How To Unlock Your Push Up Strength (In 5 Minutes)

If you want to improve your push up form – and do more push ups, this video is for you. We’re going to show you how to (finally) push up properly by covering how you can optimally set up your body position, stabilize that position by activating the right muscles, and finally, combine it with a few modifications (i.e. push up variations) to unlock its maximum potential. After this video, you can be sure to get better push ups. Your push-up strength and the muscle growth you get from performing it will be taken to a whole new level.

First, setup. Getting this right is crucial to if you want to improve your push up form. We’ll start with hand placement. In general, you’d want it such that if you were to look down from an overhead view, your elbows should make an “arrow” shape. To find your sweet spot hand position, lie down on the floor with your hands at the level of your mid-chest. Take a look at your forearm and elbows. Move your hands until you find the hand width where the forearm is positioned directly over the wrists and the elbows are tucked into that arrow position (roughly a 45 to 60 degree angle). Most of you will end up with a hand placement at the mid-chest level and placed just outside the shoulders. Keep your hands on the floor. Then get onto your hands and knees, with your knees right under your hips.

This step is where we’ll focus on turning on several muscles that’ll help better stabilize your body as you perform your push-up, avoiding what’s called “Energy Leaks”. In turn, helping you do more push ups. Start by pushing your knuckle down into the floor and spreading your hands such that there’s space between each of your fingers. This will help us incorporate more of our powerful chest muscles. Next, slide your shoulders down and away from your ears. You should feel your lats turn on as you do this. Then, while maintaining this activation in your lats, push the floor away to open up your shoulder blades to integrate the serratus anterior. At this point, your head will likely be protruding forward. Adjust this by pulling your chin back to draw your head back in line with your body. This helps avoid stressing the neck and also puts our mid-back muscles into a better position for stabilization.

At this point we’re done stabilizing the upper body and are ready to move to the lower body. We’ll start by setting your hips in the right position. To do so, think about tucking your tailbone. Once you’ve made it here, you’re ready to step back. Take a breath in, engage your core, and then extend one leg back. Dig your toes into the floor and squeeze your thigh really tight to fully extend your leg. Hold that, then step the other leg back and squeeze the other thigh tight. Now you know all the basics of how to push up properly.

To perform your push-up, we’re actually going to start by pulling and then pushing. So from the top position we established in step 2, do not just let gravity flop you to the floor. Instead, to get better push ups, think about using your back muscles to pull yourself to the floor as if you were performing a row. Your body will have to travel forward slightly as you do so in order to keep those elbows directly over the wrists like we talked about in step 1. Then, while squeezing your butt and thighs, push away from the floor to the top to open up your shoulder blades again as we did during our setup. At this top position your head, hips, and feet should make one straight line. Maintain this as you proceed to your next reps.

Now that we’ve nailed down your perfect push-up, it’s time to modify it and use the appropriate push up variations based on your current strength level and body type. If you struggle with push-ups and can’t do more than 10 good push-ups, you can either do leg-banded push ups or incline push ups. For those who instead have “mastered” the standard push-up and can perform more than 20 good reps with them, it’s time to increase the difficulty. The most convenient way is to just slow down the reps. Instead of taking 1 second to go down, extend it to 3 seconds. Do the same on the way up. Once that becomes too easy, incorporate a 1-2 second pause at the bottom as well. My personal favorite, however, is banded push-ups.

If you want to maximize your growth and strength, it’s important to apply this same level of detail and execution with all of your exercises, not just your push-up. For a step-by-step program that shows you how to do just that, with in-depth tutorials for each and every exercise included in your program, then take our free quiz below to determine which of our programs are best for you and your goals:

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[SchuyFit]

This is by far the most in-depth, clear way I've ever seen a push-up described. You've done it again Jeremy!

[mog]

I used to do 30 push ups a set. Now with proper form I'm down to like 8 😂

[Koyasi]

Much better than what they taught me in high school, which was "do a push up".

[taejoonparkkk]

i used to be able to do 45 with just the normal, now i’m only doing around 15 and it’s way better than before. thank you

[jamesa]

Don’t push up, push the floor away from you. Great point in step two and three!

[MuhammadRidwanSajid]

People: Complaining about the can only do 2 pushups.
Me: Laughs in 0

[JLikesCars]

Me waiting for my mom to leave the area so I can begin without it being awkward: 😳🤨😑😐😶

[helmutkrusemann]

I would appreciate a video like this for the pull-up. thank you very much!

[pedrosilvaproductions]

You have no idea how happy I am after doing this. Was thinking I was super weak because after 2 push ups my wrists and triceps were killing me. I've applied all your techniques and was able to do 10 without much effort and no uncomfortable pain at all!

[rayanetoudert]

You can't imagine how proud you made me. I almost lost hope and though I can never do a single push up. Until you clarified it and showed the way to do it. Thank you so mush❤❤

[apokalipsx]

10 push ups like shown on the video - result *nose* *bleeding*
Thank you !
Its not the problem of strength in my case. I just have very weak blood system inside the nose since i was born. I better keep pushing something heavy with my nose up )))

[ohndaway]

Trying hard to push up. I always wanted to do minimum 5 of them, and like 1 month ago, i tried to do some, just to see my level and... Yeah, i was speechless. I never thougth how much a single push up is hard to do, in his correct form. I am training every day, with the simple variations, and yesterday i was finally able to pull out a good set of 5. This video helped me a lot, i fixed my posture, and i saw the results like istantly. To everyone who is starting out, like me, i want to share my suggestion: Dont hurry.
Workout Is a long journey, dont give up and continue! Best of luck to everybody like me out there! 💪🏼

[VedantMistry-tnor]

I used to fall down after doing 2 push ups. But after watching this video and following the steps I can do almost 5 in a row without fatigue. Thank you sir👍👍

[Texiewalker]

I loved this video! I always strive for better form. My only suggestion is please give an at-home beginner-friendly modification without equipment of any kind. Thank you for this info! -Ade

[JairunCaloth]

I haven't worked out in many years and started today because I need to improve my health and strength. I knew I was doing pushups wrong and was really struggling with them. I found this video to be super informative! I really like the graphical overlay on the demonstrations to show exactly what you are talking about, and that you put each main point in text. Those really helped with my note taking. I will be going through your previous videos to find workouts to add to my new routine.

[allenapostol]

I actually learnt this by myself when my elbows started to hurt, so I fixed my form while doing push ups thus making all my hardwork rewarding, after only 2 weeks I have seen muscle growth and more strength. Form is always the key for best results, not the intensity.

[booboo]

By far the most comprehensive explanation and demonstration of proper form. Very very helpful!

[-UNITED-STATES-OF-AMERICA-USA]

I used to do sets of 25. Now I’m doing sets of 10 and slowly improving. I can tell the difference

[AlejandroRiveraCorrea]

Wasn't expecting the 7:11 move hahah

[DakilangPinoy]

Man, the time and effort put into editing.