Doing push ups every day can be beneficial if you’re looking for an exercise routine to follow. You will likely observe the push up benefits in your upper body if you do the exercise regularly. And if you haven’t heard of push ups, you might be living under a rock. However, let's dive into this article to know the benefits of push ups.

What Are Push Ups?

Push ups are an exercise one does while lying on the ground or any flat surface while pushing the body against gravity.

How To Do Push Ups: A 6-Step Guide To Do Push Ups For Beginners

If you do not know how to do push ups, you might find it a bit tricky at first. To perform a push up, here are the six steps to follow:

  • Step 1: Lie on the ground while facing the floor. Place your arms a little wider than your shoulders.  
  • Step 2: Balance your legs on your toes with your feet joined. Make sure that you have a straight body posture. 
  • Step 3: Now, lift your body to begin the exercise.
  • Step 4: Next, you go down by bending the elbows. However, do not lie on the ground completely. Inhale while going down and exhale while coming up.  
  • Step 5: Make sure to bend your elbows while making a 90-degree angle.
  • Step 6: Make the repetitions of 20-15-10 in the set of three.

10 Health Benefits Of Doing Push Ups Daily 

There is a misconception that pushups benefit only your upper arms and chest. However, that's not true. When done correctly, push ups benefits muscles all over the body. Moreover, you donot need to go to the gym or require any equipment to do push ups exercise.

1. Push ups enhance your cardiovascular health

Push ups benefit your cardiovascular health while pumping enough blood and oxygen throughout your body. It keeps your heart strong and lowers the risk of cardiovascular problems—including heart attack and heart failure. The benefits of push ups also include the reduction of stored body fat.

2. Improves the body posture 

Push ups engage your back muscles and help you build a healthier posture with a strong and stable core. If the push ups are executed properly, the muscles accountable for supporting your posture are toughened. Push up benefits by making you more aware of your muscles, developing balance in the body, and improving posture.

3. Less chance of lower back injuries 

There are a lot of injuries associated with your lower back. Push ups effect your entire torso to stabilize your body movements. This helps you reduce your lower back pressure which ultimately prevents and lowers the risk of back injuries.

4. Improves your joints and bones

The benefits of push ups are reflected in the muscles and the bones and joints of the various body parts. Push ups are basically a weight-bearing exercise that helps to build bone density, both for men and women.

3 Benefits Of Push Ups For Women

1. Reduction of weight

The benefits of push ups include increasing muscle mass, supporting faster metabolism, and burning calories. But, how many calories are you burning via push ups purely depends on factors such as gender, age, height, and weight. In general, push ups help you to burn a minimum of seven calories each minute.

2. Full body workout

Push ups benefit almost every muscle of the body - be it your biceps, core muscles, triceps, anterior deltoids or lower body muscle groups. Moreover, a proper push up benefits your core, hip, and leg muscles.

3. Reduce chances of shoulder injuries

Many females face various issues with their shoulders. A standard push up effects your shoulder muscles and strengthens them for dynamic movements. This reduces the likelihood of shoulder injuries.

3 Benefits Of Push Ups For Males

1. Improves sexual health

With age, multiple hormones of a human being begin to change. For men, it is the reduction of testosterone. Research has shown that a standard push up increases the count of testosterone in the body.

2. Strengthens the entire body

Research suggests that a push up is the most traditional strength training or cardiovascular workout where you can add multiple variations to improve the exercise movement. The benefits of push ups include strengthening every muscle, bone, and joint of the body, thereby supporting strength and size development.

3. Builds body muscles

There are a number of benefits of push ups, as it includes the usage of primary and stabilizing muscles. The more you push up, the more is the production and release of the human growth hormone. This improves the growth of muscles and makes them stronger. Apart from this, push ups benefit stronger and denser bones and reduce the chance of osteoporosis.

Push ups Target Muscles: What Muscles Do Push ups Work?

Push ups are often referred to as chest exercises. However, it is actually a compound bodyweight exercise that targets multiple muscles of the body.

The upper body muscles that are affected by doing push ups are:

  • Chest, including pectoralis major and minor
  • Shoulders, including deltoid major and minor
  • Back, including latissimus dorsi, rhomboids, and trapeze 
  • Arms, including biceps and triceps

Push ups also affect other muscles, which include:

  • Lower back  
  • Core 
  • Gluteus maximus and medius, i.e. the hip muscles
  • Legs, including hamstrings, quadriceps, calf, and shin 

Do push ups increase height?

Pushups benefit not only your muscles, but also help you grow taller. Push ups effects the entire body. In the fundamental push up posture, the spine is free of the body's weight, the belly, back, and legs are fully contracted and stretched, and the arms move up and down continually.  All of these continuous motions influence cartilage formation, encourage and stimulate musculoskeletal activities, and increase height.

Can push ups reduce belly fat?

Push up effects your muscular growth. It's a workout in which you utilise your own body as resistance. Push ups benefit in the loss of weight from the chest, triceps, shoulder, and core muscles. You gradually acquire muscular mass that is stronger and more efficient.

Push ups can be performed in two ways: high intensity and moderate intensity. As a novice, start with modest intensity and gradually increase to high intensity. It's best to challenge yourself once you've mastered push ups. Remember that bad posture can harm your body and slow down the fat-burning process.

How many calories do push ups burn?

In general, the benefits of push ups every day include burning about seven calories per minute. However, the number of calories burned depends on:

  • Weight: People with more muscles burn more calories 
  • Age: Muscle mass is less in older people, which slows the calorie-burning process
  • Gender: Men have less fat and more muscle, so they lose more calories
  • Intensity: Doing more push ups and higher intensity push ups helps you burn more calories 

Do push ups increase biceps?

While push ups and other triceps workouts might help your biceps, curling exercises of all kinds should be included in your regimen if you want to target them particularly. Close and wide grip barbell curls, alternating dumbbell curls, cable rope hammer curls, single-arm cable curls, and incline dumbbell curls are examples of free weight and cable machine workouts.



Getting the correct push ups form: Know the right way to do push ups

Even the hardest of exercises become (okay not, easy-peasy lemon-squeezy) but definitely easier to get a hang of if you have and maintain the proper form.

Great push up form starts with a rigid plank. Your arms should be fully extended, with your hands, elbows, and shoulders all in line, and your feet should be no more than 12 inches apart, the closer together, the more difficult the push up, because it requires more core activation for stability.


Your spine should be neutral so that your body forms a straight line from your feet to the crown of your head. Make sure you engage your core and thighs to keep your hips flat and level. To protect your shoulders, lower your chest just past the level of your bent elbow so that your upper arms are parallel to the floor. 



The Different Types Of Push Ups

Now that you’ve perfected your form, push-ups are an excellent way to warm up at the crag, and they’re great when mixed into workouts for general conditioning. Plus, there are endless ways to modify them for your own specific needs.


So here’s a list of the classics and a number of different types of push-ups to keep it fun and fit. Check it out!


Regular Push-Up

Also known as strict or military push-up,  it is a staple upper-body exercise that you can do anywhere, you just need your body weight. 


How To Do Regular push up?

Consider the push-up a dynamic version of a high plank: Starting in a high plank position, you’ll place your hands shoulder-width apart. Breathe in as you bend your elbows, keep them tracking back alongside your body. And lower your chest to slightly below the level of your bent elbow, and then breathe out as you push back up to the starting position for one repetition.



Wide Hands Push-Up

Wide pushups are a simple yet effective way to build your upper body and core strength. If you’ve mastered regular pushups and want to target your muscles a little differently, wide pushups are a good option.


How To Do wide hands push up?

As the name suggests, you do this push-up with your hands farther out to each side, roughly 2.5 to three feet apart (the farther apart, the more difficult). Keep your elbows tracking back throughout the movement.


Triangle (Diamond) Push Up

You know what? Diamonds are everyone’s best friend. Diamond pushups are primarily a triceps strengthener and they’re harder than other triceps and regular pushups.


How To Do Triangle push up?

Assume a high plank position, hands on the floor underneath your chest and feet in line with your hips. Bring your thumbs and forefingers together almost directly under your chest to form a diamond or triangle shape. Squeeze your thighs and glutes for stability. Lower your chest toward the ground, ensuring your elbows point back towards your feet. Fun to do, including the benefits of push-ups every day!!



Spiderman Push Up

Almost all multi-joint, bodyweight exercises like the spiderman pushup are considered effective because they require your body to move through a full range of motion while having to control, stabilize, and "link" different muscle groups in a controlled, coordinated manner.


How To Do spiderman push up?

Assume a standard push-up position. As you lower yourself toward the ground, simultaneously bring one knee out to the side and up to touch your elbow, with your leg parallel to the ground. Your knee should touch your elbow at the lowest point of the push-up.



Cross Body Push Up

The cross-body pushup forces your abdominal muscles especially your obliques to work together with your hips to rotate your body.


How To Do Cross body push up?

Assume a standard push-up position. As you lower yourself to the ground, simultaneously pick up one leg and cross it beneath your ground, simultaneously pick up one leg and cross it beneath your body as you rotate your hip towards the ground. Repeat this in a set of 15 and strengthen your hips.



Staggered Hands Push Up

With the staggered hands push-up, your muscles align asymmetrically to the body and this requires more core activation for stability and it may affect your body in the best way possible.


How To Do Staggered Hands push ups?

Start with the standard position. Place one of your hands forward and the other one backwards so they are a bit offset making sure that the distance between them is 6 to 12 inches. Bend your elbows to lower your chest until it is slightly below the level of your bent elbow, and then extend your elbows to push back up to the starting position. Make sure to keep your elbows tight and to change your hands’ positions after adequate intervals.



Sphinx Push Up

As amazing as it sounds, this push-up strengthens the upper body and core, with more focus on the triceps.


How To Do Sphinx push up?

Start in a plank position, with your forearms flat on the ground, shoulder-width apart and parallel. push-up with your triceps to lift your elbows off the ground; continue until your arms are fully extended, then lower your elbows until just above the ground (don’t weigh your forearms again) for one repetition.



One Arm Push Up

Take the difficulty to the next level with this type of push-up. Just what the name suggests this push requires just one of your hands, doubling the weight on a single arm and further activating the core for stability.

How To Do One arm push up?

Get into a pushup position with one hand on the surface and spread your feet wide apart. Tense your entire body and hold your free hand tight against your lower back. Lower your body slowly until your chest nearly touches, then explode up to the starting position. That’s one rep. Repeat and change hands after a bit.

Do this and you’ll surely see the benefits of push-ups through significant results. 


Archer Push Up

This one is also great since it Applies a higher percentage of body weight to a single-arm, while the opposite arm assists.


How To Do Archer push up?

Assume a push-up position, with wide hands angled outward at about 45 degrees. Lower yourself at an angle to one side so that you bring your shoulder down to your hand on the same side, while the other arm stretches to become fully extended. Repeat to the other side.


Disadvantages Of Push ups: Are There Risks Of Doing Push ups?

Though there are many benefits of doing push ups, they might increase the chances of specific injuries:-

  • People who repeat the exercise daily will notice a fitness plateau. 
  • Certain push up variants leads to lower back pain and discomfort.
  • Some people experience pain in the wrists when performing push ups
  • Research indicates that push ups might have a negative impact on elbow joints.

Bottom Line

The health benefits of push ups are immense. Have you nailed all of these push ups and have found the ones that work the best for you already? Make it even more difficult by adding weights to this classic exercise. Wear a weight vest or have a friend place a weight plate on your back for an added strength challenge.


Decathlon offers a wide range of yoga mats - to make your push-up affair cushion-ey, weights - to level up your workout routine and workout wear - for a comfortable experience. It is the one-stop destination for all your quality and affordable sports and workout goods.

Frequently Asked Questions

A 1-minute plank is equivalent to how many push ups?

According to new research by Stuart McGill of the University of Waterloo, one minute of planking is comparable to around 40 push ups.

How many push ups should you do in a day?

To maintain a good upper body, an average individual should do 50 to 100 push ups per day if done properly. Start by performing 20 push ups daily. However, do not limit yourself to only 20. Keep on increasing the number to challenge your body.

How to increase the number of push ups you can do?

Here are few effective ways to increase the number of push ups you can do:

  • Maintain proper posture.
  • Take a break between sets.
  • Keep track of your workouts so you can see how far you've come.
  • To avoid boredom, mix up your workouts.
  • Include other upper-body exercises in your workout.
  • Practice frequently.
  • Rest days should not be overlooked.
  • If you feel any discomfort, stop.
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