Pushups
Also works: Shoulders · Triceps
The push-up is a moving plank. Your hands press roughly 65% of your bodyweight off the floor while your trunk pays to keep the hips from sagging, so chest, front delts, triceps and abs are all working in the same rep. Hand position and torso angle scale it from almost vertical to harder than most people's bench sets, which is why it survives in programmes that have access to a full gym.
Own the movement
Set up first, then execute. Every cue below is something you can check on your next set.
Before the first rep
- Set your hands just outside shoulder width, roughly 55-60 cm apart. The old cue of 36 inches is far wider than most torsos want and pins the shoulder at the bottom.
- Point your fingers forward or turned out a few degrees, and spread them so the whole palm and fingertips share the floor.
- Squeeze your glutes and brace your abs until your body is one line from ear to ankle, then check it before the first rep.
- Set your feet somewhere between touching and hip-width. Wider is more stable; together is a harder trunk test.
- Push the floor away slightly at the top so your upper back is rounded outward rather than sagging between the shoulder blades.
Every rep
Breathing & tempo — Inhale on the way down, exhale as you press. Two seconds down, a brief stop with the chest low, then up as fast as you can while still owning the position.
Before you load it
- If your wrists complain in full extension, press on dumbbell handles or push-up bars to keep them neutral rather than working through the ache.
Sets, reps & load
Where to start, and what to change when it stops being hard.
Bodyweight is the starting load, and the honest first marker is 10 strict full-range reps with no hip sag. Progress by lowering the angle before you chase reps: hands on a 60 cm bench, then a 30 cm step, then the floor, then feet on that same bench. Past 20 clean floor reps, add resistance — a 5-10 kg plate or a band across the upper back — rather than another ten reps.
What goes wrong
The errors that show up most often, and the cue that fixes each one.
Squeeze the glutes hard before you start and hold them squeezed for the whole set. If the sag still appears at rep six, stop the set there or move your hands up onto a bench.
Film one set from the side. Then cut the reps in half and make the sternum and the hips touch their lowest point at the same instant.
Point your elbows back toward your feet at about 45 degrees. Turning the hands out five to ten degrees makes that position easier to hold.
Stop adding reps past about 20 and make the movement harder instead: feet elevated, a pause at the bottom, or a slow three-second descent.
Why bother
A push-up is a closed-chain press: your hands are fixed and your body travels. That makes the shoulder blades free to move across the ribcage instead of being pinned to a bench, so the serratus anterior gets work no barbell press asks for. It is also why push-ups tend to feel kinder on cranky shoulders than benching at the same relative effort.
The load is not fixed at bodyweight. In a standard push-up your hands support about 65-70% of it at the top and closer to 75% at the bottom; put your feet on a bench and that climbs past 80%, put your hands on a bench and it drops toward 40%. You change the resistance by changing the angle, which is a finer set of steps than most dumbbell racks offer.
Where it fits
Early in an upper-body session if push-ups are your main press, or after barbell work as a high-rep finisher if they are not. Two to four sessions a week is fine — the elbows and shoulders tolerate this far better than they tolerate heavy benching at the same frequency. Pair them with a horizontal pull such as rows in the same session to keep the shoulders balanced.
If this one isn't it
No kit, too hard, or too easy — here's where to go instead.
Same job, different kit
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Asked and answered
How many push-ups should I be able to do?
Ten strict reps to a fist's height off the floor is the point where the movement is genuinely yours. Twenty-five is a solid recreational standard for a trained adult. Beyond forty you have stopped training strength and started training local endurance, which is fine if that is the goal — but if it is not, elevate your feet and go back to sets of eight.
Are push-ups as good as the bench press?
For building the pattern and for shoulder-friendly volume, yes. For raw strength, no — the bench lets you add 2.5 kg at a time indefinitely, and a push-up caps out around 75% of bodyweight unless you start hanging plates on your back. Use push-ups as your press if you have no bar; use them as accessory volume if you do.
Should my chest touch the floor?
Get it within a fist's height at minimum. Touching is fine and slightly harder, but resting your chest on the floor kills the tension and turns each rep into a fresh start from dead stop. Pick one depth and hold it for every rep so the numbers you log compare with each other.
Do knee push-ups actually build anything?
Yes, but they change the trunk demand to almost nothing, so you get the pressing work without the plank. Elevating your hands on a bench or windowsill is the better regression: same full-body line, less load, and it steps down to the floor in a way knee reps never do.
Can I do push-ups every day?
You can, at moderate volume. Daily sets of eight to twelve at a comfortable difficulty build the habit and the pattern without much soreness. What breaks people is daily sets to failure — the elbows and the front of the shoulder are what complain first. If you want daily reps, keep three or four in reserve on every set.