Push-ups

The push-up is a bench press where your body is the bar. Because the load is fixed, you progress with reps, tempo and angle instead of kilos, and that is a different skill from adding plates.

It is also the exercise most people do without thinking about position. A push-up with sagging hips trains almost nothing, however many you do.

Sets, reps and RIR

Load is fixed, so progress by adding reps first, then by slowing the lowering phase, then by adding weight.

RIR means reps in reserve: how many you could still have done when you racked it. RIR 2 is two short of failure.

How to do it

1. Place your hands slightly wider than shoulder width, fingers pointing forward.
2. Squeeze the glutes and brace so the body forms one line from head to heels.
3. Lower with the elbows around 45 degrees from the body, not flared straight out.
4. Descend until your chest is a fist from the floor, or all the way if your shoulders allow it.
5. Press the floor away and hold that body line the whole way up.
6. Push the shoulder blades apart at the top. That last bit is where the serratus works.

Common mistakes

Hips sagging

Your lower back is holding you up instead of your brace. Squeeze the glutes before you start, and drop to your knees if you cannot hold the line.

Hips in the air

The opposite fault, and it shortens the range without you noticing. The body should be straight, not a wedge.

Half reps

Twenty short push-ups are less work than eight full ones. Only count the ones you went all the way down on.

Elbows flared straight out

Ninety degrees from the body loads the front of the shoulder. Tuck them in a little.

How it differs from the neighbouring variants

Knee and wall push-ups are the same mechanics with less load, and the right place to start. If that is where you are, they are not a downgrade, they are the exercise.

Decline push-ups move the work to the upper chest and make them harder with no equipment. Wide push-ups give the chest more and the triceps less, diamond push-ups do the opposite. The bench press lets you progress in kilos but loses the shoulder blade movement you get when the body travels instead of the bar.

What it suits

Push-ups fit anywhere: as a warm-up before benching, as the main lift if you train at home, or as a high-rep finisher. Once you clear twenty good ones, it is time to elevate your feet or put on a vest, not to do fifty.

Muscles worked

Primary: Chest.

Secondary: Triceps, Front delts, Abs.

What it is called elsewhere

• Norsk Armhevinger
• Svenska Armhävningar
• Dansk Armstrækninger
• Deutsch Liegestütze
• Español Flexiones de brazos
• Italiano Piegamenti sulle braccia
• Português Flexão de braço
• Русский Отжимания от пола
• Français Pompes

Related chest exercises

• Bench press (barbell)
• Incline bench press (barbell)
• Decline bench press (barbell)
• Close-grip bench press (barbell)
• Landmine press
• Flat dumbbell press

athlate logs this exercise, keeps the numbers, and tells you what you lifted last time.