What you need:

A stability ball

Weights – for different presses

1) Chest-press on exercise ball – Lie with your back on the stability ball and your feet on the floor. Your knees should be at a 90 degree angle. Hold a weight or dumbbell in each hand. Make sure you maintain your stability. Press your weights upwards into the air. Keep the timing right, so neither arm reaches up faster than the other. Now bring the weights down slowly, count to five as you do so. Remember much of the resistance comes with this downwards movement.

2) Stability ball push-ups (easy version) – Rest your feet on the ball and stretch your arms and body forward. You should be in a plank position. Lower your body towards the ground and make sure your elbows bend at a 90 degree angle. Hold at the bottom for a few seconds and then raise yourself up slowly. Hold at the top for a few seconds and then lower again. Repeat until you are tired.

3) Stability ball push-ups (hard version) – Rest your feet on the floor and place your hands on the stability ball. Lower your body slowly while maintaining your balance on the stability ball. The difficulty here is in maintaining the balance of the ball while holding your own weight. It might take you a moment to find the balancing point. Make sure to lower slowly and plant your feet firmly. Do as many reps as you can.

4) Arm extension stretch – It is always good to end with a stretch. Sit on your stability ball, knees bent at 90 degrees and feet planted at hip distance apart. Reach your right arm up slowly next to your ear. Lean your body to the left side, creating a slight arc in your side. Hold for a few seconds and breathe deeply. Now lower your arm so you are reaching straight in front of you. Stretch your arm across the front of your body. You can use your left hand to push your right arm a little more to the side if necessary. Repeat this exercise with the left side. Repeat if you are feeling a little tense.

Most research shows each traditional push-up is the same as lifting 50-70% of your body weight.  That is a pretty good workout for most, if they only did 3 sets of 30.  A man weighing 180 lbs would have lifted a total of 8,100 pounds in a short workout.  Not too shabby for the good ol’ flabby.

To make push-ups easier, do the ‘girl’ push-up or the wall push-up.  These place less stress on the muscles and help those who can’t do them traditionally.  I would suggest using these styles to build up some strength to do traditional push-ups because the traditional style works your core at the same time.

For those looking for even more of a challenge, try placing your feet on a chair or medicine ball.  The higher elevation shift the center of gravity and causes you to push more of your body weight.  Medicine balls force you to use your core muscles even more to balance your stance.

Three other great variations are the Spiderman and polar bear.  The Spiderman is a full body workout.  You start in the traditional up position and as you go down, you drive you left knee to your left elbow keeping your leg parallel to the ground.  As you come back up, you straighten your leg back to the starting point and then do the same with your right.

Polar bear push-ups start in the down position.  As you come to the up position you raise your left hand straight to the ceiling and hold that position for a three count.  Then put your hand right back to the ground.  Go down and then back to the up position.  Raise your right hand to the ceiling and continue.

Save your money, skip the gym, do push-ups.

First of all, this plan is best to supplement your current plan.  With it you will gradually build your endurance and strength.  You will only do one set of push ups, crunches and lunges.

Here is the plan for day one: Do as many push ups as you can on day one. (ex. 40 total push ups, 40 crunches and 30 lunges (each leg).

Day two: Do half that number in the morning (ex. 20 push ups, 20 crunches, 15 lunges). That night do the exact same number. The key is to do them with perfect technique and not cheating form simply to complete the exercise.  It is better to stop a few short than to cheat.

Day three: Add one more push up, crunch and lunge to day two’s morning and night set (ex. 21, 21, and 16 morning and night) .

Continue doing this every day.

Each week you must add 10 to your morning and nightly sets. On some days you will add more than one at a time. Don’t rush it, though, only add 10 a week!

This requires less than ten minutes a day, and in a month’s time you will have added 40 to your totals! You could be doing 520 push-ups per day in a year! All with slow improvements and a lot of discipline.

I did this back in high school and started with 30 and climbed to 200+. My friend Chris Hubinsky continued on and peaked at 1,000! He and I decided to give it another go and just started over, ten years later. I am currently on 40 push ups, 50 crunches and 45 lunges…and am going for 300.  I always wanted to do 300 push ups straight.

I seriously have been debating the acquisition of a pull-up bar.  It would be a huge benefit to my back strength and a great addition to the program.  Does anybody have any other simple workout plans that provide results?