Before you start any workout you must properly warm up to avoid workout injuries and to increase your workout performance. When you want to do more than 15 pushups in one go, you should try to take a few minutes to warm up your body.
But how to warm up for push ups?
There are many ways you can warm up before you do pushups. But the best way to warm up before you do pushups is you need to start with doing some simple body stretches and then do some spot jogging or high knees and then to activate all those muscle groups that are used while doing pushups you can do wall pushups and knee pushups 10-15 times to warm up your body before doing pushups.
In this article, you will read in detail about how to warm up for pushups, and some best practices you should follow when you are warming up before pushups and want to do max amount of pushups.
Should you do warm-ups for pushups?
Pushups are one of the simple yet very popular bodyweight exercises for people with different fitness levels. The surprising fact is many do pushups to warm up their body before they do weight training.
But if you want to know if should I warm up before push ups?
The answer is when you do fewer pushups then you can do pushups without doing any warm up. But it’s recommended to take a few minutes to do some warm-up exercises when you want to do pushups in large numbers or you want to do multiple sets of pushups.
Generally, it’s best to warm up before doing push-ups or other physical exercises. A warm-up helps you to prepare your body for training by increasing your heart rate, raising your body temperature, and loosening up your muscle groups. This can help reduce the risk of workout injuries and can improve your workout performance.
In the below section, you will know more about how to warm up for push ups correctly.
Related: How to get better at pushups.
How to warm up for push-ups
There are two types of warm-ups you can do before doing pushups. One is short and good for most people with less time in hand and want to do 2-3 sets of push-ups until failure.
And there is another type of warm-up which can take a few minutes to complete. I will mention both types of warm-up routines for doing pushups.
Short warm-up routine for push-ups
In this short warm-up routine for pushups, there are only two types of exercises.
To start this pushup warm-up routine you need to do knee pushups or wall pushups 15-20 times and you will be doing only one set.
After doing knee pushups or wall pushups you will take rest for 10-15 seconds then move on to the next exercise.
You need to be in a pushup position and you need to do pushups very slowly. You need to do pushups slowly 3-4 times and you need to do 2 sets of this workout. And between one set you can take rest for less than 20 seconds.
This short warm-up session is best for most people and especially good for beginners and for people who want to warm up their body before pushups and want to do max amount of pushups.
As this is a short warm-up routine so, it will not take a large amount of energy.
Related: How to do 100 pushups a day.
Long warm-up routine for push-ups
To start this warm-up session you need to do some light cardio to get your heart rate up and blood flowing. You can do exercises like jogging or spot jogging, jumping jacks, jump rope and high knees for 40 seconds.
After completing your first exercise you need to do some dynamic stretches to loosen up your body parts like shoulders, chest, and arms. You can do arm circles, shoulder rolls, and chest stretches.
If you want to do some body stretches before pushups then you can do the above stretches or you can watch the below video to find out more body stretches to do before doing pushups.
The third part of this warm-up routine involves engaging those muscle groups that are engaged while doing push-ups. You can do bodyweight planks, mountain climbers, knee push-ups and wall pushups.
The last exercise you should do to properly warm up for pushups is to do 3-4 pushups very slowly. You should spend roughly 5 seconds while going down and roughly 3-4 seconds while going up. You should be in a regular pushup position and should maintain correct pushup movement but you should do it slowly.
And you need to do pushups slowly 3-4 times and do two sets of this exercise.
After completing your warm-up like this your body will be ready for any type of pushup workout.
Related: Can you do pushups after eating food?
Best practices you should follow for warming up before doing pushups
For most people out there who want to do pushups for 2-3 sets, above mentioned short pushup warm-up routine is best for them.
People with good to moderate amount of fitness levels can choose to follow the long version of the pushups warm-up routine.
Otherwise, if beginners try to do a long warm-up before they do the actual pushups workout then they will find that they are doing less amount of pushups than when they do pushups without any warm-up. It’s normal to happen in the beginning.
Suggested read: Pushup routine for beginners.
Conclusion
There are two methods you can follow to warm up for push ups correctly. One is a short warm-up consisting of only two exercises and is suitable for most people.
On the other hand, people with some stamina and good fitness level can decide to warm up for a bit longer.
If you decide to do more than 3 sets of pushups then it’s recommended that you do some warm-ups. Depending on the situation you can choose to decide between a short and long warm-up routine for pushups.
FAQs on Warm up before pushups
What stretches to do before pushups?
Before doing pushups you can do simple body stretches such as shoulder stretches, chest stretches, and arm stretches. Additionally, you can do arm circles, and shoulder rolls. Also if you want to keep it simple then you can only do 10-15 wall pushups and knee pushups to warm up before doing pushups.
How do you warm up before push-ups?
For an easy warm-up before doing pushups you can do knee pushups or wall pushups for one set and you can choose a repetition that you are comfortable with. Also, another way you can warm up before pushups is to do pushups slowly for 3-5 times and then take 1-2 minutes rest before you start doing intense pushup sets.
Is it dangerous or harmful to do push-ups without a proper warm-up?
If you are doing less than 30 pushups or only doing 2-3 sets of pushups then you can do pushups without any warm-ups. But if you want to do multiple sets of pushups and in each set want to do pushups in large numbers then it’s recommended that you warm up before pushups. Even if you don’t warm up before pushups it’s not dangerous because pushup is a bodyweight exercise and it can be done without any warm-up in most cases.
What are 3 exercises to improve push-ups?
Here are three best exercises you can do to improve push-ups. Exercise 1. plank, exercise 2. wall pushups, exercise 3. mountain climbers. Do these three exercises 3-4 times a week to improve the number of pushups you can do.
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