Perfecting your Press Up Progressions

Have you seen our progressions board in the Strength and Conditioning room at Falmer Sports Complex? The board is a handy way to see the visual progressions for five key exercises: Squat, Deadlift, Push Up, Row and Plank, so you can make sure you’re mastering each of these fundamental movements. Getting the knack of these key exercises will create a robust framework for your strength development.

Our series of accompanying articles focuses on each exercise, showing key teaching points and explaining why they are progressions from the previous exercise. There are many ways to develop exercises, but we have found our progressions to be pretty successful. We’ve had plank and squat already, now find out how to perfect press up progressions!

When you do a press-up, muscle groups in the body work simultaneously, engaging your chest, triceps, forearms, shoulders, biceps, back, core, legs and neck. Because press-ups are performed in a front leaning position, they also help develop core and shoulder stabilising strength, which aids in good posture.

When press-ups are done properly, the results are fantastic. You can create a stronger upper body: arms, shoulders and core, while also strengthening your back, glutes and legs too. The main coaching point we tend to offer is the position of the hips in relation to the shoulder. Too often, particularly when raising the body up, we see the strong line between shoulders and hips is lost as the core muscles are unable to hold this position. The press up should always be thought of as a moving plank, where everything from head to toe is strong and aligned.

This moving - or pushing - strength developed from press ups transfers well to activities in real life: think of pushing open a heavy door; a shopping trolley at the supermarket or even pushing a broken down car! The press up is also an excellent tool for learning how to create a stable shoulder position and a strong core, which, as demonstrated in our recent plank story, transfers over to almost all sports.

The practical bit!

Your elbows should be lower than your shoulder position and aimed towards the feet to maximise the involvement of your major muscles and to help reduce the load through your shoulder joints. Your elbows should also be approximately 45 degrees from your torso; there are some variations in this, but go with what feels most comfortable and don’t do anything that doesn’t feel right or causes pain. The 45 degree elbow position helps to engage the core, which makes lowering and raising the body easier.

With each style of our progressions, we recommend that you are able to do 3–5 sets of 8–10 successive controlled press up repetitions with good form before moving onto the next progression.

Olympic bar upright press-up

For the Olympic bar upright press-up, start with your arms straight and hands on the bar around chest height, with your hands a little wider than shoulder-width apart. You may angle your hands to create a position that feels best for your wrists. Feet can be spread from hip to shoulder-width apart. Find a position that feels comfortable for you, however, the closer your feet are together, the more challenging the exercise will be. Engage your core and glute muscles and raise yourself onto tiptoes so that you can keep your body strong and straight and your toes will act as the pivot for movement.

Your body should form a straight line from your shoulders, through your hips to your ankles; no bending at the hip. You will use your core strength to maintain this body position throughout the downward and upward phase of the exercise. As you lower your body closer towards the bar, make sure that you achieve a 90-degree angle at your elbows. Pause for a moment in the downward position before pushing yourself back up into the starting position.

Make sure to keep your head in a natural, neutral position throughout the movement.

The lower the bar is placed the harder the exercise will become, therefore if you are just starting out then have the bar higher up, so that you train your body to hold strong in the required position of a press up.

It is easy to progress this exercise and doesn’t need too much explanation. To make it harder and progress we essentially do the same movement except we are taking the feet further back and bar slightly lower in order to lift more of our own bodyweight and make the exercise more challenging. By simply changing the angle of the body we’ve increased the load being lifted. This is an extremely useful stepping-stone to full press ups because it helps you to learn how to perform press ups with a strong tight core and with your body long and straight in the correct position.

Knee Press-up

In case you’re unable to find a bar or wall that you can use for the starter press-ups, this is a great alternative. However we recommend being confident in the upright bar position before attempting this exercise, as you will need to have that strong core as we notice that people tend to let the lower back dip during this style as they concentrate mainly on the press and the depth of the movement, which allows the core to switch off. So focus again in this exercise on your core staying strong with a natural neutral spine position, similar to a plank.

Start with your arms straight and hands on the ground directly under chest height, with your hands a little wider than shoulder-width apart. You may angle your hands to create a position that feels best for your wrists but generally you want your fingers facing the direction of your head and the palms of your hands facing towards your feet, you can spread your fingers for more balance.

Feet can be either be crossed and raised from the floor, or hip width and toes on the floor. Find a position that feels comfortable for you, however, the pivot is with your knees so your feet will move up and down during the press up movement as you keep your knees bent and on the ground, it is best to do this on a mat or slightly soft flooring as it can be sore on your knees. Engage your core and keep it strong.

Your body should form a straight line from your shoulders, through to your hips, with no bending. You will use your core strength to maintain this body position throughout the downward and upward phase of the exercise. As you lower your body closer towards the ground, make sure that you achieve a 90-degree angle at your elbows. Pause for a moment in the downward position before pushing yourself back up into the starting position.

Make sure to keep your head in a natural neutral position throughout the movement, too often we see the head dropping towards the floor to make the exercise feel like you are getting to the ground quicker — so concentrate on strong neck muscles to keep the head inline.

As mentioned in the first paragraph, the relationship between hips and shoulders when performing a press up is key. If you are finding it hard to hold this position try performing the press up from the bottom of the movement only, this can help to development the control and strength required as you progress.

Step Press-up

For the step press-up, we are basically repeating the Olympic bar style press up but this is the lowest the Olympic bar will go and we are getting the body used to having the hands flat on the floor by using the step instead of a bar. Start with your arms straight and hands on the step around chest height, with your hands a little wider than shoulder-width apart. You may angle your hands to create a position that feels best for your wrists but generally you want your fingers facing the direction of your head and the palms of your hands facing towards your feet, spread your fingers for more balance. Feet can be spread from hip to shoulder-width apart; find a position that feels comfortable for you, however, the closer your feet are together, the more challenging the exercise will be. Engage your core and glute muscles and raise yourself onto tiptoes so that you can keep your body strong and straight and your toes will act as the pivot for movement.

Your body should form a straight line from your shoulders, through your hips to your ankles; no bending at the hip. You will use your core strength to maintain this body position throughout the downward and upward phase of the exercise. As you lower your body closer towards the step, make sure that you achieve a 90-degree angle at your elbows. Pause for a moment in the downward position before pushing yourself back up into the starting position.

Make sure to keep your head in a natural neutral position throughout the movement using strong neck muscles.

Full Press-up

For the full press-up you will be repeating the step press-up, but your hands will now be on the floor. Again, your body should form a straight line from your shoulders, through your hips and to your ankles, with no bending at the hips. You will use your core strength to maintain this body position throughout the downward and upward phase of the exercise. Pause for a moment in the downward position before pushing yourself back up into the starting position and again pause at the top before repeating.

Full Press-up (Weighted)

For the weighted press-up we will simply be repeating the full press-up but you will add weight to your body, either through a weighted vest or with a friend who can place a weight on your back. Again your body should form a straight line from your shoulders, through your hips and to your ankles; no bending at the hips. You will use your core strength to maintain this body position throughout the downward and upward phase of the exercise. Pause for a moment in the downward position before pushing yourself back up into the starting position and again pause at the top before repeating.

How did it go? Let us know, ask us a question or share your progress with us on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram!