Press-Ups and Pull-Ups - The Triangle Theory

Press-ups and Pull-ups have much in common. Firstly, both are incredibly efficient muscle builders and using these as your staple exercise is sure to sculpt your body into Terminator-esque perfection. Second, both are often done incorrectly, which can result in adverse effects or injury. And third, they are both about triangles.

Indeed, triangles are the secret to success in attempting a correct execution in both of these exercises; or for that matter, any upper body exercise involving the arms and pectoralis major muscles. Of course, it depends upon exactly what you’re trying to do. Consider the speed at which you conducts your repetition - cranking out as many as possible builds explosive power and gives results quickly, but also tends to work only some muscles which can result in weird shapes emerging. For example, when I was fourteen I spent a large part of each day doing hundreds of quickly executed press-ups, and to great effect. But I ended up with man boobs.

Doing your reps slowly is probably the best idea (and this goes for sit-ups, crunches, squats and lunges too) since the strain causes more damage to the muscle fibres, meaning that they grow back stronger. Try the one second up, three down tempo. This hurts like hell but works best. Also, taking things slow will make you much stronger instead of just rewarding you with beach muscles that can’t do a lot. It also means that it lasts for longer and makes the ‘show’ muscles more prominent (which is also why it’s good to mix up your crunches with several minutes of plank).

Now to explain my theory about triangles. Let’s say you’re looking in the mirror and trying to decide which muscle groups need a bit of work before you take a shower. You decide that your pecks look fine but your arms are looking a little thin (or vice versa) - so you hit the floor to do some strategic sculpting. To work your triceps you want to place your hands in front of you with your thumbs and index fingers touching, and your other fingers spread to give you a solid base from which to spring. Your feet, however, should be wide apart. You want to slowly lower your body, keeping your entire form perfectly straight, down to within an inch of your hands before pushing back up.

As you can probably guess, do the opposite for your chest - wide arms and feet close together. To work the biceps, deltoids and shoulders, space both hands and feet at around shoulder length. Alternatively, ball your hand up into a fist either vertically or horizontally and push up. This toughens the knuckles and provides a bit of variety and challenge.

Indeed, pull-ups are fairly similar in terms of my triangle theory; hands close together works the outer arms and the further apart they are increases the work that the chest muscles have to do. However, what to do with the feet? Well, my normal way of doing things would be to rest one foot upon the other and bend the legs at the knee while hanging from the bar, then slowly straightening the body out as I pull up. If that doesn’t appeal then just keeping straight the whole time is also a good idea.

There is one simple way to maximise the number of repetitions you can do on a pull-up bar, and this is to do with the way you grasp it. Most people will wrap their thumbs around, assuming that it gives them a better grip - it doesn’t. Keep your fingers all on the same side and close together, an you will find that you can usually push yourself to do a few more. A good investment is a pair of gym gloves, which just enable you to do more repetitions on basically everything.

Now to explain the difference between pull-ups and chin-ups. It’s very simple - pull-ups demand an overhand grasp and chin-ups are the softer option of the underhand grasp. I’ve always preferred the overhand way of doing things, however chin-ups are much easier to do and work the biceps more, so in general are a pretty solid option after all.

I’m feeling a need to stress the beauty of both of these exercises, particularly press-ups. I have complete faith in their ability to build and define; using them properly you can hit almost any area of the torso, and they also employ the core muscles which, depending on how thin you are, will also give you an - albeit faint - sixpack, or good foundations from which to build a more chiseled one. I know a lot of people who do 30 or so before bed, which is a good start, but won’t do much. Having said that, doing 700 does massive amounts, and isn’t as monumental as you might think. Doing sets of 50 reps means you can enter into the hundreds without any trouble at all. Start by doing as many as you can as often as you can if you can’t already do 50, and within weeks you can see amazing results without even having to go to a gym. I’d recommend it as the primary form of exercise for anyone - so get on the floor and go!

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