Your pushup roadmap

Pushups are without a doubt one of the most widely known exercises in the world. Despite this, many individuals struggle to complete them, with over 50% of people reporting they cannot do 10 pushups in a row. Pushups provide an effective and efficient way to train many large upper body muscles without needing any equipment.

Muscles Worked in Pushups

Pushups primarily target:

• Pectorals (Chest): The chest muscles are the primary movers during a pushup, providing the force needed to push your body up.

• Deltoids (Shoulders): The shoulder muscles assist in the pushing movement, contributing to overall shoulder strength and stability.

• Triceps (Back of Arms): These muscles extend your elbows, playing a crucial role in the upward phase of the pushup.

• Core (Abdominals and Obliques): The core muscles stabilize your body throughout the movement, ensuring proper form and preventing sagging or arching of the back.

• Serratus Anterior: Located on the side of your chest, these muscles help stabilize your shoulder blades, which is essential for proper shoulder mechanics.

Grip Variations in Pushups

While regular pushups are performed with your hands just outside shoulder width, there are different options for how to execute them:

• Regular Pushups: The standard pushup balances the workload across the chest, shoulders, and triceps. It's a great starting point for beginners and provides a solid foundation for building strength.

• Wide Grip: When you spread your hands out wider, more of the emphasis goes onto your chest.

• Close Grip: When your hands are directly under your shoulders or even slightly narrower, your triceps do more of the heavy lifting, reducing the involvement of the chest.

• Hands Elevated: By elevating your hands on pushup bars or even placing a thick book under each hand, you can increase the range of motion if you still lower yourself to the floor. This allows for a greater stretch and contraction of the chest muscles.

• Elevated: Fully elevating your upper body by performing pushups against a wall, chair, or bench reduces the load you need to lift. This variation biases your lower chest muscles and reduces the emphasis on your shoulders and upper chest.

• Feet Elevated: Elevating your feet by placing them on a bench or chair while keeping your hands on the floor makes pushups considerably harder and places more emphasis on your shoulders and upper chest fibers.

Ten Exercises to Help You Get There

Here are ten exercises that can help you build the necessary strength and technique to perform pushups:

1. Kneeling Pushups: By reducing the amount of weight you need to lift, kneeling pushups are a great way to train your pushup form, build strength, and build muscle.

2. Eccentric Pushups: Many people struggle to raise themselves back up after lowering. To remedy this, lower yourself as slowly as possible, even pausing with your chest slightly off the floor. This builds strength and endurance while refining pushup form.

3. Elevated Pushups: Similar to kneeling pushups, this is a great way to build strength and muscle in a regressed version of the pushup.

4. Dumbbell Chest Press: While training pushups directly is great, using other exercises can effectively build muscle, strength, and endurance. The chest press builds push strength and targets the chest, shoulders, and triceps.

5. Dumbbell Flies: These isolate the chest muscles. If your chest is the limiting factor, dumbbell flies can help build the necessary strength.

6. Dumbbell Shoulder Press: This exercise builds shoulder and tricep strength and enhances shoulder stability.

7. Dumbbell Front Raises: These target shoulder strength and stability with a simple yet effective movement.

8. Skull Crushers: This exercise closely mimics the tricep action in pushups, improving tricep muscle mass and strength.

9. Tricep Pressdowns: Though not as directly applicable as skull crushers, tricep pressdowns are effective for building tricep muscle and strength. They can also be performed with resistance bands.

10. Plank: Core stability is crucial for maintaining proper pushup form. Perform planks for 20-45 seconds to build core endurance. Challenge yourself with harder plank variations as you progress.

Sample 12-Week Pushup Program

This program focuses solely on building upper body strength and endurance to help you perform pushups. It does not cover lower body or pulling muscles (back, biceps, rear delts). The success of this program depends on your current body weight to strength ratio, but it will definitely get you much closer to performing pushups.

Week	Monday	Wednesday	Friday
Week 1-3	Kneeling pushups - 3 sets of 6-10 Skull crushers - 3 sets of 8-12 Plank - 2 sets of max hold	Dumbbell chest press - 4 sets of 8-12 Dumbbell front raise - 4 sets of 8-12 Cable tricep pressdowns - 4 sets of 8-12	Elevated pushups - 3 sets of 6-10 Skull crushers - 3 sets of 8-12 Plank - 2 sets of max hold
Week 4-6	Kneeling pushups - 4 sets of 10-15 Skull crushers - 3 sets of 10-15 Plank - 2 sets of max hold	Dumbbell chest press - 4 sets of 8-12 Dumbbell shoulder press - 4 sets of 8-12 Cable tricep pressdowns - 4 sets of 8-12	Elevated pushups - 4 sets of 10-15 Dumbbell flies - 3 sets of 10-15 Plank - 2 sets of max hold
Week 7-9	Eccentric pushups from toes - 4 sets - as many reps as possible Skull crushers - 4 sets of 10-15 Plank - 2 sets of max hold	Dumbbell chest press - 4 sets of 6-10 (heavier weight) Dumbbell shoulder press - 4 sets of 6-10 Pusuhp iso hold (hold pushup 2 inches from floor) - from toes - 3 sets of max hold	Kneeling pushups - 4 sets - as many reps as possible Tricep pressdowns - 4 sets of 10-15 Plank - 2 sets of max hold
Week 10-12	Pushups - as many from toes as possible, Complete the rest from knees or eccentric - 4 sets of 10 Front raises - 3 sets of 10-15 Skull crushers - 3 sets of 10-15	Dumbbell chest press - 4 sets of 6-10 (heavier weight) Dumbbell shoulder press - 4 sets of 6-10 Dumbbell flies - 3 sets of 10-15 Tricep pressdowns - 3 sets of 10-15	Pushups - as many from toes as possible, Complete the rest from knees or eccentric - 4 sets of 10 Front raises - 3 sets of 10-15 Skull crushers - 3 sets of 10-15

If you need more assistance getting to your first pushup or any other fitness goal, contact us to set up a free consultation to discuss in-person or online coaching!

Kurtis Proksch