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As we age, spending time on the floor becomes less common, which can lead to a decline in our ability to manage our body weight and rise from the ground. For those who haven’t had to support their full weight in many years, it’s understandable that this could present a challenge. Pushups remain one of the most effective and accessible exercises for strengthening the chest, yet their difficulty can make them daunting. Fortunately, there are smarter, safer ways to gradually enhance your chest strength, allowing you to start from your current fitness level and progress incrementally.
While wall pushups aren’t necessarily superior, they do offer a simpler alternative to traditional floor pushups. Being upright means you are engaging with less of your body weight, making the exercise easier to perform. However, gradually working towards floor pushups provides a more effective chest workout. It’s crucial not to dismiss any exercise based on age alone; with the right approach, you can achieve greater fitness at any stage of life.
Why You Should Start With Wall Pushups
Wall pushups aren’t inherently better; they are just easier to do than floor pushups. Since you’re vertical, you are moving less of your bodyweight to complete the movement. But if you can build into it safely, it is still a much better exercise for the chest to do pushups from the floor. You should never assume that you can’t do a certain exercise just because of your age.
How to Build Up Your Strength Step-by-Step
Focus on starting with wall pushups and building up enough strength and confidence to be able to do a pushup from the floor. Once wall pushups become easy you can then do pushups on a slightly elevated and firm surface like a kitchen countertop. Once that’s easy you can do kneeling pushups on the ground and finally build up to the point to where you can do full traditional pushups.
Key Form Tips for All Pushup Variations:
- Keep your entire body tight – Brace your core, flex your legs, and squeeze your butt. Creating full body muscle tightness make the exercise much easier.
- Control your elbow position – Keep your elbows closer to your torso and don’t let them flare out too far to the side.
- Watch your shoulders – Keep your shoulders low and don’t hunch them up to your ears when doing the movement.
- Progress safely – Before progressing to the next level make sure you can comfortably control your chest all the way to the surface you are pushing off from and make sure you can safely do at least 3 sets of 10.
The Results You’ll Notice in Your Chest
If you already have an upper body strengthening routine just add these in. Start with 3 sets of 5 and build up to 3 sets of 10. Once you can do 3 sets of 10 and have it feel pretty easy then you can progress to the next variation. If you don’t already have a routine, just try doing these 2-3 times a week.
You should notice improved strength in just 2-4 weeks. You may notice increased fullness in your pec muscles and have the sensation that you can create more power when making a pushing movement.
