Top 16 Push-Up Variations (Part 1)
Push-ups give you a full body workout, burn fat and build muscle, and you can do them anywhere. Learn Get-Fit Guy’s top 16 push-up variations, plus get an instructional video.
The Progressive Push Ups may seem like a bit of a boring exercise, or at least one that might bring back unpleasant memories of a fitness test, a PE class, or punishment during basketball practice.
But in a recent Why Push Up is a Good Exercise you learned that push-ups are:
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a full body exercise that require contraction of the muscles around the knee joints, hip joints, pelvis and spine to maintain a straight line from your head to your feet. Plus, push-ups activate the muscles on the back of your arms, chest, shoulder, biceps, upper back, lower back, and legs.
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can be used to not just build muscular strength, but also power, muscle growth, or muscular endurance, depending on which variation of the push-up you do (and you’re about to learn the best variations!)
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an extremely flexible exercise in which you can change muscle recruitment patterns and joint stresses of the push-ups – making a movement harder, easier, or simply stressing different muscles – by simply altering your hand and foot positions.
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And, of course, one of the best parts about the push-up is that you can do it just about anywhere. So what are the best versions of the push-up? I’m going to give you my top 16 push-up variations, each of which works a different muscle group or targets a different fitness goal –a nd don’t worry if you have trouble visualizing any of these, because
#1. Between-Chair Push-Up. By placing each of your hands on two chairs that are spread slightly wider than your shoulder width, you elevate your body farther from the ground and increase the range-of-motion of the entire push-up – so your muscles (especially your chest muscles) must work harder to complete the movement. In addition, when your hands are spread wide during the push-up, you activate your chest muscles more than your triceps muscles. If you maintain good posture, you’ll also use your abs and low back muscles more. If you have three chairs, you can actually put elevate your legs as well, turning this version into a “suspended” push-up.
#2. Feet-Elevated Push-Up. When your hands are placed lower than the rest of your body during the push-up, you’ll tend to work more of your upper chest and shoulders – and push-ups with the feet elevated require higher upper body force production than any other variation. Because of gravity, a feet-elevated push-up also puts more overall stress on your upper body and less on your legs. To make this version even more difficult, do your feet-elevated push-ups with fists, rather than with your hands flat on the ground. Shifting to your fists creates a smaller surface area of your hand in contact with the ground, which increase balance requirements for many of your smaller arm muscles.
#3. Torso-Elevated Push-Up. When your hands are higher than the rest of your body during the push-up, you will tend to work more of your lower chest and abs. Furthermore, when you use an unstable surface such as a stability ball as the elevated surface, you significantly increase the activation of the triceps muscles on the backs of your arms. In addition, the front and sides of your abs work harder, and your overall muscle activation is greater with an unstable surface. Just be careful doing push-ups on a stability ball – the last thing you want is a broken nose!
#4. Handle Grip Push-Up. If you don’t happen to have two chairs or elevated surfaces that you can place your hands on, you can also increase the range-of-motion of a push-up by simply holding onto two dumbbells during the push-up. For added difficulty on this push-up variation, you can do a row with one of the dumbbells after each push-up.
#5. Staggered Base Push-Up. By staggering your hands (putting one hand farther in front than the other), you shift more of your body weight and muscle requirements to one side, which can be a good strategy for athletes who tend to use just one side of the body for certain activities (such as tennis players, baseball players, or MMA fighters) and who need to get used to loading the body asymmetrically.
#6. Alternating Side-to-Side Push-Up. To do this version, move your entire body as far as possible over either your right or left side as you do the push-up. Similar to the staggered base push-up, this is a great way to load the body asymmetrically.
#7. Corkscrew Push-Up. This push-up builds balance and works the sides of your abs and shoulders more than a standard version. Simply do a normal push-up, but in between each push-up, stack one foot on top of the other, rotate your entire body and reach for the ceiling. Then do another push-up, but this time rotate in the opposite direction. To make this version more difficult and harder to balance A) do it with your hands closed into fists and/or B) raise your leg towards the ceiling as you do the corkscrew.
Next week, we’ll jump right into the next 9 variations of the push-up exercise. In the meantime, if you have more questions about https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRmOaKHH99Q, push-up tips, or your own push-up variations to add, then join the conversation at GetFitGuy on Facebook!
About the Author
Ben Greenfield received bachelor’s and master’s degrees from University of Idaho in sports science and exercise physiology; personal training and strength and conditioning certifications from the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA); a sports nutrition certification from the International Society of Sports Nutrition (ISSN), an advanced bicycle fitting certification from Serotta. He has over 11 years’ experience in coaching professional, collegiate, and recreational athletes from all sports, and as helped hundreds of clients achieve weight loss and fitness success.
