Incline Push-Up
Trains the Pecs.
- Equipment
- A box, a flat bench, an adjustable bench, or a barbell in a rack
- Mechanic
- Compound
- Force
- Push
- Level
- Beginner
How to do it
- Set your hands on a bench, box or bar at about hip height, a little wider than your shoulders.
- Walk your feet back until your body is in one line from heels to head.
- Brace your stomach and squeeze your glutes.
- Lower your chest toward the surface, keeping the elbows at about forty-five degrees from your body.
- Stop when the chest is just above your hands.
- Press back up to straight arms, finishing by pushing the shoulder blades forward around your ribs.
Common mistakes
- Letting the hips sag or pike. The body holds one line for the whole set, and the hips are the first thing to go once the chest tires.
- Setting the hands and never changing the height. The height is the load setting on this exercise — the lower the surface, the harder it is — and it is what to adjust rather than the repetition count.
- Flaring the elbows straight out to the sides. About forty-five degrees keeps the shoulder in a position it can press from; straight out is where the joint has least to offer.
- Treating it as a lesser push-up rather than a step toward one. Raising the hands is how a full push-up gets built, and lowering the surface over weeks is the progression.