What are push and pull exercises?
Push and pull exercises often refer to upper body workouts that help to split your exercises during the week.
The split routine:
The split routine is often used by gym goers who regularly workout during the week and have been training for a while (although not always). It sometimes involves concentrating on particular muscle groups each day. For example, on Monday you might work on your quads and glutes. However, on Tuesday you might decide to target your chest and triceps. It also refers to splitting your upper body workouts by concentrating on push exercises one day and pull exercises another day.
Alternative routine
If you do not go to the gym as much, for example, only twice or three times a week, you will need to balance out your workouts to ensure you are targeting all major muscle groups. For example, you may work both your lower body and upper body on the same day. This way, you do not need to attend the gym everyday to workout each muscle group. During this routine, you should do a push exercise (eg, shoulder press) and then a pull exercise (eg lat pull down) after.
So what exercises consist of push and pull exercises?
Push:
Some examples of push exercises include of the following: shoulder press, push-ups, chest press, bench press, tricep dips and tricep push-down.
Pull:
Some examples of pull exercises include of the following: Lat pull down, cable row, bent over row, dumbbell bent over row and pull-ups.
There are more exercises that you can incorporate into your workout routine than the ones included here. Hopefully this clears up any questions you may have had about push and pull exercises. Happy training 🙂