Pike Push-Up
Trains the Shoulders.
- Equipment
- Bodyweight
- Mechanic
- Compound
- Force
- Push
- Level
- Intermediate
How to do it
- Start in a push-up position with your hands a little wider than your shoulders.
- Walk your feet in toward your hands and lift your hips high, so your body makes an upside-down V with your head between your arms.
- Keep your legs as straight as is comfortable, with most of your weight over your hands.
- Bend the elbows and lower the top of your head toward the floor a little in front of your hands.
- Stop with your head just above the floor, then press back up to straight arms.
- Keep the hips high for the whole set, so the press travels up and back along the line of your arms.
Common mistakes
- Letting the hips drop as you lower. The body flattens toward a push-up and the chest takes the load; hips high is what makes this a press overhead rather than in front.
- Lowering the head straight down between the hands. The head travels forward of them, so head and hands make a triangle; straight down puts the elbows behind you and the neck in the way.
- Flaring the elbows straight out to the sides. Angling them slightly back keeps the press in a line the shoulder can drive through.
- Treating it as the finished article. It is the step on the floor toward a handstand push-up, and once the floor version stops being hard, raising the feet onto a box puts more of your weight over your hands.