THE BENCH PRESSES, cable crossover machines, and dumbbell pullovers of the world are all great for building up your chest. But even if you can’t access any of that gear when you’re at home, you can still train the muscle group aggressively, building strength and stimulating your pecs for growth. Why? Because you can still do pushups.
The classic pushup remains one of the best ways to hit your chest at home—or anywhere, period. You’re attacking your chest from an angle that’s very similar to the one you’d hit on a standard bench press, and while you’re working with a lighter load than you might use on a bench (your bodyweight), you still get to produce a ton of total-body tension. You also get to focus on getting a good chest contraction (more on that later).
The pushup can actually create even more challenge than some of your loaded movements once you start introducing a handful of variations, and those variations can easily become the backbone of a vicious chest workout. By varying the angle of your torso relative to your upper arms, or shifting the focus of the pushup to focus on negative contractions, pauses, or holds, you shift the way the move stimulates your chest.
By blending several of these approaches into a single workout, you wind up challenging your pecs in multiple ways a home. You also explore and perfect your overall pushup mechanics, leading to better workouts later. And perhaps most of all, you wind up having a little bit of fun, too.
The At-Home Chest All Pushups Workout
You’ll do three moves in this all-pushups home chest workout, and each move will challenge your chest in a slightly different way. Do this workout up to three times a week, resting at least one day between sessions (yes, you may actually be that sore). On days you don’t do this workout, aim to train your back with pullups and rows, critical moves to help maintain shoulder health when you’re challenging your chest.
Post Pushup Dropset
Do 4 sets per side of this pushup dropset, which combines a standard post pushup with classic pushups for a serious chest pump.
Half-Typewriter Pushup
Next up, hit the half-typewriter pushup, which once again has you unilaterally loading your chest, then adds time-under-tension as you typewriter your torso halfway across before pressing back up. Do 3 sets of 8 to 10 reps per side.
3-Step Pushup Series
Finish your chest off with 3 sets of this 3-step pushup series, which features a little bit more unilateral loading and starts to incorporate your triceps too.
3 Keys for a Perfect Pushup
The key to getting the most out of pushup training is maximizing the pushup. That means working through a full range of motion, and not cheating yourself on any rep. There are several things you want to keep in mind. Focus on these three.
Perfect Plank
Do This: The pushup starts with a flawless plank position and you must own this for the life of every set. Squeeze your abs tight and never let your core sag.
Elbow Pits Face Forward
Do This: Turn the pits of your elbows forward, promoting shoulder external rotation and also turning on your lats.
All The Way Up, All The Way Down
Do This: Lower your chest to within an inch of the ground, squeezing your shoulder blades as you approach the ground. Then press all the way up. Don’t get in a habit of doing half-reps and skipping the final bit of chest contraction.
How to Level Up Your At-Home Chest Workout
The greatest challenge of pushup training is finding ways to increase the load, especially when you’re at home without access to external weights. The downside of the classic pushup is that while it starts out as challenging, once you’ve done enough reps, it ceases to push you. You’re always lifting only a portion of your bodyweight.
That’s one place where the bench press can push you more than a pushup: You can eventually load more than your bodyweight onto the bar. You can’t do that with a pushup. But you can find other ways to challenge your chest.
Unilateral Loading
You can, however, force just one of your pecs to shoulder almost all of the portion of bodyweight that you’re moving by using a handful of pushup variations. Archer pushups and single-arm pushups do this, as does the post pushup. These pushups become valuable weapons in your at-home chest training, placing greater load on a single pec and also challenging your core and glutes.
Can you keep your hips and shoulders square on a post pushup, which is just a half-step away from a single-arm pushup? Doing so places great load on your chest, and your entire body.
Time Under Tension and Pauses
You can also level up moves by adding time-under-tension and pauses. Pauses cancel out the momentum and “elastic energy” that allows you to “bounce” out of reps. On the bench press, you sometimes need that assist. By eliminating it on pushups, you add challenge to the move.
More Reps, Different Structures
Of course you can load up on reps. But once you can string together 15 to 20 straight with good form, you’re going to need to vary your training to keep progressing. Using common workout structures like EMOMs (every minute on the minute) and AMRAPs (as many reps as possible) can make your pushup-centric sessions more novel, even before introducing wrinkles like different exercise variations (as seen in the workout above) or load with weighted vests or plates.
Ebenezer Samuel, C.S.C.S., is the fitness director of Men’s Health and a certified trainer with more than 10 years of training experience. He’s logged training time with NFL athletes and track athletes and his current training regimen includes weight training, HIIT conditioning, and yoga. Before joining Men’s Health, he served as a sports columnist and tech columnist for the New York Daily News.
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