Tony Horton's PowerStands

The conventional push-up (which in itself is a great exercise) means the level of the floor surface where your hands push from becomes as far as you can push your body downwards. However doing push-ups using Tony’s Power Stands provides the option of pushing the body below the level of your hands, "going deeper" increases the range of motion in the exercise while still maintaining great technique and even adding to variations like the "divebomber" and "Decline" style of push-up. This provides increased resistance enhancing the overall workout intensity to your chest……Clearly you can always continue with what you have been used to doing in terms of the traditional push-up workout. However, if you want to realize significant improvements in the sculpting and power development of your upper body, you will find that incorporating Tony’s Power Stands is actually a great addition to your strength training regimen.

Because using stands during your pushup does increase the range of motion during the workout even while doing decline push-ups as well as increasing the recruitment of your muscles, it clearly means more muscles are working harder resulting in more calories being burned along with the subsequent strength-power development benefit also being greatly increased as described above. This translates to you lowering your body fat ratio by burning fat that would sit on top of and between the layers of muscle.

The non-skid bases are for better stability during workouts. Your performance is definitely affected by the quality of your stands. Clearly a person needs to be able to focus on putting their best into the routines without needless worrying about slipping stands. Tony’s power stands have great surface contact all the way around facilitating great balance of the stand to help ensure that it does not move every time you do.

The grips provide special benefit because they are sloped from one side to the other. This is important. For example, consider the shear nature of "classic style" flat hand push-ups cause the wrist and arm to be at 90 degrees to the arm. This causes pain and swelling for some people due to arthritis, compressed nerves, tendonitis, previous accidents and injuries. Doing push-ups from Tony’s Power Stands allows you to change the rotation of the wrist forward or backward providing many options for the angle between the wrist and the arm thereby reducing that point of joint strain. In addition, sometimes boxers, martial arts or gymnasts are sensitive to the angle of the wrist side to side because of injuries or sensitivities related to long periods of exposure to these particular sports. As a result, those with these and other conditions such as inability to flex the joint easily may need the wrists to be at more relaxed or eased angles from one side of the wrist to the other in order to avoid stressors and resulting pain. Tony’s Power Stands have the additional feature of sloped handles to address the additional strain point in the wrist itself. Basically the user can pivot the sloped handle. Turning it to whatever degree and whichever side needs to be up or down. This helps you to find the optimum combination of slope direction and degree of handle pivot relative to the body that brings the most comfort to the wrist joint. In summary, Tony’s Power stands help you neutralize the wrist angle so pressure on the wrist joint in lessened. Eliminating points of pain from unhealthy stress on the wrists is one more advantage which allows to focus on the exercise giving full effort to the workout, without pain. You certainly should be able to increase the number and quality of push-ups over what you normally would with your palms flat on the floor. Doing more, means better and more significant results!

Start with your arms straight

Breathe in as you lower your body toward the push off surface, let out your breath exhaling as you are pushing your body up.

Your body should be straight like a plank of wood avoiding any sagging of your back / stomach, on the other hand be sure you also avoid sticking your butt in the air.

Do not feel badly if you want to start by using modifications on the push-ups like resting your weight on your knees instead of your toes. Once you develop more strength to do over twenty modified push-ups then try moving up to regular push-ups.

If you are doing good with your form and number of push-ups yet are looking to add some needed intensity and recruit other stabilizing muscles consider these modifications:

Going more slowly through the movement both up and especially down will serve maximize the weight of your body on your muscles.

Adjusting the position of Tony’s Power Stands will work to target your chest, triceps and shoulders in different ways. Placing the Power Stands close to your ribs then positioning your knuckles facing towards you to emphasize your triceps, or you can try placing the stands a little wider than your shoulders to put a little greater emphasis on the fronts of your shoulders.

Decline Push-ups are when you place your feet on a slightly higher level than that of your hands, this can be done with a chair, the greater the angle of decline from your feet to your hands the greater the intensity. Just be sure your surfaces for feet and hands are completely stable for safety.

If you are sure your back can take it adding some weight to your back is another way to add difficulty. Start small and gradually increase the weight but be smart here, don’t over do it and risk doing damage to your back, this means use common sense!

Lifting one leg while doing the push-up is a great modification as well.