Hindu pushups

Hindu pushups have for a long time been part of my workout routine.

Often I use them in my warm-up session. This is due to the big range of motion that they offer and thereby prepare the complete body for more challenging exercises. However, it’s not before recently that I understood the right way to do them and how much more they offer than just being a good compound exercise.

Before we go any further, let’s just break them down and see how to perform them correctly.

1)

• Start in the High V-position

  • Butt high

  • Legs and arms are fully extended

  • Head pushed in between shoulders

  • Core engaged and natural

  • Legs and arms are placed a bit further apart than shoulder width

  • Inhale through nose

2)

• Go to Low V-position

  • Simply bend your elbows

  • Keep the V-position with butt high

  • Exhale through your mouth

3)

• Bottom position

  • In a swiping motion  with torso parallel to the floor, push your head forward

  • Continue until you reach a normal pushup position – hands under shoulders

  • Elbow goes closer to your body

  • Butt goes down

  • Cores stays engaged

  • Exhale through your mouth

4)

• End position

  • Extend your arms

  • Arch your back by keeping your hip low

  • Stay free of the ground but try to push your hip downward

  • Exhale through your mouth

5)

• Return to High V-position

  • Keep your arms extended

  • Press your hip back and up

  • Inhale through nose on your way up

Now that we know how to do a Hindu pushup correctly let’s look on some of the benefits.

Compound movement

Our body is built to work as one. The muscles, joints, and bones are a genius piece of engineering that together can do incredible things.

However, with the introduction of modern fitness machines, there has become a tendency to focus on individual muscles. We work our biceps in one machine and our triceps in another.

Compound exercises are the exact opposite. These are movements that involve as many muscles and joints as possible.

The benefit of this is that our body becomes stronger and fitter in a more natural way. We still work our biceps and triceps. But what is even better is that we learn them to work together and to utilize all the stabilization muscles, which are necessary for a natural movement pattern.

Hindu pushups are a compound movement. With the big range of motion, the exercises will activate most muscles in our body.

They are therefore an excellent full-body exercise.

More than a pushup

Pushups are probably the number one bodyweight workout. They efficiently strengthen our chest, arms, and shoulders.

The Hindu pushup does the same, but due to the big range of motion, we get the shoulders, arms and chest muscles activated from a lot more angles.

On the way down, it’s a lot of shoulders, triceps, and some lats. Where in the bottom position it’s more chest.

Stretching

In the High V-position, the back of our legs are being stretched. The more flexible people can raise their hip higher.

In the end position, we stretch the front of our body. Torso, hips, and legs gets a good stretch in the end position.

Another important part in the end position is the “stretching of the organs.”  As the end position is rather extreme, it will also have an impact on your organs. Especially the intestines.

Breathing

In the beginning, I told you that I have been doing Hindu pushups for a long time but missed some details. Breathing was one of them.

In most traditional Asian sports and workout forms, breathing has an important role. Your breath follows the movement.

Nowadays many athletes have understood the important of this and work intensively with their breathing, as this can improve their performance a lot.

Therefore, make sure to follow the breathing pattern described above. This will give you a completely different experience.

Hindu pushups vs. Dive Bomber

The Dive Bomber looks a lot like the Hindu Pushups. The difference is that you reverse the movement from the then end position instead of pushing your hip back and up.

If you are out for pure strength, the Dive Bomber might be a better option, but if you are more into the breath and stretching part, the Hindu pushups are more suitable. Also, the Dive Bomber might be more challenging for most people.

When to do them?

As I told you, I often use them as a part of my warmup routine or even as a finisher. In that case, I would do something like 5 repetitions x 3 sets.

When I do them as a part of my workout, I would normally do 8-10 repetitions x 3-5 sets.

If you are interested, you can see some of my bodyweight workout plans where I use Hindu pushups, right here.

Now it’s you turn. Go and test for yourself and please let me know if you have any questions.