Push Up Exercise: Description, Steps, Muscles Involved, Variations and Biomechanics

This presentation provides a detailed description of the push up exercise, including its steps, muscles involved, variations and biomechanics. The push up is a simple yet effective exercise that engages the whole body muscles including chest, arms, shoulder, hips, abdomen and legs muscles. It can be executed in various combinations using different muscles, and most common variations can be performed by just altering the hand position.

Description and Analysis
of Push Up Exercise
Name of the Student

Description of Push Up
 Simplest form of exercise
which measures the
fitness of whole body
 Uses body as
counterweight
 Involves upper torso and
core simultaneously
 Engages the whole body
muscles including chest,
arms, shoulder, hips,
abdomen and legs
muscles (Borreani et al.,
2015)

Steps of Push Up
 Getting down on the
floor on all fours
 Lowering body closer to
the floor without
touching
 Get back in the initial
position by pushing

Muscles involved in Push Up
 Anterior deltoid
 Serratus anterior
 Pectoralis minor and
major
 Triceps
 Rectus Abdominus
 Transversus abdominus
 Obliques (Borreani et
al., 2015)

Push Up exercises for different
muscles
 For deltoid muscles –
shoulder press, press
behind neck, cable bar
 For pectoral muscles –
bench and chest press
 For triceps – dips,
kickbacks
 For rectus abdominus –
planks and crunches
(Marcolin et al., 2015)

Biomechanics of Push Up
 Push Up can be executed in various combination using
different muscles
 Most common variations can be performed by just
altering the hand position
 Common variations includes wide base, normal base,
and narrow base
 Follows the principles of levers as our body generates
motion and uses joints as fulcrum.
 Utilizes 69 per cent of body weight in top position
 Utilizes 75 per cent of body weight in bottom position
(Wang et al., 2017)

References
Borreani, S., Calatayud, J., Colado, J. C., Moya-Nájera, D., Triplett, N.
T., & Martin, F. (2015). Muscle activation during push-ups
performed under stable and unstable conditions. Journal of
Exercise Science & Fitness, 13(2), 94-98.
Marcolin, G., Petrone, N., Moro, T., Battaglia, G., Bianco, A., & Paoli,
A. (2015). Selective activation of shoulder, trunk, and arm
muscles: a comparative analysis of different push-up
variants. Journal of athletic training, 50(11), 1126-1132.
Wang, R., Hoffman, J. R., Sadres, E., Bartolomei, S., Muddle, T. W.,
Fukuda, D. H., & Stout, J. R. (2017). Effects of different
relative loads on power performance during the ballistic
push-up. The Journal of Strength & Conditioning
Research, 31(12), 3411-3416.