How to do your first push-up

Push-ups are a highly effective bodyweight exercise for building your upper body muscles. They target your pectoralis muscles, triceps and anterior deltoids.

Although it’s a bodyweight exercise, doing a push-up can be tough, especially if you are just starting out. To perform a set of full push-ups with the correct form you need to have both a level of core stability and strength in your upper body muscles.

Training for push-ups

If you want to work towards doing a set of full push-ups, there are a few steps that you can take. Let’s take a look at the key steps to take when you’re progressing to a set of full-body weight push-ups as a beginner.

Proper hand placement

When you’re performing push-ups, it’s important to place your hands in the correct orientation to reduce the risk of injuries and muscle strains.

In a push-up, your hands should be flat on the ground, slightly wider than shoulder-width apart and placed in line with your chest. You can use push-up bars that place your wrists in a neutral position if you find that placing them flat on the ground is too painful or uncomfortable for you.

Push-up technique

Push-ups might look easy to the untrained eye, but they require full-body coordination and strength. Start by watching some online videos to see proper push-up form. Seeing someone else perform the exercise correctly will provide you with a visual reference when trying the exercise yourself.

Remember to keep your feet slightly separated and to form a straight line with your body from head to toe. Slowly lower your chest towards your hands without touching the ground while maintaining a straight line with your body. Push upwards and return to plank position. Don’t forget to exhale as you push up.

Practice incline push-ups

Incline push-ups are an easier version of traditional push-ups. Because of the elevated position of your hands compared to your legs, you don’t need as much pre-existing muscle strength to perform the exercise correctly and safely.

Use a bench or aerobic step to create an elevated platform on which you can rest your hands when doing incline push-ups. Overtime you can slowly decrease the incline until you are ready to do traditional push-ups with your full body parallel to the floor.