The push-up is a tremendously effective, empowering, and quite frankly, totally badass exercise. This exercise can be done anywhere, anytime, as it requires absolutely no equipment. So whether you are looking to train at home, in your office, a hotel room, or the gym, the options are endless.
Push-ups are wonderful as they can be made easier, more challenging, or adapted, and can meet you wherever you are in terms of your current fitness level, technical ability, and experience. The possibilities for playing, experimenting, and feeling like a superhero are endless. People who know me know I LOVE to play. Push-ups help me do just that.
Push-ups, and the countless variations you can perform, strengthen and develop many different muscle-groups, including the chest, shoulders, triceps, serratus, and abdominals. This is my kind of “functional bodybuilding.”
Make no mistake, push-ups are a technically demanding and challenging exercise. Push-ups require a significant amount of upper body strength, shoulder and scapular controlled mobility, and lumbo-pelvic stability. Push-ups involve so much more than simply “pushing up.” Your entire body should be involved, and functioning as a synchronized unit.
Many people of all fitness levels and abilities fail to recognize this. As a result, they really struggle and fail to make progress. This can hold them back from improving their PR for reps, being able to perform more advanced push-up variations, or being able to do a single proper push-up. To reiterate, struggling at push-ups is NOT just relevant to beginners. Most people do not perform push-ups correctly.
If you are serious about getting stronger, adding muscle to your upper body, and learning badass advanced push-up variations, give this article a good read. I provide a rundown of proper push-up form. I cover proper push-up form in much greater detail in The Ultimate Push-Up Program and really dissect the exercise. In this article, I also provide several exercises that will help you learn how to perform regular push-ups.
Top Position:
- Get into a plank position from your hands and feet. Set your body so it is in a straight line from the top/back of your head to heels, tuck your chin, and keep your neck in a neutral position.
- Gaze directly down to a spot on the floor. For the duration of the exercise, keep your eyes fixed on this spot.
- Adopt your preferred foot width. You may place your feet so they are together, shoulder width apart, or somewhere in between.
- Position your hands so they are shoulder width apart or slightly wider, and are facing straight ahead (or are angled out a slight amount, but not too much).
- Set your shoulders, elbows and wrists so they are in a relatively stacked position. Your shoulders can be slightly ahead of your wrists (my preference), but only as long as this works and feels good for you.
- Your weight should be evenly distributed throughout your full hands and fingers, not just at the base of your hands/wrists. Pretend you are trying to spread your full hands and fingers to the floor.
- Protract your shoulder blades (think about spreading your shoulder blades apart and moving them away from your spine and around your ribcage).
- Before each rep, take a deep breath in (360 degrees of air around your spine), brace your core (360 degree brace around your spine), tuck your ribs towards your hips (close the space in your midsection), and squeeze your glutes.
- Lightly press your tongue against the roof of your mouth (behind your upper front teeth).
Descending/Eccentric Component:
- Descend into the push-up and retract your shoulder blades. Imagine you are pulling or “rowing” your body down to the bottom position. Do not just drop down.
- Make sure that 100% of the eccentric component is performed with complete control. Do not just drop down to the bottom position. This is not efficient, nor will it make your muscles and joints feel good.
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Bottom Position:
- Your elbows should be positioned over your wrists, and forearms in a vertical position.
- Your elbows should form roughly a 45 degree angle with your torso. Do not allow your elbows to flare out. In the bottom position, your body and upper arms should resemble an “arrow,” not a “t.”
- In terms of range of motion, your upper arms should be roughly parallel to the floor (you can use a greater range of motion if this feels good). Use a range of motion that works and feels best for you, and one that allows you to perform the exercise with optimal form.
Ascending/Concentric Component:
- Protract your shoulder blades. Think about spreading your shoulder blades apart and moving them away from your spine and around your ribcage. Do not keep them pinned.
- Exhale after you have pressed away from the floor (or bench if you are performing a modified variation) and as your body is returning to the top position.
Additional Points:
- For the duration of the exercise, your body should remain in a straight line from the top/back of your head to heels. Essentially, you should remain in a plank position.
Hands Elevated Vs Kneeling Push-Ups?
If you are unable to execute all of the key points in form I described above (or if your form breaks down mid-set), modify the exercise by elevating your hands on a bench, box, barbell that you’ve set up in a rack, Smith machine bar, etc., and perform hands elevated push-ups.
In my close to 17 years of coaching, I’ve found that hands elevated push-ups have a significantly greater carryover to regular push-ups than kneeling push-ups.
With kneeling push-ups, by placing the knees on the floor the body’s lever is dramatically shortened. This removes much of the lumbo-pelvic stability that is required during regular push-ups. As a result, people who rely on kneeling push-ups often struggle when they attempt to progress to performing regular push-ups as they do not possess the necessary level of lumbo-pelvic stability.
Regressing or progressing hands elevated push-ups is very easy to do. In order to regress or progress the exercise, you simply decrease or increase the height of the box, bench, barbell, Smith Machine bar, or any other surface you are using. This will allow you to move from A to Z very seamlessly, and at your own pace. Use a height that allows you to perform the exercise with proper form.
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