Push-up: how to do it, and how many

How it should look

Hands under the shoulders, ribs down, one straight line from ear to ankle.

What it needs

Nothing. A floor, or a wall, or the edge of a kitchen counter.

With nothing at all

Hands on a counter or a wall. The higher the hands, the lighter it is, and there is no height that does not count.

The three faults that actually show up

Not an exhaustive list. These are the ones that turn up, in this order, and each is written as the fix rather than as the mistake.

The hips sag

Squeeze the glutes before the first rep and keep the ribs down. A press up is a moving plank; if the plank goes, the press up has already ended.

The head reaches the floor first

The chest touches down, not the chin. Pick a spot on the floor a hand ahead of you and look at it.

The elbows flare straight out

Keep them at roughly forty five degrees from the body. Straight out is where shoulders get sore.

Easier, and harder

The same movement, scaled. Take the easier version until it is easy, then take the harder one. Neither is a different exercise and neither is a lesser one.

Easier

Hands on a bench or counter. Higher is lighter.

Harder

Feet on a box, or pause a beat at the bottom.

Or swap it for

Hands on a bench or a counter. Feet on a box, once the floor is easy. A pause at the bottom, which is harder than adding height

What an MDRN plan starts you on

Straight out of the plan engine, not out of an article. This is the band before anything moves it: experience sets it, the goal then tilts it, and the block moves it a rung at a time across twelve weeks, so your own plan may read heavier or longer than this.

New to this

2 sets of 10 when it leads the session, 2 sets of 12 when it does not. Stop with 4 in the tank.

Coming back to it

3 sets of 8 when it leads the session, 2 sets of 10 when it does not. Stop with 3 in the tank.

Training already

3 sets of 8 when it leads the session, 3 sets of 10 when it does not. Leave 2 in reserve.

Years of it

4 sets of 5 when it leads the session, 3 sets of 8 when it does not. Leave 1 to 2 in reserve.

The longer version

• The six movements a week of training actually needsPush, pull, hinge, squat, carry, brace. Every useful strength programme is a rearrangement of these six, and you can do all of them in a front room with no equipment.