5 Variations to Get Your First Push Up

The push up (or press up) is one of the most effective exercises you can do using your body weight. Too often I find women are still doing push ups on their knees, even after years of training or coaching. Doing a full push up is something every person could benefit from. 

In the years I’ve been coaching I’ve seen it take women one month, six months, a year, or sometimes longer to achieve their first push up. The one thing that always helps them reach their goal is by including the five variations below in their routine.

These are some of my favourite push up variations to get you started or to continue your journey with the best possible form, and unlocking your full strength potential.

1. Incline Push Up

The first push up that I get anyone doing, especially if they’re new to push ups, is the incline push up. 

Whether you have access to a rack in the gym or you’re just doing them at home, find yourself the optimum height to practice the movement. The essential parts here are to: 

• Focus on having your elbows/arms in a 45 degree position

• Choose a height that will challenge you but also allow you to maintain your form

• Bring your feet together

• Keep the tension in your glutes and core (squeeze - you’ll need this full body tension when you transfer to pushing yourself up from the ground)

• Exhale as you push your weight upwards

• Tuck your pelvis under (so your butt isn’t shooting up to the sky). This is reinforced when you are maintaining the tension in your glutes here.

2. Band Assisted Push Ups

Using a band over your elbows is a great trick, so when you lower your chest down you’re met with some resistance to help you focus and drive more power through the ground to get you back up. Find a resistance band that allows you to do a full push up (or as close as you can) while keeping the cues from your incline push up in position.

As you push up from the bottom position keep the tension in your glutes and drive up with as much controlled force as possible. As you get stronger in this movement pattern you’ll be able to use bands with less resistance.

3. Eccentric Tempo Push Up

This is by far the form of push ups that I use most with my clients. Why? Slowing the movement pattern down not only gives you more body awareness, so you can feel the areas of weakness, but it also creates a new stimulus for your muscles and framework to adapt to. Essentially, you get stronger and find more control in the movement. 

Eccentric: A lengthening muscle contraction that occurs when a force applied to the muscle exceeds the momentary force produced by the muscle itself, resulting in the forced lengthening of the muscle-tendon system while contracting (Lindstedt et al., 2001).

Tempo: A way to control the rate at which an exercise is performed. It refers to how much time the muscle spends under tension in the isometric, eccentric, and concentric portions of the exercise. 

I typically start clients doing three seconds down, and once competent we advance to five, seven, and then to 10 seconds. If you’re new to this movement pattern, this variation offers you one moment where you can push up off your knees. 

4. Block Assisted Push Ups

As you progress through the three variations above, this is a great one to add in to help you see how much further and closer you can get to the ground. Start with the equivalent of 1-3 yoga blocks (if you don’t have yoga blocks available, use dumbbells, pillows, or anything else you can get your hands on at the gym or home to support you in finding more depth in your push ups) and use this as your baseline indicator.

Once you’re hitting 8-12 reps comfortably I recommend removing a block to get you into a lower position and then work your way back up again.

5. Full Push Up (Regular Push Up)

The full push up is an incredible full body exercise in which you are pushing your whole body weight from the ground or the lowest possible position you can. Once you’ve gone through the four essential variations, click the link above to see how it looks when you piece it together. Make sure you’re focusing on the foundations of the movement that you learnt in your incline push ups.

Remember, to maintain your strength, form, and progress you will have to be doing push ups 1-3 times per week. If you have a break for a while and find yourself not feeling as strong, simply go back to working through the variations above.

For more tips to help you master this movement pattern and move strong check out this article here on 6 Most Common Push Up Mistakes