Unstable And Proud Of It! You'll never look at push-ups the same way again! by Nick Nilsson

Stage 3 - Swiss Ball/Dumbell Push-Ups

Now that you’ve experienced instability at both ends of the push-up, it’s time to put them both together and feel the burn!

Be sure you are comfortable with other two progressions before attempting this one and be sure you are not too close to anything should you lose your balance and roll off.

Set the dumbells up as you did in Stage 1 and set the ball up as you did in Stage 2. Place your hands on the dumbells first then set your legs on the ball.

Now do push-ups on three rolling, unstable surfaces!

Make sure you drop down and get a full range of motion (the dumbell handles will allow you to go further down than if you were doing them on the floor).

The first few reps may feel easy but as you continue, you will notice a burning sensation in the deep muscle fibers of your chest. Keep going! This is where it gets good. You are now hitting muscle fibers that have most likely never been effectively worked by standard chest exercises!

And if you think you’re getting a burn on the first set, just wait till you do a few more sets. You’ll feel it across your abs and sides too!

The reason this exercise is so effective is simple: complete instability.

Since the vast majority of chest exercises are performed in a reasonably stable position, there are some muscle fibers that never get fully worked. They aren’t required to work because you’re stabilized.

By placing your legs and both hands on independently moving objects, you demand massive amounts of stabilizing work on the part of your pecs. Your pecs never normally get this work with most chest exercises. Now they’re stabilizing your entire body and your limbs while you’re moving yourself up and down!

All this intense stabilizing work fires many more muscle fibers than are normally required for a push-up, resulting in a tremendously effective exercise for the chest.

To view the exercise progressions explained above, go to:

http://www.fitstep.com/Misc/Newsletter-archives/issue8-chest-tip.htm

p.s. click on this link and you’ll receive not only a great tip that can dramatically increase the intensity of this already incredibly effective exercise but a secret Stage 4, which was just too powerful to put into this article.

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BIO:

Nick Nilsson is Vice President of BetterU, Inc., an online exercise, fitness, and personal training company. Check out his latest eBook "The Best Exercises You've Never Heard Of" at http://www.thebestexercises.com or visit http://www.fitstep.com. You can contact him at betteru@fitstep.com or subscribe to BetterU News, his fitness newsletter at betterunews@fitstep.com.

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