The Best Bodyweight Push Workout

Skip the gym and strengthen your upper body muscles with this push workout.

Though technically, “push” exercises can include the legs as well (lunges and squats are push exercises), this workout is geared towards the upper body.

As one of the most effective upper-body exercises, you need to know how to do a push-up for this home workout (start by mastering form with a wall push up or an eccentric push ups if you're a beginner).

Making use of these bodyweight exercises to improve push ups will help as well.

Benefits Of The Workout

• Can be done anywhere just like this at home shoulder workout without equipment
• Fitness nicely into a push pull split or 4 day workout routine
• Time efficient
• Helps increase strength in the upper body muscles
• Can help improve body composition

What Are Push Exercises?

Technically speaking, push exercises are those in which you are pushing an object away from your body or your body away from an object (the floor for example).

Some common push exercises are:

• Push ups (and all variations)
• Squats
• Dips
• Bench press
• Lunges
• Shoulder presses

For this bodyweight push workout, the focus is on the upper body push exercises that specifically focus on the chest muscles, shoulder muscles, triceps, and arm muscles, which means thoracic mobility exercises are great to make sure you can move your upper body properly, the same goes for this triceps workout at home without equipment.

Of course, your back muscles and core will come into play as well. This is why it's important to balance it out with a beginner dumbbell leg workout in the week, also.

Bodyweight Push Workout

Make sure you’re moving slowly and focusing on the form of each exercise.

The focus of this push workout is on strength, which means that’s you’ll be pushing to almost failure on your exercises. When you do this, you need to take longer rest periods so that you’re able to perform the best set.

Close grip push ups	Max reps
Rest	45-60 seconds
Inverted press	5-8 reps
Rest	60 seconds
Floor bow	10 reps
Isometric Lsit	25 seconds
Rest	45 seconds
Around the world push ups	40 seconds

To perform the bodyweight workout:

Perform the first set of narrow grip push ups on the floor and do as many as you can before your form caves. Rest for 45 seconds.

On the second set, elevate your hands slightly on stairs or a table and perform as many as you can with good form. Rest for 45 seconds.

Go back to the floor and do a final set to failure. Then rest 60 seconds.

Move on to the inverted presses for the prescribed repetitions, resting sixty seconds between sets for three rounds.

Note:  if you can do the presses with elevated feet, aim for 5 reps. If not, aim for eight repetitions.

Move on to a superset of the floor bow and isometric L-raise performing the exercises back to back, resting for 45 seconds and repeating for three rounds.

If you need to, do the floor bow from your knees. The L-hold can be done on the floor or with yoga blocks. The goal isn’t core based so you don’t need to lift the legs, just focus on full arm extension.

Finally, finish off with one set of around-the-world push-ups for 40 seconds. These push ups are done in a wider grip than the starting ones.

Tip:  if you can only get 1-2 push ups on the floor with good form, focus on doing eccentric push ups instead.

Expert Tips

Below are the breakdowns of the bodyweight push exercises. Form comes first, so slow down and make each rep count.

Narrow Grip Push Ups

1. Starting position: plank position with your hands in line and ever so slightly wider than your shoulders. Legs extended straight behind you and feet hip width apart for balance.
2. Squeeze the glutes and ensure the front core muscles are engaged.
3. Tuck the elbows back as you lower your body towards the floor keeping the neck neutral.
4. Pause briefly at the bottom before reversing the movement and returning to the starting position.

Inverted Press

1. Begin in a downward dog position with your feet shoulder width or more apart and hips in the air. Hands should be roughly shoulder width or slightly more apart.
2. Tuck the elbows down from the shoulders and shoot them backward as you bend the elbows and lower your head toward the floor.
3. Pause and push through the hands, lifting the head away from the floor and shrugging at the top of the movement.

Floor Bow

This is actually one of my favorite tricep exercises for women because it's such a doozy.

1. Come into a plank position on your knees with your hands about 5 inches ahead of your face with your arms straight.
2. Bend the elbows until your forearms rest on the floor.
3. Press into your hands and straighten the elbows.

List Hold

1. Sit on the floor with your legs out straight and your hands outside your hips with the palms down.
2. Extend the arms, press into the floor, and tuck your tailbone under to lift your legs off the floor (knees bent is okay!).
3. Hold the position focusing on super straight arms.

Around The World Push Ups

1. Begin in full plank position with the arms wider, outside of the shoulders.
2. Perform a push up.
3. At the top of the position, move your right arm further out to the side and pivot your body a bit with it. Keeping your feet anchored.
4. Perform another push up.
5. Continue to move your body in a circle around the feet performing push ups with every new stance.

Make The Workout Harder

With bodyweight workouts, it can be tricky to continue to progress and get stronger. However, here's a few ideas:

• Use a band around your shoulders for the push ups
• Make your reps paused reps
• Control the lowering part of the push ups

Learn more about ways to increase intensity of workouts at home.

More At-Home Workouts For Busy Moms

If you're sick of piecing together workout plans, check out my 6 weeks to STRONG program that walks you through the exact process you need to start getting stronger at home.

Bodyweight Push Workouts FAQs