With feet close together and hands on the floor, hold yourself in a rigid straight line from ankle to shoulders. Generally weightlifters should perform push-ups with relatively narrow hands and the elbows within about 45 degrees from the sides. This reduces shoulder stress and allows the greatest range of motion.
 
Bend the arms to lower yourself under control until your chest and/or abdomen lightly touches the floor, actively keeping the trunk tight and the body in a rigid straight line—don’t allow the hips to sag toward the floor, or pike them upward.
 
Push straight back up into full elbow extension and shoulder protraction.
 
Purpose
The push-up is a simple but effective upper body pushing exercise with the added benefit of some trunk and pelvic stability work. It’s an accessible, scalable, equipment-free option.
 
Programming
Sets of 5-15+ reps are appropriate depending on difficulty, loading and purpose. Generally the 10-15 rep range is most useful for accessory work.
 
Variations
There are numerous push-up variations—any change of hand width/rotation or elbow angle will change the effect somewhat to emphasize certain areas more than others. They can be done with the body inclined (hands on wall, blocks, bench, etc) to reduce difficulty, or with the feet elevated to increase difficulty and move emphasis to shoulders and triceps along with more upper chest, on dumbbells or parallettes or similar to increase range of motion, with weight on the back, with slow eccentrics, with explosive concentrics to lift the hands off the floor at the top, and much more.