Decline Push-Up
Trains the Pecs.
- Equipment
- A box, a flat bench or an adjustable bench
- Mechanic
- Compound
- Force
- Push
- Level
- Beginner
How to do it
- Set your feet on a bench or box and your hands on the floor, a little wider than your shoulders.
- Walk your hands out until your body is in one line from heels to head.
- Brace your stomach and squeeze your glutes — the raised feet make a sagging hip more likely.
- Lower your chest toward the floor, keeping the elbows at about forty-five degrees.
- Stop when the chest is just above the floor.
- Press back up to straight arms.
Common mistakes
- Letting the hips sag. With the feet raised, the hips are the highest point and gravity works on them harder than in a flat push-up; holding the line is most of the extra difficulty.
- Setting the feet very high. A steep decline turns the movement toward a shoulder press against the floor, and past about knee height the chest is getting less rather than more.
- Letting the head hang. Keeping the neck in line with the spine is what stops it bracing against the descent.
- Assuming the raised feet build a separate upper chest. The angle shifts emphasis toward the fibres from the collarbone and toward the shoulders; it does not add a muscle.