Push-Up

How to do a push-up

1. 1

   Place your hands on the floor a little wider than your shoulders, fingers pointing forward, and step your feet back until your body forms a straight line.

2. 2

   Squeeze your glutes, brace your midsection and set your shoulders away from your ears.

3. 3

   Bend your elbows and lower your chest toward the floor, letting the elbows travel back at an angle rather than straight out.

4. 4

   Keep your head, hips and heels in one line until your chest almost touches the floor.

5. 5

   Press the floor away from you until your arms are straight, moving your whole body as one piece.

6. 6

   Breathe in on the way down, breathe out as you press, and start the next rep from a solid plank.

Muscles worked by the push-up

The chest does most of the work: it pulls the upper arms toward the midline as you press the floor away. The triceps straighten the elbows and the front delts help lift the upper arm. The serratus anterior holds the shoulder blades against the rib cage, and the abs and glutes keep the plank rigid. In an EMG study with 20 adults, a standard push-up drove the chest and triceps to roughly their maximal voluntary activity, with clear serratus work as well. Hand width shifts the emphasis: a narrow base raised triceps activity most.

Common push-up mistakes

• Letting the hips sag

  A sagging middle turns the plank into a hammock, shortens the range for your chest and loads the lower back. Squeeze your glutes and keep your ribs down.

• Piking the hips up

  With the hips high, the chest barely travels and the shoulders take over. Keep head, hips and heels in one line.

• Flaring the elbows straight out

  Elbows pointing sideways put the shoulders in a weak position at the bottom. Let them angle back toward your hips, about the way your arms move in a bench press.

• Stopping halfway down

  Half reps let you count more but train less of the movement. Lower until your chest almost touches the floor, or pick an easier variation you can do through the full range.

• Leading with the head

  Pushing the chin toward the floor bends the neck and fakes depth. Look at the floor just ahead of your hands and let the chest arrive first.

How Muscla coaches the push-up

• Muscla gives push-ups a range of 8 to 15 reps. Stop each set with about two reps left, three if you are new to training.
• Rest about 2 minutes between sets when you train for strength and 90 seconds for every other goal.
• Add a rep when you can. Once every set reaches 15, you stay there for the rest of the block, and the app shows “Top of the range — the harder variant comes with the next block.”
• The next block brings the next step on the ladder: wall push-up, hands raised, knees, full push-up, feet raised. Muscla plans no warm-up sets for bodyweight exercises.
• If you tell Muscla to spare your wrists, it leaves push-ups out of your plan and picks another press.

Push-up sets, reps and rest

The table shows the app's range for body weight: one range for every goal, 8 to 15 reps. Once every set reaches 15, you stay at the top of the range until the block ends, and the next block brings the harder variation. Each block lasts 4 weeks; after every third block comes a deload week with one set fewer.

Push-up alternatives

1. Barbell Bench Press→
2. Dumbbell Bench Press→
3. Barbell Incline Bench Press→
4. Machine Chest Press→
5. Dumbbell incline bench press
6. Cable seated chest press
7. Smith bench press
8. Dumbbell neutral grip bench press
9. Kettlebell one arm floor press
10. Chest dip

Push-up questions