We explain how to do more push-ups
Understand how to do do more push-ups
If you’re looking to increase the push-up repetitions you can do, it’s all about improving muscle strength. Train power and capacity (endurance) and technique. There are several strategies you can use to gradually build up your push-up capacity. Besides using the Push-Up Legends app, the best push-up app for iPhone, here are some effective steps to help you how to do more push-ups.
How to do more push-ups
1. Perfect Your Form
Before focusing on increasing your reps, make sure your push-up form is correct. Poor form can limit your progress and may lead to injury.
- Hand Placement: Place your hands slightly wider than shoulder-width apart, with fingers spread to distribute the load.
- Body Alignment: Keep your body in a straight line from head to heels (avoid sagging your hips or arching your lower back). Tighten your core, glutes, and quads to maintain stability.
- Elbow Angle: As you lower yourself, keep your elbows at a 45-degree angle to your body. Elbows flaring out at a 90-degree angle puts unnecessary strain on your shoulders.
- Controlled Movement: Lower yourself slowly and push up explosively, focusing on full-range motion (chest nearly touching the ground, arms fully extended at the top).
2. Start with Proper Progression
If you can’t do many push-up reps yet, don’t worry we will guide you. Start with a progression that works for your current strength level.
- Knee Push-up: Start by doing a push-up workout on your knees to build upper body strength while maintaining good form.
- Incline Push-up: Do push-ups with your hands elevated on a bench or sturdy surface. This reduces the amount of body weight you need to lift and helps build strength.
- Negative Push-up: Start in the top push-up position and slowly lower yourself to the ground (about 3-5 seconds). Then, return to the starting position by getting back up, using your knees if needed. This eccentric movement helps build strength.
3. Gradual Progression (Increase Reps Over Time)
To increase the number of push-up reps you can do, practice regularly and gradually increase the volume. Here’s how:
- Test Your Max: Do a set of push-up reps until failure (i.e., when you can’t complete another rep with good form). This is your baseline.
- Increase by 1-2 Reps: After testing your max, try to do just one or two more push-ups each time you train. For example, if you can do 10 push-ups, aim for 11 or 12 on your next session.
- Multiple Sets: Instead of trying to do all your push-ups in one set, break them into multiple sets. For example, if you can do 10 push-ups, try doing 5 sets of 5, gradually increasing the number of reps per set as you progress.
4. Add Variations to Your Routine
Incorporate different push-up variations to target different muscle groups and improve overall strength.
- Wide-Grip Push-up: This variation targets the chest more and helps build upper body strength.
- Diamond Push-up: Place your hands closer together under your chest to emphasize the triceps and inner chest.
- Decline Push-up: Elevate your feet on a bench or platform to work the upper chest and shoulders more.
- Plyometric Push-up: Push up explosively so your hands leave the ground. This variation helps improve power and endurance.
- Clapping Push-up: A more advanced version of plyo push-ups, where you clap your hands in mid-air. This variation increases upper body strength and explosiveness.
5. Work on Your Upper Body Strength
Push-ups require strength in your chest, triceps, shoulders, and core. To improve push-up performance, supplement push-up training with exercises that build strength in these areas:
- Chest: Bench press, chest flys, dumbbell presses, and incline press.
- Triceps: Tricep dips, tricep extensions, skull crushers, and close-grip bench press.
- Shoulders: Shoulder presses, lateral raises, front raises, and overhead dumbbell presses.
- Core: Planks, Russian twists, leg raises, and bicycle crunches.
By strengthening these muscles, you will improve your push-up performance and reduce fatigue more quickly. Read more in our blog post what muscles do push-ups work.
6. Train Regularly
Consistency is key. Training push-ups a few times a week will help improve your strength and endurance. You can start with a manageable number of sets and gradually increase volume over time.
- Frequency: Aim for 2-3 push-up sessions per week, allowing at least a 48 hours (recommended 72 hours for supercompensation window) rest between sessions to recover and build strength.
- Progressive Overload: Gradually increase the number of sets and reps over time. For example, if you start with 3 sets of 10, aim to increase to 4 sets, or add 2 more reps per set over time.
7. How To Do More Push-Ups with Push-Up Legends
- Push-Up Legends app: To stay on track and improve systematically, you can use a push-up schedule. We included multiple training schedules that will help you to gain strength and will result in more push-ups per workout. Our push-up app will help you to gradually increase your push-up volume.
- Grease the Groove: This technique involves doing multiple sets of push-up reps throughout the day at sub-maximal effort (e.g., doing 5-10 reps at a time). Over time, this builds endurance without exhausting your muscles.
- Daily challenges: Part of the push-up legends app to motivate you to do a certain amount of push-ups per time frame, for instance 100 a during the day or 50 before lunch time.
8. Focus on Rest and Recovery
Recovery is as important as training. Push-ups are a demanding exercise, and your muscles need time to repair and grow stronger. Make sure you’re getting:
- Adequate Sleep: Aim for 7-9 hours of sleep per night to support muscle recovery.
- Rest Days: Allow at least 48 hours rest. But we recommend 72 hours (supercompensation time window) of rest between push-up sessions, especially if you’re working to failure. Overtraining can hinder progress and lead to injury.
Workout recovery is embedded in the Push-Up Legends push-up app, it will indicate the best time window (supercompensation) for your next push-up session.
9. Stay Consistent and Patient
It’s normal for progress to take time, so be patient. Consistency, proper technique, and gradual progression are the keys to improving your push-up numbers. Tracking your progress will also keep you motivated and give you a clear idea of how much you’re improving. So you know how to do more push-ups.
How to do more push-ups Sample Push-Up Progression Plan:
Here’s an example of how you can structure your push-up training over a few weeks starting as a beginner:
- Week 1: 5 sets and do 5-10 reps, focusing on form and technique.
- Week 2: 5 sets and do in total 8-15 reps.
- Week 3: 5 sets and do in total 12-20 reps.
- Week 4: 5 sets of 15-20 reps, gradually increasing reps each week.
- Week 5 and Beyond: Keep increasing your reps gradually (aim for 5 sets and 2 to 3 reps in total extra per workout).
Do your push-up workout every 72 hours. You can try 48 hours but over time this rest period will be to short. You may overtrain (negative training) which can result in fatigue and even injury. Read more in our blog how to do more push-ups.
Conclusion ”How to do more push-ups”:
Improving your push-up performance is a matter of progressively building strength and endurance in your upper body, core, and stabilizing muscles. Focus on perfecting your form, gradually increasing your reps, adding variations, and complementing push-ups with strength training exercises. With consistency and dedication, you’ll be able to increase your push-up count over time!
Download the Push-Up Legends app and start you push-up workout today! The best push-up app for iPhone.