Muscles worked
Push-ups train your chest, the front of your shoulders and your triceps, much like the bench press. The difference is that you hold your own body straight, so your abs, glutes and the muscles around your shoulder blades work the whole time. Hand position changes the emphasis: hands close together give your triceps more to do, and a wider placement puts more on the chest. With your feet higher than your hands, more of the work shifts to the upper chest and shoulders.
Common mistakes
- You only go halfway down. Short reps feel easier but train less. Lower yourself until your chest almost touches the floor. If you cannot get that far, switch to an easier variation rather than cutting the movement short.
- Your hands are too far forward. With your hands in front of your shoulders, near your head, the push gets hard on your shoulders. Keep your hands level with your shoulders rather than ahead of them, so they line up with your chest at the bottom.
- You rush through the set. Fast reps with a bounce at the bottom lose tension. Lower yourself over about two seconds, pause briefly and press up.
Variations and alternatives
- Knee push-ups are an easier step while you cannot yet do full sets with straight legs.
- Incline push-ups, with your hands on a bench or table, are also easier and keep the same straight body line.
- Decline push-ups make the exercise harder once the standard version is too easy.
- Diamond push-ups move more of the work to your triceps and are a harder alternative.
Sets and reps
With bodyweight you adjust the difficulty rather than the weight, so choose a variation that puts you in the right rep range for your goal. To build muscle, 6 to 12 reps per set over 3 to 4 sets works well, and if you can do more with good form, it is time for a harder variation. For endurance you can do 12 to 20 reps, or more, per set. Maximal strength with very few reps is hard to train with push-ups, and the bench press does that job better. The guide to sets and reps has more.
Add reps first. When you reach the top of your range on every set, move to a harder variation or lower yourself more slowly, for example over three seconds. That is progressive overload without weights. Log the variation and your reps to see your progress.