Blog: Push-ups.  Why do them?

Justin Kauffman • August 14, 2022

Push-ups may sound simple: You just lower your body to the floor and push back up again. But doing them correctly involves using several of the body’s major muscle groups, and that’s why the bodyweight exercise can help you build serious strength.

Many people typically think of push-ups as an upper-body exercise including myself  but they actually work the full body. You’ll strengthen the muscles of the arms, chest, and back, as well as your abdominal muscles and your quadriceps.  This is why we ask you to get everything tight and keep those quads off the ground when you are at the bottom of the push up.  

Per the National Academy of Sports Medicine , other muscles you’ll be training as you do a push-up include the pectoralis major (your chest muscle), the anterior deltoids (your shoulders), triceps, biceps, rhomboids (the upper-back muscles that connect between your spine and shoulder blades), and the trapezius (the muscle bundle that extends from the back of your head and neck).

Secondary muscle groups worked include the serratus anterior (the fan-shaped muscle along the top of your ribs) and coracobrachialis (a long, slender muscle in the upper arm), as well as the core as a whole, notes Dylann Craig , a doctor of physical therapy and director of sports medicine and fitness at The Well, a wellness facility in New York City.

If you want to do a simple exercise that will develop a tremendous amount of strength…do some pushups.  Here is a simple routine: do between one to three times a week, each time performing three sets of 5 to 10 push-ups.  

A woman is doing push ups on a white surface.

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