Pressup Variations

Press ups have been used for centuries to build upper body strength but can they be modified to relieve boredom and also to create extra strength and explosiveness in the upper body?

Yes they can. The clap press up, as you have probably guessed is a press up where you clap your hands. In order to do this, you must push your body vigorously off the floor so as you can create time to clap. By doing a press up in this way, you are training in a polymetric fashion which helps to create explosiveness in your upper body muscles. The obvious way to clap when doing this exercise is to simply bring your hands together in front of your body, but for people who find this to easy I suggest trying to clap your hands together behind your body. In order to do this, your hands must be off the floor for a longer amount of time then when clapping in front, so you must push even harder when performing the press up, which creates added strength in the upper body.

This is a fast twitch muscle, explosive exercise and I have found that the best way to perform them is by performing in a certain amount of time. For instance 20 press ups must be aimed at in 30 seconds or 30 press ups in a minute etc. By training in this way, you create more explosiveness than you would then performing reps and sets in a slower fashion.