7 Ways to Make Push-ups Harder
Are push-ups getting too easy for you? Don’t worry. I’ve got seven ways to make push-ups harder so you can keep on grinding with this classic yet very effective upper-body calisthenics exercise!
What’s a push-up
We all know this exercise we’ve probably learned in gym class. Classic push-ups are excellent upper-body bodyweight exercises targeting our chest, shoulders, and triceps. It’s a bodyweight classic for a reason.
Because of the simplicity and effectiveness of the exercise, you can easily develop good upper-body strength with this exercise alone.
However, it’s still quite challenging, especially for beginners, because you’ll need to push around 65% of your body weight in the horizontal plane.
For complete beginners, read here: How to Do Push-up: Beginner’s Guide
How to do push-ups
Let’s take a refresher course on how to perform a perfect floor push-up.
- Begin in a high plank position. Hands shoulder-width apart and just below your shoulders. Legs straight and squeezed together. Shoulders depressed. Straight bodyline.
- Slowly lower down your body by bending at the elbows while keeping the whole body tight. Let your shoulder blades naturally move closer to each other.
- Stop until your chest slightly touches the floor. Brief paused here.
- Contract your chest and triceps to push your body back into the starting position while keeping your body straight.
Are you performing them correctly for 20 reps easily? If so, then it’s time to take it up a notch!
Why Should You Make Push-ups Harder?
If you want to keep on improving, then you need to make things more challenging. It’s as simple as that.
Our bodies are smart enough to adapt to the exercise we consistently do. If we’re doing the same exercise with the same protocols, same reps, and same technique, it will no longer change. So, your goals of getting stronger and more muscular will come to a halt. This is when we need to change how we do this calisthenics fundamental.
General vs. Specific Goals
Before we dive further into the ways to challenge your body with push-ups, we need to identify your WHY for push-ups.
If you’re going to use push-ups in your routine, knowing what you want to achieve will help you know which challenging push-up variation is for you. You don’t want to be doing push-ups but not reaching your goals.
We will divide them into two types of goals: general and specific.
General goals cover general improvements that translate to multiple factors. These are usually strength and muscle-building goals. However, take note that special push-up variations also cater to these objectives, but in a more specific manner.
Specific goals target specific muscle groups or calisthenics skills. For example, a regular push-up can be adjusted to put heavier emphasis on the chest, triceps, or shoulders. You can also change the body position to help you learn the planche or a handstand push-up. We’ll cover more of this later in the article.
However, exercises can still fit into general and specific goals depending on how you intend to use the exercise in your workout. For example, pike push-ups, when used heavily, can be specific for handstand push-ups but can also be used for general overhead pushing strength.
We divided these push-up variations into categories to stress the importance of INTENT of why you would want to use the specific push-up for your workout.
Problem with Adding Reps
For starters, the most obvious way to make push-ups more challenging is to continue adding more reps. Going 100 and beyond is a sure way to keep you challenged for a long time.
However, you need to realize that adding more volume will put more emphasis on muscular endurance. And if you’re pushing to your maximum effort (going near failure), then you can still surely build muscle. So don’t rule it out immediately if you just want to get in more reps.
The problem with this method is that you won’t build up your strength, as research demonstrates that higher volume and relatively lower-intensity exercises do. At the same time, it just takes too much of your time, especially when you’re advanced.
7 Ways to make push-ups harder
For general push-up
If you enjoy regular push-ups or just want to stick to them for your horizontal pushing by choice, then you can make small adjustments to your technique to elicit growth.
Here are some options.
Tempo
The first step to making your push-ups harder is to do them at a slower tempo. There’s no need to go overboard with this method. If you’re performing push-ups with a 4-second descent, a second pause at the bottom, and then another 4 seconds pushing back up, then you’re good to go ahead with another method.
The purpose of a slower tempo is added time under tension, which is great for additional hypertrophy benefits.
Change hand placement
By moving your hands in different positions, we can already make the push-up variations much more difficult.
You have many options for this.
Hand width - Placing your hands closer or farther apart can shift the difficulty of the exercise, especially for narrow grip push-ups, as ECG analysis on push-ups' hand-width placement has shown additional muscle activation on the chest and triceps.
Unilateral - If two-arm push-ups are too easy for you, try doing it with just one. Of course, you don’t have to jump to the full single-arm push-ups right out of the
Changing elevation - Going into a decline by elevating your feet shifts more weight onto your arms, making the regular push-up harder. An interesting study shows that elevating the feet increases the equivalent body weight you’re pushing.
Add weights
This is my favorite way to get stronger in push-ups. It’s not full-on bodyweight anymore, but it will surely unlock limitless potential for strength and muscle growth. Adding weights is a straightforward approach to progressing with any bodyweight exercise. This is one of the best options for further muscle gain in calisthenics.
There are a few options for doing this with push-ups. ‘
Option 1 - A weighted belt just above your mid-section is your safest option as it places the weight safely with equal distribution for push-ups. You just have to elevate your body so there’s enough clearance between the weight and the floor.
Option 2 - Weighted vests are a great option for push-ups. You can adjust it according to your skill by removing packets from the vest. Just don’t forget to wash and clean the vest occasionally to avoid odor build-up.
Option 3 - My least recommended option is having someone hold a weight plate on your shoulders. It can only be safely performed with a partner holding the plate.
Option 4 - An alternative if you don’t have any equipment is to get a backpack and fill it with water bottles or books. It’s an excellent at-home workout that can do the job. Don’t forget to weigh or record the weight you’re using every session!
Resistance Bands
Banded push-ups will surely challenge you, especially at the upper half of the range of motion. Calatayud et al. found similar strength gains between trained athletes who did bench press and band push-ups. It’s one of the best tools to level up your upper body strength at home.
For your resistance bands and other calisthenics equipment needs, check them out at RubberBanditz
Gymnastics rings
Another personal favorite of mine is the push-up on gymnastics rings. The unstable rings require you to engage your muscles further, promoting additional strength and muscle growth. There are also many other upper body exercises you can do on rings, which makes them very versatile for your calisthenics goals. Rings are one of the best investments.
Before using doing full-ring push-ups, make sure to start with an incline ring push-up first. You might be surprised by the added difficulty it does on push-ups.
Range of motion
In relation to gymnastics rings, you can also use them to increase the range of motion with your push-ups. Going deeper in the push-ups adds stretch to your chest and shoulders, which increases the difficulty of the exercise.
You don’t need rings to do this. Parallettes can also help you get that deficit for your push-ups.
For specific goals
Specificity is key if you want to achieve certain goals outside the general pushing strength.
Take note that these methods will still translate to general strength but are usually used for mastering certain skills.
Changing body position
Once you have mastered the push-ups, consider emphasizing certain muscle groups. Here are options you can choose from to increase the difficulty of the exercise.
Leaning forward - This might seem like a small change. But every degree you shift forward will place more tension on your front delts, wrists, biceps, chest, everything. This exercise is usually used for planche training, but it can also serve your general strength goals.
Tuck planche position - Speaking of planche; you can also perform tuck planche push-ups. This advanced variation is no joke. If your goal is planche, then you might want to consider using this as long as you’ve already mastered the static tuck planche hold.
Piking hips - If you want strong, capable shoulders using calisthenics, then pike push-ups are a must. Doing so requires you to pike at the hips and to lean much weight unto your hands. Practicing this is great for shoulder strength and usually turns into a full handstand push-up down the line.
Moving at the elbows - This variation targets more of your triceps. The exercise has a similar push-up position in general, but instead of keeping the forearms vertical, the forearms drop down to the floor. It’s a good exercise for additional hypertrophy after your compound exercises.
Adding Explosiveness
If you’re looking into building power and explosiveness, explosive push-ups or jumping push-ups should be in your arsenal. This variation focuses on how to generate force as fast as possible.
Just be mindful of how you train for explosive push-ups. These should be at the first part of your training, and the technique should be sound.
You might have seen triple-clap push-ups, but when you look closely at them, you’ll notice that they're pushing their hips upward to generate momentum. This isn’t really wrong if your goal is just to perform a triple-clap push-up for Tiktok.
For explosive push-ups, focus on a rigid, stable bodyline while relying solely on your upper body to push you upward explosively. This way, you just get to work on that power.
Final Thoughts
There are many ways to modify push-ups to suit your skill level and needs. Choosing the appropriate variation to implement into your workout will help you progress a lot faster so you won’t get frustrated and maintain a level of consistency and enjoyment in your journey.
Don’t stop challenging yourself so you can continue on improving.
I hope this short article helps you out! :)