How to Build Muscle - 6 Different Ways With the Same Exercise

A push-up is not just a push-up. In fact if you understand that concept, you are not only going to get better at that exercise, but you are going to see all new gains, and I am going to show you exactly why today. What's up guys? Jeff Cavaliere at AthleanX.com back in the gym finally, able to put out another exercise video here. This one I think is really important because we are going to cover a very key concept. I mentioned in the opening that a push-up is not just a push-up. What I meant by that is there are so many ways to train with push-ups that not only does it apply to one exercise, but it applies to your whole training program. I think that it is really important that you see that today. I am going to show you with just one exercise how that can be and try to tie it all together at the end. A push-up is sort of a baseline muscle endurance type exercise. It does have a strength component, because if you can't even do one, you are obviously not strong enough to lift your own body weight, so you have to improve that. When you can do a push-up and lift your own body weight it is somewhat an endurance type issue because you want to see how many push-ups you can do in a certain period of time, or how long or how many reps. Now if I want to change the focus of that and make it more of a strength exercise, all I have to do is add more resistance. So I can put a band across my back, or I can throw on a weighted vest. Now a weighted vest you can get these at many different places. This is not the prettiest one in the world, sort of commando, Arnold Schwarzenegger back in the day. Basically you put on your weighted vest, obviously you wrap it all up, but now I have 40 more lbs that I have to push. So now it is more of an overloaded strength exercise. OK? All the way down and all the way up. But if I want to make it more powerful what I can do is add an acceleration component to it, a velocity component to it. So now I have my overloaded overweighted environment here. Now I am going to push-ups while clapping. OK? So now the focus has shifted from baseline muscle endurance to strength to now power, to power endurance. I can take this off. The power endurance with the same push-up-Let's do 10, 10 clapping push-ups - [Exercises] OK? 10 and hold for 10 seconds. Right? Then go back at it again another 10 and hold for 10 seconds, 10 and hold for 10 seconds. Reproducible power. So what we have there again is power and endurance. How many rounds can you continue to do that for? Next we can go into a static isometric exercise. So just working on your ability to hold. Get down in here, low hover position it is called, straight down, hold. Can you do this for a minute or 2 minutes or 3 minutes? YOu are testing your ability to do that. Or with my athletes a lot of times, I want to find out how stable they are. So we can go through a whole stability version of a push-up; I want to know can they go down on the count of 5: so 1,2,3,4,5 with a hold. 1,2,3,4,5 up to the top and back down and do my reps in that 5 second down 5 second up count. So I think I have illustrated here, you can't just ask me how many push-ups I can do. Or "are you going to do push-ups here today in your training?" because there are so many different ways even in that one exercise. We can apply so many different training focuses to what we are doing, that it completely changes the effect. So guys it doesn't work like that way in one exercise or in one muscle group, or one workout. You can change so many different variables and do them in a very specific way, to create an entirely new training effect. If you are not doing that, if you are not mixing in all different types of training focuses, hitting different energy systems,you are not going to get the best results possible. You will never be an athlete. You will never look like an athlete because you are not training like one. So with ATHLEAN-X we apply all this stuff into the program right through from week 1 to week 12. Rent all of our programs because it is that important. You have got to mix it up. You have to bring in different types of energy systems and do it in a way that makes sense. I always say that we try to put the science back in strength here. It is really a major focus. If you haven't already, guys, there is no better time than now to come on TEAM ATHLEAN. The summer is now here. You have to start looking good. We have all the options for you now at AthleanX.com. Brand new: a new delivery system. All your workouts delivered right into your mobile device, right into your computer. Access it wherever you have an internet connection. Forget DVDS guys. You don't need to rely on that, that is sort of archaic. You can actually get your fitness wherever you are now and get into the best shape of your life. Head to AthleanX.com. Guys I can't tell you how glad I am to be back here in the gym and focusing here again on workouts and exercises. We are going to keep them coming. Stay tuned next week. I am probably going to give you a sneak peek on some inside testing of what we do with an athlete when they come in and start their programs. Until then have a great rest of the weekend. I will see you back here in 7 days.