide, as well as narrow, for the triceps.

As you can see, the difference between these types of push-ups is only in the position of the hands. Standard push-ups distribute weight evenly between the pecs, shoulders, and triceps. Wide push-ups pump up the chest, while narrow push-ups work more on the triceps and shoulders.

Recommended training program

To build a target muscle group, you must exercise regularly. One biceps workout per day will be enough for you. Perform 4-5 sets of push-ups. The number of repetitions per set depends entirely on your training experience. You can work yourself to failure. You need to understand that excessive load will harm progress; the muscles will not have time to recover.

There are several common training programs.

Features of split training

Push-ups can be performed during split workouts. Thus, in one session you should work one or two muscle groups. You can also work your back or triceps on this training day. It is best to practice with heavy equipment. New movements will appear in your arsenal of exercises.

An example of an effective split workout (back, biceps):

• Wide grip pull-ups.
• Dumbbell rows to the waist.
• One-arm dumbbell row in a bent-over position.
• Biceps push-ups.
• Reverse grip pull-ups.

During pull-ups and dumbbell rows, several muscle groups are involved in the work. Thus, thanks to these simple exercises you can pump up your back and biceps muscles. It will be enough to train once a week. Your body will have a lot of time to recover. Biceps push-ups can be performed at the end of the session. Work your ass off.

Fulbadi training program

You should work all parts of the body at once in one workout. In order to pump up your upper body, all you need to do is push-ups; you only need to change the position of your arms and hands.

• With a wide stance of the arms (load on the pectoral muscles).
• Palm to palm (triceps work).
• On the biceps.
• With support on a fitball (abs, as well as trapezius).

To train your legs, it is enough to perform classic squats and deadlifts.

While performing a basic exercise, you work a huge number of muscle groups. Thanks to this exercise, a beginner athlete will be able to prepare the body for more complex movements. You can practice the fullbadi system every other day. It is very important to rest your muscles before your next session. You should know how to do push-ups correctly. The correct technique for performing movements will give you the opportunity to qualitatively develop several parts of the body at once.

This type of training is suitable for athletes who train at home and do not have barbells and dumbbells. It is also possible to create a training program with the help of an experienced trainer. He will select the exercises that will be effective for you.

To make your workout more functional, you can use TPX loops and perform the exercise with them.

Are biceps push-ups an effective exercise or a waste of time?

Traditionally, push-ups are considered the ideal exercise for developing the chest and triceps muscles.

However, athletes who prefer home training without equipment are often interested in the question of whether there are special push-ups for biceps and whether this exercise can be used to effectively load the arms, including the front side. The answer to this question lies in the anatomical features of our body.

Under what conditions does the biceps work?

The biceps is a muscle located on the front of the shoulder. It forms a characteristic “can” when the arm is bent and, with proper development, is a source of special pride for its owner.

It is on these anatomical principles that all exercises with dumbbells, barbells or exercise machines are built, helping to pump up the biceps muscle to the maximum extent possible. Just remember dumbbell curls with wrist supination - you bend your arm with the dumbbell and rotate your forearm outward. I think the principle is quite clear.

What about push-ups? Let's look at all stages of the movement:

1. You took a prone position. Almost all the muscles in your body, including a little biceps, work in a static mode to stabilize the position of the body. That is, there is no movement in the joints, the muscles do not perform their motor function, but simply tense a little and relax, helping to maintain the body in the position we need and not fall over.
2. You bend your arms and lower your body down. Is this the right movement? Unfortunately no. The curling of the arms in this phase is not due to the force from the biceps, but due to gravity, which pulls your body towards the ground. The tension that we feel in our arms when lowering our body down is the work of the triceps, which, stretching under control, prevents us from bending our arms sharply and collapsing to the floor.
3. You lift your body off the floor. The arms do not bend, the forearms do not rotate outward. The chest and triceps work here, the biceps muscles are not even talked about.

Having broken down the exercise into pieces, we see that if the biceps are used during push-ups, it is only as a stabilizer muscle. Is it possible to increase its volume through this work? Unfortunately no. In other words, biceps push-ups are wishful thinking, but in reality they are not effective.

Exercises for biceps

So, the answer to the question of how to pump up your biceps with push-ups is clear. The point is that it is impossible to do this. Let's look at really effective options with which you can pump up this muscle.

If you go to the gym or have dumbbells, kettlebells or a barbell, then everything is very simple. Here is a list of exercises that will help you achieve results:

• biceps curl;
• curling your arms on a Scott bench;
• hammers with dumbbells;
• concentrated biceps curls;
• bending the arms on the upper block;
• lifts on the block (lower);
• lifting dumbbells for biceps;
• close grip pull-ups;

If you train at home, and you don’t have dumbbells, a barbell, or a horizontal bar at your disposal, you can use, so to speak, improvised means. To perform bicep curls, you need any heavy object that is comfortable enough for you to hold in your hands.

Can be used:

• Heavy backpack or bag. Decide for yourself what to fill it with. You can take anything, from books to crushed stone, sand or potatoes.
• Five liter plastic water bottle.
• Any other version of a weighty object that can be comfortably grabbed.

Of course, this does not mean that push-ups are a bad exercise. They are very effective for developing the pectoralis major and triceps muscles and deserve a place of honor in your training program.

Finally, I would like to add that in order to achieve truly impressive results, you should work on your physical fitness in a complex manner, performing different exercises for different muscle groups. Then the figure will look impressive and aesthetically pleasing, because beauty is, first of all, harmony.

Common Injuries

During bicep push-ups, you can damage the ligaments in your wrist and hand. Use a few tips to avoid unpleasant injuries:

• Always warm up before doing push-ups. Warm up your joints and ligaments.
• Work at a slow pace.
• Gradually increase the load, do not overexert yourself.
• Do not change your body position during movements.

Biceps push-ups are best performed with open palms. If your hands are injured, then exercise with your fists. This way you can perfectly work out and strengthen your forearms. Finger push-ups are another common variation of this exercise. Your grip strength will become much stronger.

The exercise is suitable for beginners and experienced athletes. During the movements, you can pump up your shoulders, increase the volume of your biceps, and also strengthen your entire torso. Exercise regularly, do not forget about the correct movement technique. Most experienced athletes can perform one-arm push-ups.

How to pump up triceps at home

Well-developed, voluminous triceps give the arms a powerful, proportional appearance. Without it, you can’t do the bench press and shoulder exercises; physiologically, it should be almost 2 times larger and stronger than the biceps. And if you are concerned about the question of how to pump up the triceps at home, is this realistic, then the answer will be positive. Yes, it's possible! Several effective exercises will help you with this.

The long, most massive beam of your extensors is well worked with a dumbbell press from behind the head. You can lower the projectile parallel to the elbow line behind your back, or you can, slightly changing the angle of movement, move your hand behind your head to the opposite shoulder. The main thing is that the weight of the dumbbell should allow you to press the apparatus cleanly, without jerking or cheating.

The lower part of the shoulder extensor at the elbow bend is pumped with a French dumbbell press from a lying position on a horizontal bench. A significant advantage of this exercise is the equalization of the strength and volume of the arms.

Extension of the arms in a tilted position “bombs” the outer bundle and improves the relief of the triceps as a whole. In the final phase of the movement, when the arm is fully straightened, additionally briefly tense the muscles and immediately begin a new repetition, do not overload the joint.

Explosive “press” strength is increased by reverse push-ups from a bench, which are also available to you at home. To pump up the target muscle in this way, sit on a bench so that your arms are firmly supported and your pelvis is suspended.

Stretch your legs at an angle to the body, and place a barbell “pancake” on the front surface of the thigh for additional load. When doing push-ups, do not bend your elbows too much, otherwise you will transfer the load to your shoulders and chest.

Do the last repetitions partial until slight pain appears.

If at the end of the workout you still feel a little stronger, then do a set of push-ups. We place our hands slightly narrower than shoulder width, palms facing each other. Push-ups from this position put an extreme load on the triceps, and at the end of the complex this exercise simply turns into a bomb, exploding the target muscles from the inside.

The general strategy for pumping up the triceps consists of 2 points

1. It is better to perform 5 different exercises in 3 sets than the same thing in 15 approaches.
2. After a good warm-up, do the first approaches with strength in 7-8 repetitions, and as you get tired, reduce the weights and fill the muscles with blood in series of 15 repetitions. It is this type of triceps pumping that will give results even at home.