If you want to show off how fit you are, you drop and do push-ups. That’s what happens on TV, anyway. In Top Gun: Maverick, buff fighter pilots do hundreds of push-ups on a hot tarmac. In the late 90s, Demi Moore wowed audiences by doing one-armed push-ups in the movie GI Jane, then again on David Letterman. Once, Michelle Obama and Ellen DeGeneres competed to see who could do the most push-ups (Obama won).
Are push-ups really worth the hype? According to fitness experts, absolutely.
“In my opinion, push-ups are one of the most underrated movements in fitness,” says Dr Andrew Jagim, director of sports medicine research at the Mayo Clinic Health System. Jagim says they are often overlooked because they seem basic, but if you practice them regularly, over time, you’ll likely notice improvements in upper body strength, as well as “posture, core control and overall athleticism”.
Push-ups can be a good way to assess one’s general fitness. “I’ve learned that how well someone can perform a push-up tells me a lot about their overall movement quality,” says Mark Bohannon, chief experience officer and personal trainer at Ultimate Performance. They also cost no money and can be done just about anywhere.
Here’s what you need to know about how to start doing push-ups correctly.
How do you do a push-up?
Push-ups require significant upper body strength, but really they are a full body exercise.
Begin in a plank position, with your hands and toes on the ground. Hands should be placed slightly outside shoulder width, says Bohannon, with fingers spread and facing forward. Feet can be set wide or narrow – the closer they are, the more challenging the push-up will be, says Joslyn Thompson Rule, Peloton tread and strength instructor. “The wider your feet are, the more stable your base,” she explains.
In this position, you activate chest, shoulder and arm muscles, and also your core muscles and glutes. “The push-up requires full-body stabilization,” says Bohannon.
Lower yourself until your body is almost touching the ground, keeping your elbows at a 45-degree angle. Then push yourself back up.
“Think of the push-up as a moving plank,” says Bohannon. “Your body should maintain one unbroken line from the crown of your head to your heels.”
What are some common mistakes?
One of the most common mistakes people make during a push-up is not maintaining that line from head to heels. Jagim says he often sees people “letting their hips sag” and “letting the head drop”. (This happens to describe every push-up I’ve ever done.)
To prevent this kind of cooked spaghetti push-up, brace your core – “as if someone is about to punch you in the stomach”, Bohannon says – and squeeze your glutes.
Jagim says another common mistake he sees is people “rushing through reps with poor control and/or just dropping to the ground and pushing [themselves] back up”.
Speed doesn’t equal effectiveness, he says. Instead, he suggests aiming for slow, controlled repetitions with proper alignment. This will “maximize muscle engagement and time under tension, and reduce injury risk”, he says.
Are there different push-up variations?
If you can’t do a push-up with proper form, don’t worry – you’re far from alone, and there are alternatives.
Bohannon says when he works with clients on push-ups, he often has to “regress” back to a beginner level to ensure people have the proper form.
If you have never done the exercise before, start with wall push-ups. Stand arm’s length from the wall, then put your hands on the wall and do a push-up with correct form: the body in a straight line, core braced, glutes tight and arms bending at a 45-degree angle. Once you’ve mastered this, you could progress to doing push-ups with your hands on a bench, or with your hands and knees on the ground to reduce the load on your muscles.
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As you build strength, you can make them more challenging, says Jagim. He suggests progressing to decline push-ups (where your feet are elevated on a box or another stable surface), tricep push-ups (where you keep your hands narrow and elbows tucked close to your body as you descend) or adding weight, like a weight plate, on your back.
How do you incorporate push-ups into your fitness routine?
Learning how to do push-ups doesn’t have to consume your life. Rule says she likes to think of push-ups as “a skill that you could spend three to five minutes working on at the start or end of your workout, twice a week”.
To start, she suggests building up your strength in a plank position: hold a plank for 30 to 60 seconds, three to four times. Once that feels comfortable, Rule suggests trying negative push-ups. Start in plank position, and slowly lower down in a controlled way, building up to a 10-second lowering before pushing back up. Repeat this three to four times. After that feels good, she recommends trying isometric holds – lowering down to a challenging position, and holding for three to five seconds. Do this for a few holds with as much rest time in between as you need.
Performing these variations elevated – say, with your hands on a bench – can be a good way to maintain form and build strength when you’re starting, Rule says.
Is there anyone who should avoid doing push-ups?
“If you have any kind of shoulder impingement or injury, push-ups will aggravate it, so it’s best to avoid,” says Rule.
Others may need modifications, especially those with injuries. Push-up handles – these look like pull handles you place on the floor – can be helpful, he says, as they reduce wrist strain and keep shoulders in a more stable position. And if in doubt, ask a personal trainer how to do push-ups safely for your body.
If you hate push-ups, what can you do instead?
If you absolutely can’t stand push-ups (maybe they evoke bad memories of the presidential fitness test), there are alternatives. But Bohannon says it’s worth asking yourself why you hate them.
“Most exercise hatred stems from repeated failure or poor instruction,” he says. “If we can regress to the right movement level, improve the quality over time and appropriately progress, the hatred often disappears.”
That said, he adds, exercises like dumbbell bench presses and machine chest presses can act as alternatives that target many of the same upper body muscles that push-ups do. But they’re not nearly as effective as full body workouts: “We are losing the extra stability challenges that make push-ups such a valuable exercise,” Bohannon says.