Increased Strength
Push ups are a great way to increase your overall strength. How, you may ask? Well, the simple flex and stretch motion of your arm, shoulder, and back muscles will eventually lead to an increase of muscle mass, which makes those particular muscle groups stronger. Pushups also increase the amount of human growth hormone produced in the body, which enables you to grow more muscle mass. The more regularly you perform the push-up exercise, the easier they become, and the more muscular you get.

Increasing Metabolism and Weight Loss
For the person trying to lose weight or attain a healthier weight, push ups are a great exercise to incorporate into your daily workout routine. To begin with, push ups are fairly strenuous exercises, therefore increasing the amount of blood flow to several major muscle groups including your chest and biceps. As you build muscle over time, your body begins to burn more calories to sustain itself resulting in an increased metabolism.

Total Body Benefits
One of the benefits of push ups, is that when done correctly, are a multi-muscle group exercise. They utilize so many different areas of your body, such as the chest, hands, all the major arm muscles, abs, glutes, feet and leg muscles, and, perhaps most importantly –  your heart. In some cases, push ups have even been said to help clear the mind. So if you have a big college test coming up, or if you’re experiencing a high amount of work related stress, just do some push ups, and watch the worry melt away!

Men vs. Women
Men and women are built differently and naturally will experience different benefits from push ups. Benefits of push ups for men include an increase in shoulder, bicep and core muscle strength. Men can also expect to see improvement in the scapula and rotor-cuff, even more so than working out on the bench press. Benefits of push ups for women include an increased upper body strength. Since women tend to be naturally stronger in the lower body, incorporating regular push ups is a great way to compensate.

If you’re looking for an effective and inexpensive exercise that can benefit your entire body – look to the classic push up. Begin slowly and slowly increase the number of sets and reps you can perform. Within a short period of time you’ll notice an increase in your upper body and core strength – and over a longer period of time you’ll reap even more push up benefits such as increased metabolism and cardiovascular endurance.