You’ve got Regular Push Ups in the bag, now step it up with this chest shredding Diamond Push Up variation.
Diamond Push Ups are a favourite among fitness professionals and enthusiast alike. They are quite well known for attacking those Pecs and make for a great variation to add a bit of variety to your training.
Things You Will Need To Do Diamond Push Ups:
You don’t need anything to do push ups! just a little bit of space where your cat / dog / girlfriend can’t attack you during your reps.
If you’re at the gym, even better, leave the others at home and you’re good to go!
How To Do Diamond Push Ups: Step By Step Instructions
We are all warmed up let’s get into these push ups.
Step 1 – Set Up
So first off get on the bar so you are stable, turning your hands out so you grip the bar with your palms facing forwards.
Keep your hands close to your body, not spread wide, this will help maintaining tension
Step 2 – Negative
Start by slowly sliding your hips off the bar, keeping your feet behind you. Hold on tight so you don’t face plant.
Step 3 – Pause At The Bottom
Pause briefly at the bottom of the rep to make sure you are stable and read to push up.
You should alway pause at the top/bottom of your rep, it kinda counts as an isometric 😉
Step 4 – Push Up
If you thought the previous steps were strange you are in for a real treat. Getting back up onto the bar takes an unusual movement and a bit of trust for the first set.
Drive your hands down hard to lift your body up, but maintain your ‘banana’ posture so that your body goes around the bar and not through it!
Step 5 – Pause At The Top
Dont sit back on the bar, whatever you do.
Finish proud at the top of the rep with your arms locked straight and your shoulders depressing (like a Scapula Dip).
You need to smash out another 9 before you can sit down.
Pre-Requisites To Diamond Push Ups
Diamond Push Ups are a Simple Variation, meaning they are similar to regular push ups. The good news is that there aren’t a lot of pre-requisites to them.
Provided you can do some Regular Push Ups and the stretches outlined below, you will be prepared for Diamond Push Ups.
Regular Push Ups
Regular push ups are an obvious pre-requisite to Diamonds. But you don’t need to earn your push up stripes before you can do Diamond ones.
They are important though for learning good posture and getting up to a decent rep count (like 10).
Getting good at push ups is an important aspect of your training because you will do lots of them throughout your journey.
Many different variations of course, but it all starts with the basics.
Chest Stretch
Your chest will take a beating with Diamond Push Ups, so just stretch it out nice and look after those Pecs.
Using a wall or other prop, place your hand on the edge of the wall at shoulder height, with your arm straight.
Turn out the other way with your trunk and feel that chest open up.
Wrist Stretch
Because of your hand placement, your wrists also take a beating with diamond push ups.
All you need to do is a few simple leans, back and for the whilst down on all fours.
Lean left and right over each hand, then change your hand position and repeat:
Fingers out to the side, hands upside down and finally fingers pointing towards you (just sit back with this last one, no leaning).
Wrist conditioning is often neglected and you simply can’t ignore this key part of your body when doing calisthenics, your wrists and forearms will always be working especially with handstand and planches etc.
So get in the habit of conditioning them now, before you start on the harder stuff.
As with any stretch or mobility drill, start easy and gradually build up as your muscles stretch and you become more comfortable with the position.
But don’t over do it before your workout you want to get prepared for training, you aren’t working on your wrist flexibility!
Diamond Push Up Training Tips
Hand Position
In case you didn’t know already, the Diamond part of this push up variation refers to your hand position.
You bring your hands together to make a diamond with your thumbs and index fingers pairing up.
However, this is quite uncomfortable for me, so I tend to leave my thumbs in to make Triangle Push Ups (not a real thing).
You can even just put your hands close together if you want, it is really about what is most comfortable for you.
Posture
Posture in the push up position is important. All you need to do is look around the gym and you will see plenty of people doing bad push ups.
Keep your core tight and your body in a nice straight line, no high hips, no saggy hips.
The only things moving are your arms and shoulders, everything else is still
Elbows
Don’t risk injury. that’s my motto.
So when you are doing push ups, keep your elbows tight to your body.
If your elbows stick out at awkward angles, that means your shoulders are in a strange position.
So keep your elbows tight to your body and keep your shoulders in their sockets!
How To Fit Diamond Push Ups Into Your Workout
Diamond Push Ups are a Simple Variation of Push Ups. This means they are basically the same as the regular ones.
When you are training you dont want to have to do the same boring exercise every day or every week. In fact you will quickly get diminishing returns from doing the same exercise.
The way you progress is to start training these simple variations, then as you get more competent, building into more complex variations.
This is how you progress with bodyweight training, so just start doing it!
In the Foundation Workout, I combine 3 exercises into a Triset for a workout, so Push Ups and Rows go together with a core exercise like Tuck Raises.
Instead of doing these 3 exercises every day, start doing Diamond Push Ups and Close Grip Rows and Flutter Kicks.
You simply replace the ‘Regular’ Variation with a harder one!
What Comes After Diamond Push Ups?
Diamond Push Ups are the starting progression towards much more advanced push ups.
You don’t NEED to work towards any of these exercises, but Diamond Push ups will certainly help if you want them!
Progression Ideas:
- 1 Arm Push Ups
- Lalane Push Ups
- Linear Push Ups
All of these variations are pretty advanced and will take time to achieve, but they are within your grasp!
If you put the work in, you get the results.
Also If you haven’t downloaded the Foundation Workout get your hands on it Right Now!
Full Exercise Guide and Warm Up included of course.
