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On this 30 day challenge you will receive one task daily to complete in order to help you eat, move, think, and sleep better.
Today’s task is to do 50 pushups.
How those legs feeling? Have you recovered from day 6’s task of 50 squats? We hope so because here comes another tough one!
You can break these 50 pushups up throughout the day or you can try do them all at once - it’s up to you.
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Like the squat, the pushup is a really vital movement in strengthening upper-body muscles such as those in your chest, shoulders, triceps, abdominals and several other smaller supporting muscles. It also plays a key role in developing core strength and for strengthening the bones, ligaments, and insertions of the tendons throughout the upper body.
It’s a truly functional movement that makes real-life activities easier and also improves your efficiency, mobility, and balance when moving around in general.
If you need a bit of guidance on the pushup:
1. Get into a high plank position. Place your hands firmly on the ground, directly under shoulders. Ground your toes into the floor to stabilize your lower half. Brace your core (tighten your abs as if preparing to take a punch), engage glutes and hamstrings, and flatten your back so your entire body is neutral and straight.
2. Lower your body. Begin to lower your body—keeping your back flat and eyes focused about three feet in front of you to keep a neutral neck—until your chest grazes the floor. Don’t let your butt dip or stick out at any point during the move; your body should remain in a straight line from head to toe. Draw shoulder blades back and down, keeping elbows tucked close to your body (don't "T" your arms).
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3. Push back up. Keeping your core engaged, exhale as you push back to the starting position. Pro tip: Imagine you are screwing your hands into the ground as you push back up. That’s one! Repeat for 10 to 20 reps or as many as can be performed with good form.
If you struggle doing a regular pushup you can try:
1. Off the wall pushups. This is the easiest pushup variation where you perform a standing pushup against a wall. Simply stand straight up with your arms straight out in front of you, hands touching the wall. Then bend at the elbows as you lean in towards the wall before pushing back up straight again. You can slowly move further and further away from the wall to increase the angle at which you need to lean and make the exercise harder.
2. Off the table pushup. If the wall pushup is too easy, do the same thing except this time you lean against a sturdy table which is much lower and closer to being horizontal than the wall.
3. On your knees pushup. This is performed almost identically to the regular pushup except you will have your knees rested on the ground. It is very important to engage your core and squeeze your buttocks to maintain a straight back.
If you find regular pushups are too easy you can try:
1. Bench press. If you have access to a gym with dumbbells and barbells you can do a regular bench press.
2. Single-leg pushup. Raise one leg off the ground while you perform a regular pushup. Alternate which legs are raised every 5-10 reps.
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3. Slow negative pushup. Perform a regular pushup but take 3-5 seconds lowering yourself down towards the ground each time before exploding upwards.
4. Decline pushup. Place your feet up on a box, your bed, a chair, a low table, and so on to perform a decline pushup.
5. Clapping pushup. Perform a regular pushup but explode of the ground as fast as possible, doing a quick clap while in the air before landing back on the ground and lowering yourself down again.
6. One-arm pushup. Perform a regular pushup but with 1 arm tucked behind your back. It helps to widen your feet stance quite a bit here and you can also progress towards a one-arm pushup by placing one hand on the ground and one hand on a low box or the bottom step at the bottom of some stairs. Try keep as much weight off the elevated hand as possible.
JOIN UP!
You can sign up for FREE here: Ultimate You
In case you missed these:
Day 7: Take photos of yourself in your underwear
Day 8: Get 8 Hours of Sleep Tonight
Day 9: Drink 8 Glasses of Water
DONE!
See you tomorrow for your next healthy habit.
