How to do a Push Up​ - Full Training Program

A structured five-level progression from beginner to advanced. Each level builds the strength and control needed for the next — move up when you can complete every rep with solid form.

Jump to the program here → 

The Push-Up: Why It Matters and How to Get It Right

The push-up is one of the most effective bodyweight exercises you can do. It requires no equipment, scales from complete beginner to advanced athlete, and builds real, functional strength that transfers directly to sport. For martial artists, it's especially relevant — pushing, posting, and maintaining strong upper-body positions are fundamental to what you do on the mat.

What Muscles Do Push-Ups Work?

Push-ups are a compound exercise, meaning they work multiple muscle groups at once. The primary movers are your chest (pectorals), shoulders (anterior deltoids), and triceps. But what makes push-ups so valuable is everything else working to keep your body stable: your core, glutes, and even your quads are all firing to maintain a rigid plank position throughout the movement. A well-executed push-up is a full-body exercise, not just a chest exercise.

How to Do a Proper Push-Up

A good push-up starts and finishes in a strong plank position. Hands under shoulders, fingers spread, body in a straight line from heels to head. Lower yourself by bending your elbows to roughly 45 degrees from your torso — not flared straight out to the sides. Your chest should come to within 10-15cm (4-6inches or the height of your fist) of the floor, then you press back up to full arm extension. That's one rep. The most common faults are sagging hips, half-range reps, and flared elbows. If any of these sound familiar, dropping back a level in the program below will fix them faster than grinding out bad reps.

Below as part of the program you will find an explainer video with guidance on great push up technique.

How Many Push-Ups Should I Do a Day?

More isn't always better. What matters far more than daily volume is the quality of each rep and the consistency of your training over weeks and months. This program prescribes 3 sessions per week with rest days between — that's enough stimulus to drive real strength gains while giving your muscles and connective tissue time to recover and adapt. Doing hundreds of sloppy push-ups every day builds endurance in a bad movement pattern. Doing 15–30 good push-ups three times a week builds actual strength.

I Can't Do a Push-Up Yet — Where Do I Start?

If you can't do a single full push-up with good form, you're in the right place. That's exactly what this program is designed for. Level 1 starts with kneeling push-ups and planks — building the baseline strength and body awareness you need before progressing. Most people who "can't do push-ups" have never been given a proper progression. Follow the levels below, respect the criteria, and you'll get there.

Why We Include Back Work

Push-ups develop the muscles on the front of your upper body. To keep your shoulders healthy and your posture balanced, this program includes W-raises from Level 3 onwards. These target the muscles between and below your shoulder blades — the mid and lower traps and the rotator cuff — which are critical for shoulder stability and injury prevention. Strong pushing needs strong pulling to match.

How to Use This Program

Frequency: 2-3 sessions per week with at least one rest day between sessions. If push ups are already part of your other training schedule you can do this program once per week in addition.

How to progress: There's no set timeline. Stay at each level until you can hit the progression criteria with good form on two separate sessions. Rushing levels builds bad habits — own each one before moving on.

Depending on your current push up ability will determine where you start in the progression. If you currently cannot do at least 5 full push ups with great technique and shape then the best option is to start at level 1 and work on building your foundational strength.

Each level has two or three exercises. Perform them in order as a single session. Rest between sets as prescribed. Every rep should be controlled and deliberate — if your form breaks down, stop the set and rest, this program prioritises quality over quantity.

A structured five-level progression from beginner to advanced. Each level builds the strength and control needed for the next — move up when you can complete every rep with solid form.

Interval Timing app: To make your workouts easier, it might help to have an interval timing app. The Core Advantage timer is free to download and available on iOS at this link →

Proper Push up Technique

This video from Core Advantage High Performance coach Durham is a detailed explainer of how to do the different push up exercises across this program.

Level 1 — Foundation

Goals: Build baseline pushing strength and core stability from a kneeling position.

Workout

Start at 5 reps & 15 second planks in week one and add +1 rep and +5 seconds each session when you can complete all sets cleanly. Progress slower by increasing reps and time every second workout instead if needed

Exercise Instructions

NOTE: Be sure to watch the video above for technique tips and a visual example.

NOTE 2: Videoing your push up technique from side on or using a mirror can help you correct any technique adjustments you might need.

Kneeling Push-Ups

1. Start on your hands, with knees together and hands slightly outside shoulder width
2. Engage your core and glutes so your body forms a straight line from your knees to your head.
3. Lower your chest toward the floor by bending your elbows. Elbows should form a 45º angle with your body
4. Lower until your chest is 10-15cm from the floor, then push back up to start position.
5. Your body should move as a single unit — no sagging through the hips or belly and do not push your hips into the air.

Straight-Arm Plank

1. Place your hands directly under your shoulders with arms fully extended. Step your feet back so your body forms a straight line from heels to head.
2. Squeeze your glutes, brace your core, and push the floor away from you — think about keeping a long straight line from head to heel.
3. Don't let your hips sag toward the floor or pike up toward the ceiling.
4. Breathe steadily. If your hips start to drop, the set is over.

NOTE: Do not continue holding a plank through any sort of lower back or shoulder pain.

✅ Ready for Level 2 When:

• You can complete 3 × 10 kneeling push-ups with chest to 10-15cm from the floor on every rep
• You can hold 3 × 30-second straight-arm planks with a flat back and no hip sag
• Both achieved with good form across two separate sessions

Level 2 — Eccentric Control

Goal: Build strength through the full push-up range using slow, controlled lowering from your toes.

Workout

Exercise Instructions

Half-and-Half Push-Ups

1. Start in a full push-up position on your toes.
2. Lower yourself slowly (2–3 seconds) to the bottom position — chest 10-15cm from the floor.
3. At the bottom, place your knees down gently.
4. Press yourself back up from the kneeling position.
5. At the top, lift your knees and return to the full plank position on your toes.
6. Reset, brace, and begin the next rep.

The key is a slow steady lowering phase (2-4 seconds) and controlling the switch at the bottom. Don't rush or crash your knees into the floor — place them down with control then push up.

Kneeling Push-Ups — same as before.

Straight-Arm Plank — same as before.

✅ Ready for Level 3 When:

• You can complete 3 × 6 eccentric push-ups with a controlled 3-second lower on every rep
• Planks can be held for 3 × 45 seconds
• Both achieved with good form across two separate sessions

Level 3 — Transition

Goal: Develop full push-up capacity with micro-sets of 1-2 reps done immediately before each half-half push up set and add some back strengthening with W-Raises.

Workout

Exercise Instructions

W-Raise Isometric Hold

1. Lie face down on the floor with your forehead resting on the ground.
2. Bend your elbows to roughly 90 degrees and position your arms so they form a "W" shape — upper arms at about 45 degrees from your torso, forearms angled upward.
3. Squeeze your shoulder blades together and lift your arms, hands, and elbows off the floor by a few centimetres. You might also lift your forehead 1cm off the ground too
4. Hold this position. You should feel the muscles between your shoulder blades working. The movement is small — don't arch your lower back or shrug your shoulders up toward your ears.
5. Hold and breathe steadily throughout the hold.

The first exercise in this video explains the W Raise technique:

✅ Ready for Level 4 When:

• You can complete 2 reps of full push-ups on each set
• Planks are maintained at 2 × 45+ seconds
• Both achieved with good form across two separate sessions

Level 4 — Full Push-Ups

Goal: Push Challenge your push-up capacity with 2 sets of max rep sets, introduce dynamic core stability through shoulder-tap planks.

Workout

Perform two max-effort set of full push-ups with good form — stop the moment your form breaks. Then complete two back-off sets of half-and-half push-ups to accumulate more volume.

Exercise Instructions

Full Push-Ups (see video instructions up top)

1. Hands just outside shoulder width, body in a straight line from heels to head.
2. Lower your chest to 10-15cm rom the floor with elbows at roughly 45 degrees.
3. Press back up to full arm extension. That's one rep.
4. Maintain your core brace throughout — no sagging, no worming, no half reps.
5. The set ends when you can't maintain form. Don't grind out ugly reps.

Half-and-Half Push-Ups — same as Level 3. These are your back-off sets to build more volume after the max set.

Shoulder-Tap Planks

1. Start in a straight-arm plank position for these, position your feet slightly wider than hip-width for stability.
2. Without shifting your hips or rotating your torso, lift your right hand off the ground and tap your left shoulder.
3. Return your hand to the floor, then repeat on the other side.
4. The goal is to keep your body still — imagine you're balancing a glass of water on your lower back and just move the arms.
5. If your hips are rocking side to side, widen your feet or slow down.

✅ Ready for Level 5 When:

• You can complete 12+ consecutive full push-ups with good form (full range, no sagging, no worming)
• Shoulder-tap planks completed at 3 × 45 seconds with minimal hip movement
• Both achieved across two separate sessions

Level 5 — Advanced

Goal: Continue building push up strength and endurance and advanced core stability through cluster sets and multi-position planks.

Workout

When building push-up strength, doing maximum rep sets of push-ups is a great way to build strength allows you to go from 2-3 reps through to 10-15 reps . However, going from 10 reps to 20+ reps of continuous push-ups, maximum rep sets are no longer the best way to build strength, we need to change strategies.

Instead, lots of submaximal sets, with short rest is a better strategy. For this, we use clusters. A cluster is lots of short sets, done back to back with shorter rest periods to build strength and endurance without the strain of training to your maximum.

Exercise Instructions

Push-Up Clusters

1. Perform 4 push-ups with good form.
2. Rest for 20 seconds - thats 1 round
3. Complete 6 rounds total (24 total push ups).

The brief rest means that you should be recovering "just enough" between each round. Progress by adding +1 rep to your cluster rounds every 1-2 sessions

Ongoing Progression

By level 5 you should now be a strong and able to smash out anywhere from 10-25 consecutive push up! Once you're here, progress by:

• Increasing cluster reps
• Adding rounds (progressively increment from 6 to 10 cluster sets)
• Reducing the intra-set rest in clusters (e.g., 15-second instead of 20)
• Adding a maximum push up test set every 2-3weeks
• Increasing plank hold times or add some side planks along with the shoulder tap planks
• Adding push-up variations: diamond push-ups, wide push-ups, or tempo push-ups (3 seconds down, 1 second pause, 1 second up)
  
  • You can even go through the full 5 level progression for each exercise separately!