Difference between bench press and push ups?
Apart from the fact that you can build muscle faster (by using a far heavier weight) doing the bench press compared to doing push ups - with that aside, what is the difference between the 2 exercises as far as muscle groups go?
As far as I can see, none at all. A push up seems to me to be an inverted version of a bench press. In other words it works exactly the same muscles and if you could make a push up have the same resistance as a bench press it would be identical.
The only thing with push ups is you are only ever lifting your own body weight. Unless you get someone to place a weight on your back, or get a child to sit on your back or something lol, but thats just stupid, no one does that, not that I have ever seen anyway - although I do like the idea, it saves even having to buy a bench or find the space to put it etc.
I am asking the pros if these two exercises are really identical, or is there something one exercise offers over the other? (Ignoring the fact that you can make the weight different with the bench press)