As an example to follow, the media and advertising cultivate in the public mind the image of fit, happy people who rarely suffer from excess weight or fatigue. The Internet is full of instructional videos in which professional athletes and fitness trainers teach everyone to a food culture and exercise complexes for every taste. It creates the illusion that keeping your body in good shape is not difficult.
However, the reality is harsher. Constant stressful situations, hours-long, but inactive work, a string of household chores, improper and excessive nutrition, motionless, numb lying or sitting in front of the screen - these are all common attributes of the life of a modern person. He often suffers from a chronic shortage of time and energy even for such simple entertainments as a walk in the park with a child or reading a book, let alone systematic trips to the gym.
As a result, overweight, friability, constant fatigue and dissatisfaction with oneself appear. Moreover, few people manage to change something radically, the swamp of the routine is too tightly held and the schedule of duties is too tight. Here we need effective and simple solutions that do not take much time. For example, a comprehensive exercise program, including push-ups and pull-ups, will help restore body elasticity and strength at home with little time.
Why this particular complex?
Both exercises are simple, versatile and effective. In both, the person’s own weight is used as a load. To work, you need only a little time, desire and a horizontal bar. Even a novice quickly learns the push-up and pull-up technique on their own. You can train at home, in the courtyard, in the work office, regardless of the weather and without buying a subscription to the gym. Using this set of exercises, you can successfully achieve different goals: lose weight, become stronger, increase muscle volume or make them more prominent, keep your body in shape.
Advantages of the complex
They are as follows:
- Ease of implementation.
- Minimum inventory.
- Several muscle groups are pumped at once.
- Variability. A variety of grips when pulling up and setting the arms during push-ups allow not only loading different muscle groups, but also varying the load for people with different physical fitness and strength.
- The strength of the fingers and muscles of the wrist develops.
- Universality. The training program "push-ups - pull-ups" requires a lot of strength, therefore it is usually more suitable for men, but many women enjoy mastering these exercises, appreciating their effectiveness.
Limitations
You cannot go in the following cases:
- Injuries to the shoulder, elbows, fingers, or wrist.
- Problems with the neck or spine, such as scoliosis or intervertebral hernia.
- Severe obesity. First you need to lose weight, otherwise too much weight can cause injuries.
- Lordosis.
- Arthritis, arthrosis and other joint diseases.
- Flu, colds, fever.
Muscle groups
With correctly performed push-ups, almost all muscle groups work, starting from the muscles of the neck and small muscles of the shoulders and ending with the calves, buttocks and finger muscles. But the main load falls on the following muscles:
- triceps;
- press;
- front gear;
- large pectoral;
- deltoid.
When pulling up, the muscles of the upper body are mainly worked out, the arms, abs and back do all the work, the main load is on the following muscles:
- biceps
- toothed;
- forearm
- large round;
- triceps;
- the widest;
- rhomboid;
- chest (large and small);
- deltoid;
- trapezoidal;
- press.
Targets and goals
Using the push-up-pull-up complex, you can achieve different goals:
- Increased stamina and strength. The trainee should strive to do a large number of repetitions and perform complex modifications of exercises.
- Muscle building Emphasis on the most complex exercises, combining them with extra weight.
- Losing weight. To lose weight, you need to spend more energy than the body receives with food. One diet is usually not enough. Push-ups and pull-ups require an impressive amount of energy, especially if you focus on a large number of repetitions.
- Extra load. Both exercises perfectly load the upper body and are used in Pilates, yoga, plyometric complexes, crossfit, callanetics.
Push-ups: execution technique
The importance of execution technique is difficult to overestimate. Some newcomers take it lightly and pay for it with a waste of energy and lack of positive dynamics. Initially, you need to absorb the axiom: an impeccable technique - the cornerstone of any exercise and the key to success. First you need to learn how to perform the exercise without errors, bring the technique to automatism.
You can do 100 push-ups, 100 pull-ups in several approaches in one approach, but if the technique is lame, if breathing is incorrect or legs are involved, then there will be no special results. The load is dissipated, the right muscles work half-heartedly. Therefore, you need to push up correctly.
Starting position:
- The body is straight, does not bend or rise into the pelvis.
- Press tense, feet together.
- The arms are fully extended at the elbows.
- The palms of the entire plane are parallel to the body line just below the shoulders. The width varies: with a wide arrangement of the palms, the muscles of the chest mainly work, with a narrow arrangement - triceps, with an average - the load is distributed approximately evenly.
- It is advisable to raise the head, as it is easier to breathe correctly during exercise. For convenience, you can look at a speculative point located on the floor a meter from the head.
Performance:
- Bend your elbows, linger for a moment at the lower point, return to the starting position.
- Amplitude. You can focus on the distance from the chest to the floor, it should be 2-3 centimeters at the bottom, or at the angle of the bent arms - at the bottom, it should be straight.
- Rhythm. Usually the body sinks slowly and rises faster. But the masters and record holders for push-ups with the help of additional effort lower the body very quickly. For a beginner, such a performance is difficult. The fact is that, according to the laws of physics, the faster the body sinks, the more force it will take to stop and raise it. An untrained person gets tired instantly, in addition, the technique of such push-ups is more complicated.
- Breath. The most important part of push-ups and pull-ups. The law of proper breathing is surprisingly simple: exhalation is performed at the moment of maximum effort. Therefore, when push-ups, you need to gain air, lowering the body, and exhale it - when lifting, when the muscles tighten.
- Automata. At first, all attention should be devoted to technology, consciously observing each stage of the exercise, rhythm and breathing. If an athlete has been pushing up for a long time, but realizes that his technique is incorrect, it must be immediately corrected. Over time, the body will perform the exercise flawlessly without any control.
Pullups: Technique
Pullups require more effort than push-ups, so the correct technique for their implementation is usually more difficult. Not possessing sufficient strength of the arms and back, people involuntarily begin to help themselves with jerks and swaying, leg work, do not lift the body enough. As a result, the erroneous technique takes root, and the muscles of the back and arms do not get enough load, training is wasted.
Push-ups, pull-ups, squats, rope jumping and most other exercises make one fundamental point: they give noticeable positive dynamics and effect only when correctly performed. Neglecting technology, a person is robbing himself, exchanging precious time and energy for trifling results.
Starting position when pulling up:
- Palms firmly squeeze the horizontal bar with one of the grip options. Hands are fully extended. The press is tense. The legs are crossed. The body hangs freely on the horizontal bar.
- Grabs. With a direct grip, the palms are directed outward in relation to the face, the main load goes to the middle part of the latissimus dorsi, the front dentate and triceps. With a reverse grip, the palms are directed towards the face, the load falls on the lower part of the latissimus muscle and biceps. A wide grip shifts the main effort to the back, a narrow one - to the muscles of the chest, medium - distributes the force evenly.
Performance:
- With the strength of the arms and back, smoothly raise the body up, without helping with jerking the body and twitching the legs. Touch the crossbar with the upper chest, fix the body for one to two seconds and smoothly, but not relaxing the muscles, lower the body to its original position. Elbows should not rise above the horizontal bar.
- Breath. Inhale when lifting the body, exhale when the body drops.
Program push-ups and pull-ups
Before choosing an individual program, a work and rest plan should be made. Sometimes people who are keen on training are willing to work hard, believing that they will achieve their goal faster. However, the opposite effect is often obtained. They are too exhausting and lose motivation. And most importantly, depriving the muscles of rest does not allow them to develop, because muscle tissue grows precisely during the recovery period.
Therefore, no matter how you would like to quickly solve the tasks, you need to follow the correct training plan. For example, for beginners, a gentle training regimen is suitable: a day of push-ups, a day of pull-ups, a day of rest. When the body gets used to the stresses, one day between three or four days of training can be allocated for muscle recovery and growth.
Sample training schemes:
- Push ups for beginners. Training takes four minutes, but requires maximum effort and focus. The algorithm is simple: 60 seconds of intense push-ups without pauses - 60 seconds of rest - 30 seconds of push-ups - 60 seconds of rest - 15 seconds of push-ups. At first, there may not be enough strength to work continuously for a minute, but this is a business. First of all, you need to take care of the right technique.
- Push-ups for the prepared. The essence is the same, but the loads are increased: 60 seconds, the maximum number of push-ups - a minute of rest - 45 seconds of work - a minute of rest - 30 seconds of push-ups - minute rest - 15 minutes of push-ups - minute of rest - 10 seconds of explosive push-ups.
- Pullups Training consists of five approaches. Between them rest, which should not exceed three minutes. In the first four approaches you need to catch up at the level of 90% of your maximum capabilities, in the last set you need to give all the best.
- 100 pull-ups. A simple circuit suitable for beginners. True, it is better for a beginner to start with 50 or even 30 pull-ups. The idea is elementary: during the training, you need to do the planned number of pull-ups, distributing them to a certain number of approaches, or stretch in each approach for as long as you have enough strength until you get the right total amount.