Push-Up
You support yourself on your hands, your body one straight line from head to heels. From there you lower until your reference point touches the floor — nose, chin or chest — and press back up until your arms are straight. Your chest, front shoulders and triceps do the pressing; your trunk holds the line.
The push-up is horizontal pressing with your own body weight — all you need is the floor. Your chest, front shoulders and triceps move you, and because you hold your body in a straight line while they do, you train your trunk tension at the same time. That is why it is the first push-pattern exercise in the studio and the yardstick for pressing strength: the reps are countable, and every step forward is visible.
Two things decide whether the push-up works: pressing strength in your chest, shoulders and triceps — and the tension in your trunk that keeps your hips in the line. You can build both separately: pressing strength with the dumbbell bench press, trunk tension with the plank, the mountain climber and the plank push-up — each of them an exercise in its own right, with its own page. Bring both, and you press yourself off the floor — and that is exactly where the push-up begins.
Starting position
Lie face down and place your hands beside your chest: thumbs roughly level with your nipples, hands directly under your elbows. Your feet are hip-width apart on your toes.
Before you press up, brace your trunk: squeeze your glutes, pull your ribs down. That keeps your body in one line from head to heels, with your head in line with your spine — look at the floor a little way in front of you.
Before your first set, pick your reference point — the spot that touches the floor at the bottom: your nose (Andreas' recommendation), your chin, or your chest if your mobility allows it. That point reaches the floor on every rep.
With your own body weight or with added load — a backpack, a resistance band or a weight plate on your back: the starting position is always the same.
The three cues
- Thumbs level with your nipples, hands under your elbows
- Lower until your reference point touches the floor — nose, chin or chest — and press back up until your arms are straight
- Squeeze your glutes, ribs down — your body stays one line from head to heels
Common faults
| Fault | How to fix it |
|---|---|
| Your hips sag and your lower back arches | Squeeze your glutes and pull your ribs down before you press up. If the line breaks during the set: fewer reps — and build your trunk tension with the plank and the plank push-up. |
| Your hips are pushed up and your body forms a tent | Bring your hips forward into the line — shoulders, hips and heels sit on one straight line. |
| Your elbows flare wide | Hands under your elbows, elbows close to your body. Your upper arms angle back towards your hips. |
| The way down gets shorter — your reference point stops reaching the floor | Touch your reference point on every rep: nose, chin or chest. Fewer reps through the full range are better than more that stop short. |
| Your arms stay bent at the top | Pause briefly at the top until your arms are straight. Only then do you go back down. |
| Your head drops and your chin goes to your chest | Keep your head in line with your spine and look at the floor a little way ahead of you. |
Variations
| Variation | When to use it |
|---|---|
| Your first push-ups — from the floor | You start at the bottom, lying on the floor with your hands beside your chest. The moment you press yourself away from there, the most important step is done. Then do only as many as go down to your reference point and back up — five is plenty to begin with. |
| Full push-up | What we do in the studio: down to your reference point, arms straight at the top, one line from head to heels. You progress through the reps — ten, fifteen, twenty. |
| Weighted push-up | Once you can do twenty clean reps, load comes in: a backpack, a resistance band across your back or a weight plate on your upper back. Movement, line and reference point stay the same — only the resistance grows. |
Reps and load
To begin with, it is the way down to your reference point that counts, not the number. Andreas' starting point in the studio: five reps, three sets, two minutes' rest in between — and one more rep per set in the next session. That takes you step by step to ten, fifteen, twenty.
The load is your body weight; your hands carry around two thirds of it, a little more in the bottom position. The plank, the mountain climber and the plank push-up stay in your training later on — exercises in their own right that keep the trunk tension the push-up relies on.
Which muscles do the work
| Muscle | Role | What it does here |
|---|---|---|
| Chest M. pectoralis major | Prime mover | Draws your upper arms towards your midline and presses you off the floor — the main engine |
| Front delt M. deltoideus, pars clavicularis | Synergist | Lifts your upper arms forward and helps with the press |
| Triceps M. triceps brachii | Synergist | Straightens your elbows — locks your arms out at the top |
| Serratus anterior M. serratus anterior | Stabiliser | Keeps your shoulder blades flat against your ribcage while your arms press |
| Abs M. rectus abdominis | Stabiliser | Keeps your ribs down and stops your hips sagging |
| Obliques Mm. obliqui abdominis | Stabiliser | Keep your trunk straight, even when one side works harder |
| Glute max M. gluteus maximus | Stabiliser | Keeps your hips extended and in line between shoulders and heels |
| Spinal erectors M. erector spinae | Stabiliser | Keep your spine long while your abs secure it from the front |
Chest, front shoulders and triceps press — the rest of your body holds. Your abs and glutes decide whether your hips stay in the line, and that is what makes the push-up more than a chest exercise.
Explained in full
From zero to ten or twenty: Andreas shows the starting position, the way down to the floor and how your first push-ups start from the floor — plus the exercises he uses to prepare the trunk for it: plank, mountain climber and plank push-up, each an exercise in its own right. He also shows what the plank should not look like. · 2:52
Seeing it done right is not the same as doing it right
Video, cues and variations take you a long way. What they cannot give you is an outside eye at the moment the movement isn't quite there yet. That is what training with me is for — in the studio or in a workshop.
See the workshopsNew exercise pages are added all the time — the newsletter keeps you posted.
Sources
Youdas JW, Budach BD, Ellerbusch JV, Stucky CM, Wait KR, Hollman JH. (2010). J Strength Cond Res 24(12):3352–3362. DOI: 10.1519/JSC.0b013e3181cc23b0 — Measures muscle activity in the conventional push-up in 20 healthy adults aged about 24 to 25 (11 men, 9 women): pectoralis major 95 to 105% MVIC, triceps 73 to 109%, serratus anterior 67 to 87%, rear deltoid 11 to 21%. That is where the roles of chest, triceps and serratus in the table come from. There is no measurement of its own for the Academy's readership — 40 to 60, two to four hours a week. What carries over is the division of labour, not the size of the numbers. (Evidence type: EMG)
Marcolin G, Petrone N, Moro T, Battaglia G, Bianco A, Paoli A. (2015). J Athl Train 50(11):1126–1132. DOI: 10.4085/1062-6050-50.9.09 — Measures twelve muscles in eight young healthy volunteers across four push-up variants. Chest and triceps work hardest with a narrow hand position; the abdominals and spinal erectors keep working through the lowering phase while the pressers ease off — their role is holding. The basis for listing abs and spinal erectors as stabilisers on this page. A very small sample; no data on the Academy's readership. (Evidence type: EMG)
Cogley RM, Archambault TA, Fibeger JF, Koverman MM, Youdas JW, Hollman JH. (2005). J Strength Cond Res 19(3):628–633. DOI: 10.1519/15094.1 — Compares three hand widths in the push-up in 40 people (11 men, 29 women, age not stated in the abstract). Pectoralis major and triceps worked harder with the narrow hand position than with the wide one. Supports the hand position on this page — hands under the elbows rather than out wide. No data on the Academy's readership. (Evidence type: EMG)
Gouvali MK, Boudolos K. (2005). J Strength Cond Res 19(1):146–151. DOI: 10.1519/14733.1 — Measures the load on the hands in eight healthy men: in the standard push-up the hands carry 66.4% of body weight at the start, in the knee push-up 52.9%. That is where the phrase ‘around two thirds’ under reps and load comes from. A very small sample of young men — the order of magnitude applies to every body; the decimal does not. (Evidence type: Biomechanics)
Suprak DN, Dawes J, Stephenson MD. (2011). J Strength Cond Res 25(2):497–503. DOI: 10.1519/JSC.0b013e3181bde2cf — Measures in 28 resistance-trained men what share of body weight rests on the hands at the top and at the bottom: it is larger in the bottom position than at the top. The basis for saying the load is a little higher at the bottom — and for starting your first push-ups from the floor, which takes the hardest point first. Young, highly trained men; no data on the Academy's readership. (Evidence type: Biomechanics)
Calatayud J, Borreani S, Colado JC, Martin F, Tella V, Andersen LL. (2015). J Strength Cond Res 29(1):246–253. DOI: 10.1519/JSC.0000000000000589 — A five-week randomised training study in 30 resistance-trained students: bench press at the 6-rep maximum versus push-ups with an elastic band at matched muscle activity. Both groups gained maximal strength to the same degree (13.65 to 22.21%); the control group did not change. Supports this page's framing that the bench press and the push-up build the same pressing strength — measured with a barbell, not dumbbells, and in young trained people. (Evidence type: RCT)
Kotarsky CJ, Christensen BK, Miller JS, Hackney KJ. (2018). J Strength Cond Res 32(3):651–659. DOI: 10.1519/JSC.0000000000002345 — A four-week randomised training study in 23 moderately trained men with a mean age of 23, three times a week: progressively harder push-ups versus the bench press. Both groups improved their bench press maximum and the push-up level they reached; the gain in push-up level was larger in the push-up group. The basis for saying that the route through lead-up stages and more reps works. Andreas' specific scheme — five reps, three sets, one more per session — has not itself been studied. (Evidence type: RCT)
Yang J, Christophi CA, Farioli A, Baur DM, Moffatt S, Zollinger TW, Kales SN. (2019). JAMA Netw Open 2(2):e188341. DOI: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2018.8341 — A ten-year cohort study in 1,104 male firefighters with a mean age of about 40. Those who managed more than 40 push-ups in the test had far fewer cardiovascular events over the following ten years than those who stayed under 10 (rate 0.04, 95% confidence interval 0.01 to 0.36). An association, not proof that push-up training prevents the events — and only men in a physically active job. The closest study in age to the Academy's readership; it supports placing the push-up as a yardstick, nothing more. (Evidence type: Cohort study)
A note on context: EMG studies show which muscles an exercise recruits — that is a good reason to pick it, but it does not replace adjusting things to the person in front of you. See a doctor for persistent or severe pain.