Push-ups for beginners: the road to your first real push-up

The push-up is the exercise most adults have a history with. It was tested in PE, it turns up in every home workout and it is often the first one that makes people quit. Two attempts on the floor, hips sagging, and the feeling of being weaker than you were at fifteen.

This guide is about the road from no push-ups at all to your first real one on the floor, and on from there. It goes deeper than our guide to strength training at home, where the push-up is one of six basic movements. Here we go through a single exercise properly: what it does for you, what the number 40 actually means, how to make it easier or harder, and what counts as a rep.

Why the push-up is worth the effort

The push-up trains the chest, the front of the shoulders and the back of the upper arm (triceps), while your trunk has to hold your body straight. It is the same movement pattern as the bench press in a gym, except that you move yourself instead of a bar.

Whether it is enough has been tested in a few small randomised studies:

• A similar strength gain to the bench press. A Spanish study of 30 students who were already used to strength training compared the bench press with push-ups with an elastic band for extra resistance. The load was set so that both groups could manage six reps. After five weeks, both groups had gained a similar amount of strength.
• Comparable muscle growth to light bench pressing. A Japanese study of 18 young men had one group bench press at 40 per cent of their maximum. The other group did push-ups with the position adjusted, kneeling for example, so the load matched. After eight weeks of two sessions a week, both groups had increased their maximal strength and the thickness of their chest and triceps.
• Stronger in four weeks, but no bigger muscles yet. An American study of 23 young men training three times a week for four weeks found that push-ups in progressively harder variations raised their bench press maximum, just as bench pressing did. Neither group developed measurably thicker muscles in that short time.

The studies are small and the participants were young adults. In two of the studies they were all men, with an average age of 20 and 23 respectively. None of them looked at middle-aged or older people. But they point the same way: your muscles do not seem to care whether the resistance comes from a bar or from your own body, as long as the effort is high enough. That is the principle all of our home training rests on.

The number 40 and what it actually says

Search for push-ups and you soon find the claim that 40 push-ups protect your heart. It comes from a 2019 study in JAMA Network Open, run by Harvard researchers on firefighters in Indiana, USA.

Here is how it worked. 1,104 male firefighters with an average age just under 40 did push-ups in time with a metronome at 80 beats a minute. They kept going until they reached 80, missed the beat three times or had to stop. They were then followed for up to ten years. In that time there were 37 cardiovascular events. This is how they were distributed:

The ratio of 0.04 in the bottom row is where the headline of a 96 per cent lower risk comes from. Three things make that headline weaker than it sounds:

• A single event. The top group had a single cardiovascular event over the whole follow-up. That is too few to support a precise percentage, which shows in the confidence interval: anywhere from 64 to 99 per cent lower.
• Age. The men who managed the most were on average just over 13 years younger than the men who managed the fewest. They also had a lower BMI. The ratio in the table is not adjusted for either.
• The adjusted analysis. The researchers also ran the numbers taking age and BMI into account. The difference between the top and bottom groups was then no longer statistically significant. The only comparison that held was 21 to 30 push-ups against 0 to 10, with a risk between two thirds and three quarters lower depending on the model. Nor was the curve smooth: the 31 to 40 group had more events per person-year than the 21 to 30 group.

The researchers themselves write that the results do not support push-up capacity as an independent predictor of cardiovascular risk. They also write that the results may not apply to women, older people or people who are not physically active.

Leverage: the same exercise, a different weight

In a push-up you do not lift your whole body weight. Your feet carry some of it. How much depends on the angle.

An American study measured the force through the hands in six variations in 23 recreationally active men and women. Push-ups with the feet on a box produced the most force. Push-ups with the hands on a box and push-ups from the knees produced the least, less than every other variation. The boxes were about 30 and 61 centimetres high (12 and 24 inches). The pattern was the same for women and men.

Another study, of 28 strength-trained men, measured how much of the body weight the hands carry at the top and at the bottom. The hands carried more at the bottom than at the top, in both standard and knee push-ups. That explains something most people have felt: it is almost always at the bottom that you get stuck.

The conclusion is simple. At home you do not add weight. You change the angle. The higher your hands, the more of the weight goes to your feet.

The steps down to the floor

A staircase is an excellent piece of push-up equipment. Every stair is a small increase in load, so you can go down one step at a time instead of jumping straight from the kitchen worktop to the floor.

Where to start: on the step where you can do 6 to 12 reps with clean form and have one or two left in the tank. When to move on: when you can do 12 with clean form in every set, two sessions in a row. If the new step is too hard: if you manage fewer than six, go back up a stair or add negative push-ups (see below).

Make sure whatever you lean on stays put. A chair that slides away is more dangerous than a push-up that is too heavy. A bench or table against a wall works if you have no stairs.

What about the knees? Knee push-ups are a good option too. They were among the easiest variations in the measurements. We still prefer raised hands for most people, because you practise exactly the straight body line the floor push-up demands. That is a coaching choice, not a research finding. Pick the variation that lets you do 6 to 12 clean reps.

The form standard: what counts as a push-up

The same standard applies at every step, from the wall to the floor:

1. A straight body from head to heels. Lightly brace your glutes and stomach. Your hips should neither sag towards the floor nor point at the ceiling.
2. Hands roughly under the shoulders, or slightly wider, fingers pointing forward.
3. Elbows angled back, not straight out to the sides. Seen from above, your upper arms and body should form something like an arrow, not a T. It is common coaching advice that most people find easier on the shoulders.
4. All the way down: chest to about a fist's height from the surface.
5. All the way up: straight arms at the top.
6. Head in line with your back. Eyes on the surface a little ahead of your hands. Your chin should not lead.
7. Controlled tempo: about two seconds down and one up.

A rep that breaks the standard does not count. That sounds strict, but it is the whole point: the clean reps are what you build on. Three half reps on the floor tell you less about where you stand than ten full ones against the worktop.

The most common faults also tell you what to change. If your hips sag, your trunk cannot hold the line, so go up a step. If each rep gets shorter than the last, the step is too hard. If your elbows flare out towards the end of a set, you are close to your limit. The set is done.

Negative push-ups: when the floor is the next step

When you are close to the floor but not quite there, you can train just the way down. Start at the top of a floor push-up and lower yourself as slowly as you can, ideally over three to five seconds. Drop your knees at the bottom and get back up. Three to five of these after your normal sets is plenty.

The way down is the braking part of the movement. For the first few sessions it causes more soreness than other work, which we explain in our guide to muscle soreness. Start with just a few reps.

An honest caveat: we have not found any study comparing different routes to the first push-up with each other. The steps here are based on the leverage measurements above and on the general principle that muscles need hard enough work to get stronger.

How often?

Two or three sessions a week with at least one rest day in between is plenty. That is roughly what the studies above used: two sessions a week for eight weeks in one, three a week for four weeks in the other. How often the same muscles can take training is covered in our guide to rest days between workouts.

Remember that the push-up is only the upper body's pressing exercise. The World Health Organization and the NHS recommend muscle-strengthening activity on at least two days a week for all major muscle groups. Legs, back and trunk need their own exercises. The full setup is in our guide to strength training at home. Short on time? There is a shorter session in our guide to exercising when you have no time.

Wrists and shoulders

Wrists. In a push-up your wrist bends sharply back with a good share of your body weight on it. If your wrists complain, grip two dumbbells or a pair of push-up handles so the wrist stays straight. Raising your hands also takes weight off the wrists, just as it does off the muscles.

Shoulders. If you feel it at the front of the shoulder at the bottom, shorten the range a little or go up a step. Try bringing your elbows closer to your body, too. Discomfort that disappears when you adjust is common. Pain that lingers after the session is a different matter. If your shoulder already hurts, push-ups are not where to start. The NHS advice for shoulder pain is to keep moving the shoulder gently and not stop using it completely, while avoiding things that make it worse. If it has not improved within two weeks, get it checked. That is the same time limit that 1177, Sweden's national healthcare advice service, gives for neck and shoulder pain.

If you sit at a desk a lot and already have neck and shoulder pain, we have a separate guide to back, neck and shoulder pain from desk work.

When to see a doctor

Frequently asked questions

How many push-ups should I be able to do?

There is no number that applies to everyone. The figure of 40 comes from a study of 1,104 male firefighters with an average age just under 40. Those who managed more than 40 had fewer cardiovascular events over up to ten years of follow-up than those who managed ten or fewer. But the top group had just one event, and once the researchers adjusted for age and BMI, the difference was no longer statistically significant. The study says nothing about women or older adults. Treat your own number as a gauge of progress, not a grade.

Are knee push-ups cheating?

No. They are the same exercise with less weight. When researchers measured the force through the hands, knee push-ups and push-ups with the hands raised were the easiest variations. Pick the one that lets you do 6 to 12 clean reps. We prefer raised hands for most people, because you practise the same straight body line you need on the floor. That is a coaching choice, not a research finding.

How long does it take to do a push-up on the floor?

There is no researched timeline for that specific goal. It depends on where you start. In small studies of young men, upper-body strength rose measurably within four to eight weeks of two or three sessions a week. If you start against the wall, reaching the floor can take months. Move one step lower when you can do 12 clean reps in every set for two sessions in a row, and you will progress at the pace your body can actually handle.

Can I do push-ups every day?

You can, but you do not need to in order to get stronger. The studies in this guide used two or three sessions a week. If you train close to your limit, your muscles need time to recover, so two or three sessions a week with at least one rest day in between suits most people. Shoulder or wrist pain that does not settle is a signal to back off, not to push on.

Do push-ups build muscle?

Yes, if the effort is high enough. In a Japanese study of 18 young men, push-ups increased chest and triceps thickness about as much as bench pressing at the same load, after eight weeks of two sessions a week. In an American study lasting four weeks, neither group showed a measurable increase in muscle thickness, although strength went up. Both studies were in young men.

Evidence base: Yang and colleagues on push-up capacity and cardiovascular events in firefighters in JAMA Network Open 2019 (1,104 participants, PMID 30768197), with the table above taken from the study's Tables 1 and 2 and the adjusted analysis from Table 3; Ebben and colleagues on the force in six push-up variations in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research 2011 (PMID 21873902); Suprak and colleagues on the share of body weight at the top and bottom positions in the same journal 2011 (PMID 20179649); Calatayud and colleagues on the bench press versus elastic-band push-ups in the same journal 2015 (PMID 24983847); Kikuchi and Nakazato on light bench pressing versus push-ups in the Journal of Exercise Science and Fitness 2017 (PMID 29541130); Kotarsky and colleagues on progressive push-up training in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research 2018 (PMID 29466268); the WHO guidelines on physical activity 2020 (PMID 33239350); NHS physical activity guidelines for adults; NHS guidance on shoulder pain; and 1177 (Sweden's national healthcare advice service) on neck and shoulder pain.