4 Push-Up Variations for Upper Body Strength

I consider myself a bench press guy. I’m built for it. I’ve got T-Rex arms and have always been better at pressing than pulling. And while the bench press is one of my favorite exercises, I’d be lying if I said the simple push-up wasn’t a fantastic exercise for building upper body strength and muscle.

And I was reminded while talking with fellow CSP coach Miguel Aragoncillo the other day that there are so many ways to progress and regress the push-up, and not all of them are created equal. The right push-up variation for you might not be best for someone else. It all depends on your goals and current strength levels.

We use a TON of push-up variations with our baseball players at CSP because they’re much more shoulder-friendly than bench press variations. But don’t be fooled – you can build a chiseled chest, diesel delts and tremendous triceps (talk about awesome alliteration!) without a barbell. You’ve just gotta pick the right push-up variation.

HOW TO MAKE PUSH-UPS HARDER

There are a couple different ways to make push-ups harder:

• Add weight
• Add volume (sets and/or reps)
• Increase range of motion (by elevating your feet or altering your hand spacing)
• Decrease the tempo (go up and/or down slower)
• Increase full body tension

The first four options are pretty obvious, but the fifth one is probably my favorite. And while this sometimes breaks the right link/wrong link test that I’ve talked about before (because the target muscles don’t always fatigue first), I’m of the belief that push-ups are best served to develop upper body coordination and that targeted chest, shoulders or triceps training is best done with other exercises.

I’m also not a huge fan of adding extra range of motion or lots of additional weight to push-ups, simply because too many people experience shoulder discomfort or lose their core position with these variations. I much prefer to increase tension before increasing load or range of motion.

Here are four push-up variations that will test your upper body strength. Give them a try:

1. PUSH-UP WITH HAND SWITCHES

Crawling and hand-walking are all the rage lately, and with good reason – they require loads of core strength and full-body stability. So naturally, adding a hand-walking pattern to a push-up will increase the difficulty.

Use a weight plate or a small step at first, and gradually progress to a taller object. Keep your feet in one spot and swivel on your toes, only moving your hands throughout the exercise. Just like any other push-up, squeeze your glutes and abs, make a double chin and keep your hips as still as possible. It’s tempting to let your hips sway side-to-side, but clenching your butt cheeks will engage your glutes to enhance hip stability.

Start with 2-3 sets of 4-5 reps per side. When that’s easy, add more reps per side or add another plate for multiple switches per direction.

2. INCHWORM WITH PUSH-UP AND ELBOW TOUCHES

This variation kicks up the hand-walking an extra notch and adds in another aspect of instability with elbow touches. These will torch your shoulders and your abs if you do them right.

From a standing position, walk your hands out until you’re in a push-up position. Then, do your push-up as normal, but once you press up to the top, touch your hand to the inside of the opposite elbow, repeat on the other side and walk your hands back to a standing position. This is easier said than done, especially if you don’t let your hips rock side to side.

Try doing this for distance instead of reps. Start of with sets of 10 yards and gradually increase the distance each session.

3. SLIDEBOARD PUSH-UP VS. BAND

You wanna talk about tension? Try this variation: put your hands on a slideboard (or ValSlides, or paper plates on a tile floor) and wrap a band around your wrists. As you lower yourself down, try to spread your hands outward to prevent the band from pushing your hands toward each other. Get ready for a monster chest pump that rivals anything you could do with a barbell or dumbbells.

Maybe the best thing about this exercise is that people who have shoulder pain with regular push-ups can almost always do this variation without pain. That’s because by trying to spread the floor with your hands, you increase tension and therefore increase shoulder stability, allowing the shoulder blades to glide more naturally along the ribcage as you bring yourself up and down.

Use a slow tempo with these – a 4-1-1 works well. That means lower yourself down over the course of 4 seconds, pause 1 second at the bottom and drive up quickly.

4. SLIDEBOARD BODYSAW PUSH-UP

If the first three exercises were a breeze for you, get ready to meet your match. The slideboard bodysaw push-up is a ridiculous stability challenge from head to toe.

The core requirements here are about as tough as it gets. Make sure to squeeze your butt and turn your belt buckle toward your chin to prevent your hips from sagging. Dig your toes into the ground and lower yourself down slowly to make sure your whole body moves as one unit.

One thing to note – be careful if you have any kind of elbow pain. These push-ups put a lot of stress on the elbows and can be problematic for some. If these are uncomfortable, stick with two-handed push-ups until you get yourself healthy.

PUSH-UP PARTY

Before you go throwing plates on your back or elevating your feet on a 24-inch box, give these push-up variations a try. You get increased difficulty without the usual problems associated with loaded or increased-ROM push-ups.