The one-arm push up is a challenging exercise that requires strength and balance. There are two variations: one with the arm extended and one with the arm close to the body. Both work the chest and triceps muscles, but the arm variation is more difficult and works the stabilizing muscles harder.
A one-arm push up is a compound exercise that requires much more strength and balance than a standard two-arm push up. To perform the exercise, the athlete begins in a plank position but supports himself with only one arm. The athlete then lowers the body towards the ground, then pushes it up again. This exercise primarily strengthens the chest and triceps muscles. It also benefits the stabilizing muscles in the arms, chest, and abdomen, and provides a slight benefit to the legs.
There are two variations of the one arm push up. The first and most common is to push one arm out with the arm out. In this variation, the arm doing the push up will be further away from the body than it would be in a standard push up. It is not directly under the body, so it will provide less support for the upper torso. To counteract this, the legs will be much wider than the width of the shoulders.
With the legs in this position, there will be tension running from the supporting arm through the body to the opposite leg. The other leg helps provide balance, but the opposite leg and hand will bear most of the weight during a one-arm push. Feeling this tension is crucial because it is the athlete’s ability to use their opposite arm and leg to counteract this tension that will provide the necessary balance to perform the exercise.
Once an athlete achieves this balance, they can bend their arm to lower their body towards the floor. Once the chest is close to the floor, the athlete pushes through the arm to raise the body to the original position. The athlete can repeat the process for any number of repetitions before switching to the other arm.
The other variation of the one-arm pushup is to keep your arm close to your body similar to a two-arm pushup. This will allow the legs to be closer together as well. The tension between the arm and the opposite leg will continue to exist. However, the legs are closer together, so they don’t combine with the hand to form as wide a triangle as they did in the previous variation. As a result, the balance leg cannot help the athlete’s balance as much.
The result is that this version of the one-arm push up is more difficult than the extended-arm version. Both variations work the same muscles, but the stabilizing muscles in the arm variation have to work much harder. However, both versions provide a much more intense workout than two-arm pushups, because the single arm essentially has to push twice as much weight.
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