WORKOUT 1:
PUSH

The exercises in this workout all come from one movement, pushing with your arms. You push when you lift heavy objects above your shoulders, raise yourself up from a bed or chair, and when you push away from opposing objects or the ground. Starting with a familiar workhorse, the push-up, these exercises develop your chest, shoulders, and triceps: air boxing, clap push-ups, dive bombs, grounded dips, jump outs, jumping jacks, plyometric jump outs, side bridges, triceps push-ups, and wide push-ups.

Push-up
To get into position, stand, squat down, and place your palms on the ground, shoulder-width apart, in the position that feels right for you. Jump back, extending both legs straight back (if this is too hard, bring one leg back at a time). You now should be supporting your body weight on your palms and the balls of your feet, your feet and legs together, and your legs and trunk forming a straight line going up from your feet to your head. This posture is called "push-up position." To do the push-ups, lower yourself down so your chest touches the floor, then lift your entire body up from the ground, pushing through your hands, breathing out as you go up. Keep your back relaxed but straight.

Why
Long the field exercise of choice to develop and assess upper body endurance, the time-honored push-up loads your upper body, working your chest, triceps, forearms, trunk, and abdominal muscles. The top 10 percent of men in their twenties can do at least 42 push-ups in a row; for women, that figure is 32 push-ups in a row. The average man in his twenties can do 24 push-ups in a row, the average woman in her twenties, 16; roughly the same numbers apply to only the top 10 percent of men and women in their sixties. By loading your bones and joints as well as your muscles, push-ups also stimulate healthy cartilage and bone development. While men have long used push-ups as upper body muscle builders, women like how push-ups tighten and tone their upper body and triceps.

Easier
Because the push-up puts more than a quarter of your body weight on each wrist, people with wrist or shoulder pain may find a regular push-up too hard at first. If you feel shaky, or have persistent trouble keeping your back straight, lighten the load by letting your knees rest on the ground. If that's still too hard, do wall push-ups, which are the same as regular push-ups, except that you stand up and push off against a wall. Most people can do wall push-ups without aggravating wrist or shoulder pain. To make the wall push-ups gradually harder, gradually step further away from the wall to increase how much you're leaning. In time, with regular workouts, you'll be able to work up to knee and then regular push-ups.

Harder
The simplest way to make push-ups harder? Do more. Military recruits routinely show up for training being able to do 100 push-ups in good form without stopping, well above the 42-push-up norm for the top 10 percentile of males in their twenties. As you become able to do a larger number of push-ups without stopping, apply the intensifying techniques of working to failure (covered in Rule 5), continuous movement, muscle targeting, or ballistic loading (all covered in Rule 6), in a systematic way (Rule 7).

Going higher
These 11 related movements each stress different pushing muscles in different ways. In addition to push-ups, choose at least three of these, finding exercises that seem to work for you. Use the same guidelines for these exercises as you did for push-ups, training first for endurance, then intensifying.

1. Air boxing
Assume a boxing stance: bent elbows, and clenched fists (thumbs over, not inside, the fingers). Keep your forearms close to your abdomen and a little open so the palm part of your wrist is up (like when pitching underhand softball), your pinky fingers almost touching your sides of your torso. Punch out one arm as hard as you can and retract it. As you retract one arm, punch out hard with the other, punching an imaginary spot in mid-air. As you punch, let your wrists corkscrew 180º so the punch ends with your knuckles forward and on top.

2. Clap push-up
(Be able to do at least twenty push-ups in good form, without wrist pain, before attempting a clap push-up.) Perform a push-up, pushing up with an extra thrust so you can clap your hands together before landing. The clap should be distinctly audible. Like with any challenging movement, introduce this exercise cautiously, gradually, and only when you think you're ready.

3. Dive bomb
Assume the push-up position, but with your hips up in the air so you're bent at the waist in a "V" shape with straight legs and straight arms. Keeping your hips high, lower your chest to the ground in between your hands. Continue forward, pushing your chest through your hands and then up, straightening your arms so that your hips are now down and your head and shoulders high. Now go in reverse back to the starting position. These push-ups work a broader area of your chest and shoulders. Breathe evenly as you do this, and do not "cheat" by holding your breath to generate greater force.

4. Grounded dip
Assume a forward sitting position, sitting with your legs relaxed and in front of you, knees slightly bent. Place your hands comfortably at your sides to support yourself. Using your legs and trunk to hike your hips off the floor, so that you're balancing now on your heels and hands, lower yourself by bending your elbows just enough so your rear just touches the ground. Straighten your elbows to raise yourself back up.

5. Jump out
This is a six-part movement: stand, squat down, jump out, do a push-up, jump back, and return to standing. Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart. Squat down to place your palms on the ground, shoulder-width apart, and thrust your legs straight back so your feet land behind you. Lower your chest to touch the ground, pushing with your arms. Return to standing: straighten your elbows, jump forward into a crouched position, stand up.

6. Jumping jack
Stand with feet together and arms down. While sweeping your arms sideways and up over your head, jump, opening up your legs to land on the ground with your feet about shoulders-width apart. Throughout the movement, keep your legs straight, but your elbows slightly bent as feels comfortable for you. This transition movement, which you might recall from gym class, gives you a break before doing the next plyometric exercises.

7. Plyometric jump out
(Be able to do five clap push-ups before attempting.) This is a jump out without the squat: you jump and thrust your legs back in mid-air to land on your palms. Like with any plyometric exercise, you should only try this when you are able to do five clap push-ups (and you shouldn't even try to do a clap push-up until you can do 20 regular push-ups without wrist pain). Beginning in standing with knees and elbows slightly bent, palms outward, jump up and throw yourself forward and down to land on your palms and the balls of your feet, absorbing some of the landing impact by bending your elbows as you do during a push-up. After landing, you should be in the same position as the middle of a push-up. Pushing with your arms, quickly jump forward into a crouched position, and jump back up into standing.

8. Plyometric push-up
(Be able to do five clap push-ups before attempting plyometric push-ups.) Start in a high kneeling position: kneel on the ground, your trunk and thighs vertical. With palms out, ready to brace you, fall forward and land on them. Let your elbows to bend with the impact to absorbing some of the shock, letting the rest of the shock to stretch your chest and triceps muscles. The moment you land, push hard with your arms to propel you back to the starting position.

9. Side bridge
This is a sideways push-up. Propping yourself up sideways and, balancing your weight on your right arm and the side of your right foot, bend your right elbow to lower yourself as far as you can, and straighten it to push yourself up. Like grounded dips, this exercise targets the triceps muscles and provides beneficial load-bearing stress to your arms' shoulder, elbow, and wrist joints. It also requires a great deal of balance. Repeat the set with your left arm.

10. Triceps push-up
Assume a push-up position, but with your hands close together to form a triangle with your thumbs and index fingers touching. Narrowing your base of support throws the load to your triceps as well as your inner chest muscles. Bending your elbows, lower yourself so that your face nearly touches the ground. Push up with your body by straightening your arms.

11. Wide push-up
Assume a push-up position but with your hands far apart so your upper arms are almost straight out to the sides. Lower yourself until your chest just touches the ground, then push up until your arms are straight. These push-ups toughen up your shoulder ligaments, so do them cautiously until you get used to them, and put more emphasis on the outer part of your chest.

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