Incline Push Up

How to Perform the Incline Push Up

1. Place your hands on a bench, step, or elevated surface slightly wider than shoulder-width apart with your fingers pointing forward.
2. Step your feet back until your body forms a straight line from your head to your heels, arms fully extended.
3. Engage your core and glutes to maintain a rigid body position throughout the movement.
4. Lower your chest toward the bench by bending your elbows, keeping them at approximately a 45-degree angle from your body.
5. Continue lowering until your chest lightly touches the edge of the bench or comes within an inch of it.
6. Push through your palms to press your body back up to the starting position, fully extending your arms.
7. Maintain the straight body line throughout — do not let your hips sag or pike upward.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Muscles Worked

Benefits

• ✓Provides a scalable entry point to push-up training for beginners.
• ✓Builds chest, shoulder, and triceps strength with no equipment needed beyond an elevated surface.
• ✓Can be used as a progression toward standard push-ups or as a high-rep metabolic finisher.

Pro Tips

• ●As you get stronger, progressively lower the surface height to increase difficulty until you can perform standard push-ups.
• ●The higher the surface, the easier the exercise. Use a wall for the easiest variation, moving to a counter, bench, then the floor.
• ●This is also a great high-rep finishing exercise for advanced lifters after heavy pressing work.

Variations

Recommended Sets & Reps