New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees wanted to mix up his workout and put a new spin on the classic pushup. This is what he came up with.
No, he's not actually levitating. With his feet in TRX handles, Brees uses his upper-body muscles to explode off the floor high enough so he can spread his arms out parallel to the ground. No wonder his Twitter followers named the move "the flying Brees-up."
"Drew always wants to push his limits and try new challenges," says Todd Durkin, C.S.C.S., Brees' off-season trainer at Fitness Quest 10 in San Diego, California, who helped the quarterback create the new pushup. (He's pictured above next to Brees.) We found 3 simple tricks to perfect your form and protect your shoulders: The Best Way to Do Pushups.
But you'll need some practice before you attempt the move. "It's extremely advanced and builds off of years of experience," says Durkin. In fact, it took Brees a few attempts before he could perform it with perfect form.
The reason: "The instability of the TRX forces your core to work harder, increasing the difficulty of the exercise," explains Durkin. "And since your body is on a decline, your chest, shoulders, and arms need to generate an extreme amount of speed and strength to propel more of your body weight into the air." (You can Bolster Your Shoulders, put your strength to the test -- and grow bigger -- with the ultimate overhead exercise.)
That's why Durkin suggests mastering the feet-elevated TRX pushup and the plyometric pushup before attempting the flying Brees-up. Once you've done that, perform 2 or 3 sets of 3 to 5 reps of the exercise. While it's a great move for building upper-body strength, core stability, and explosiveness, it's also tough on your joints, so you'll want to limit how many you do at once, he says.
