What muscles do push-ups work?

The chest does the work, with the triceps pressing alongside it and the front of the shoulders assisting. Your midsection holds your body in a line without shortening, which is why it belongs with the muscles steadying you rather than the one doing the work.

Do wide push-ups work the chest more?

Not the way people mean. When it was measured, a narrow hand position produced greater activity in both the chest and the triceps than a wide one. What changes the pressing angle is placing your hands lower down your torso rather than further apart, because that is what lets your upper arms travel back along your sides.

Why do my shoulder blades stick out during push-ups?

The muscle that holds the blade flat against your ribs is not holding it, and the chest compensates. In people whose blades wing, chest activity measures significantly higher and that stabilising muscle significantly lower. Pushing the floor away for an extra inch at the top trains the position.

How low should you go on a push-up?

Until your chest is roughly a fist off the floor. If you cannot get there with your hips in line, raise your hands onto a bench and do full reps at an easier angle instead of short reps on the floor.

Are push-ups enough to build a chest?

For a while. The ceiling is your bodyweight, so once sets get long the exercise is training endurance more than strength. Harder angles, one-arm progressions or added weight are how it keeps working.

Why do my wrists hurt during push-ups?

The position holds the wrist bent back under load, which some people tolerate poorly. Push-up handles or dumbbells let you keep the wrist straight. If something hurts and keeps hurting, that is a question for a physiotherapist.

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Bodyweight · beginner · chest

Standard push up

Also called Pushup, Press-up, Standard push-up, Push-up.

The short answer

A push-up lowers your chest to the floor and presses your body back up while your trunk holds a straight line. Your chest pushes you away from the floor, with your triceps pressing alongside it and your midsection holding the line rather than moving. It is the same pressing pattern as a bench press, with your bodyweight as the load and the angle of your body as the way to make it harder or easier.

How to do it

Step oneBegin in a plank position with your hands placed slightly wider than shoulder-width apart and fingers pointing forward.
Step twoEngage your core and keep your body in a straight line from head to heels.
Step threeLower your chest toward the floor by bending your elbows at roughly a 45-degree angle to your body.
Step fourPause briefly when your chest is just above the floor, then press back up to the starting position.

What usually goes wrong

Each starts with what you would notice.

Your hips sag toward the floor as you go down.

WhyThe trunk stops holding the line, so your back extends and your body arrives at the floor in pieces rather than as one unit.

FixSqueeze your glutes before the first rep and keep them squeezed. If the line breaks anyway, do the movement with your hands raised on a bench until it does not.

Your shoulder blades stick out at the top like wings.

WhyThe muscle that holds the shoulder blade flat against your ribs is not holding it, so your chest takes on work it was not meant to do. This one is measurable: in people whose shoulder blades wing, chest activity runs significantly higher and the muscle that should be holding the blade runs significantly lower.

FixAt the top of each rep, push the floor away for another inch until your upper back rounds slightly and the blades flatten. Stop the rep there rather than at straight arms alone.

Your elbows point straight out to the sides.

WhyThe arms are square to the body, which is the position that puts the most strain on the shoulder at the bottom.

FixLet the elbows travel back at roughly 45 degrees, so your arms make an arrow shape with your body rather than a T.

You stop well short of the floor.

WhyThe bottom is the hardest part, so the rep quietly gets shorter as the set goes on.

FixLower until your chest is a fist off the floor, every rep. Fewer full reps beat more short ones, and the shortened range is the range you were trying to train.

Narrow hands or wide hands

The usual advice is that wide hands make it a chest exercise and narrow hands make it a triceps exercise. That has been measured, and it is not what happens: a narrow hand position produced greater activity in the chest and the triceps than a wide one did.

So narrow hands are not the triceps-only version. If anything they ask more of both muscles, which is part of why they feel harder.

What shifts the pressing angle more than hand width is where your hands sit along your body. Hands level with the bottom of your ribs let your upper arms travel back close to your sides; hands up near your shoulders push them out toward a T, which is the position most people find least comfortable at the bottom.

Push-up or bench press

They are the same movement pattern from opposite directions. A bench press moves a load away from a fixed body; a push-up moves a fixed body away from the floor.

The bench press wins on load, because you can keep adding plates for years. The push-up wins on availability and on what it asks of your trunk, because nothing is holding your position while you press.

The limit of the push-up is that your bodyweight is your bodyweight. Progress comes from changing the angle, moving to one arm, or adding weight to your back, rather than from adding reps forever.

What it will not do

The push-up carries two claims worth separating. The first is the hand-width rule, and the measurements above dispose of it: narrow hands raised activity in both muscles, so the neat chest-versus-triceps split people repeat is not there.

The second is that push-ups are enough on their own. For a while, they are. Then your bodyweight stops being a challenge, and the honest options are to make the leverage worse or add load, not to keep counting higher. Someone doing sets of fifty is training endurance, which is a different thing from the strength they probably wanted.

It will also not correct your posture. Holding your shoulder blades properly during the exercise is about doing the exercise well, not about fixing how you stand the rest of the day.

What it is for

The standard push up is a fundamental bodyweight exercise targeting the chest, with secondary engagement of the shoulders, upper arms, and abs. It involves lowering and pressing the body in a plank position to develop upper body pushing strength and core stability.

Questions people ask

What muscles do push-ups work?: The chest does the work, with the triceps pressing alongside it and the front of the shoulders assisting. Your midsection holds your body in a line without shortening, which is why it belongs with the muscles steadying you rather than the one doing the work.
Do wide push-ups work the chest more?: Not the way people mean. When it was measured, a narrow hand position produced greater activity in both the chest and the triceps than a wide one. What changes the pressing angle is placing your hands lower down your torso rather than further apart, because that is what lets your upper arms travel back along your sides.
Why do my shoulder blades stick out during push-ups?: The muscle that holds the blade flat against your ribs is not holding it, and the chest compensates. In people whose blades wing, chest activity measures significantly higher and that stabilising muscle significantly lower. Pushing the floor away for an extra inch at the top trains the position.
How low should you go on a push-up?: Until your chest is roughly a fist off the floor. If you cannot get there with your hips in line, raise your hands onto a bench and do full reps at an easier angle instead of short reps on the floor.
Are push-ups enough to build a chest?: For a while. The ceiling is your bodyweight, so once sets get long the exercise is training endurance more than strength. Harder angles, one-arm progressions or added weight are how it keeps working.
Why do my wrists hurt during push-ups?: The position holds the wrist bent back under load, which some people tolerate poorly. Push-up handles or dumbbells let you keep the wrist straight. If something hurts and keeps hurting, that is a question for a physiotherapist.