Incline Pushups Guide – Benefits, Variations, Tips

The pushup is one of the most popular bodyweight exercises, with hundreds of variations. Each variation has it’s own unique benefits and can fit into your workout program in some way. You’ve probably heard of incline push ups before, but how can they help you?

What are Incline Push ups?

An Incline push up is a push up variation which is performed with your hands at an elevated position. This places your body at an incline. Hence, the name of the exercise. It’s completely different from the decline pushup.

What Muscles do Incline Push ups work?

Despite common belief that push ups are chest exercises, the incline push up is a full body exercise. This is because most of the muscles of the body are involved, either directly by pushing or indirectly by stabilizing the various joints throughout the body. The major muscles used are:

• Chest muscles- pectoralis major and pectoralis minor function to move the upper arm at the shoulder joint from the side to the front of the body. Serratus anterior assists in stretching the arm forwards.
• Triceps muscle- triceps brachii functions mainly to extend the arm at the elbow joint.
• Shoulder muscles- the deltoid muscles function to move the arm at the shoulder joint.
• Core muscles- the abdominal muscles and gluteal muscles function to keep the body in a straight position during the pushup.

The other muscles from the back and biceps muscles to the leg muscles are also recruited and function as stabilizers. Learn how to use pushups to build muscle here.

How to do Incline Pushups?

1. Place your hands, shoulder width apart, on an elevated surface.
2. Move your legs backwards.
3. Tighten your abs and glutes to straighten your body.
4. Bend your arms at the elbows in order to lower your chest to just above the elevated surface.
5. Pause at the bottom.
6. Extend your arms at the elbows in order to raise your chest back into the starting position. This is 1 repetition.

Tips to use Proper Form on Incline Pushups

1. Hand Placement

If your hands are too far forwards or too far back it will put more strain on your shoulders during the exercise. Too wide hand placement will make the exercise harder and limit the range of motion. Too narrow hand placement will also make the exercise harder.

The most efficient and safest position to place your hands, for balanced muscle development, is shoulder width apart and underneath shoulder level. If your wrists hurt, consider using a pushup bar to keep them in a neutral position.

2. Don’t Flare your Elbows

If your elbows are flared too far out to the side, this puts a lot of pressure on the shoulder joint. The closer your elbows are to your body, the safer the incline push up is on the shoulder joint. However, this is not the most efficient position for the movement, as the movement becomes more triceps dominant.

A good rule of thumb is to position your elbows so that your upper arm forms a 45⁰ angle with your body.

3. Pull your Shoulders back

If you allow your shoulders to roll forwards during the exercise, then the shoulder muscles will be forced to perform most of the movement. Not only is this unsafe, but it is also inefficient and will make incline push ups much harder.

Pull your shoulders backwards and retract your scapulae when you are performing any push up variation.

4. Keep your Body Straight

If you allow your hips to sag when performing incline push ups, then the movement will become very inefficient. Not only is this harder to perform, but it also puts a lot of pressure on your lower back.

Make sure to engage your abdominal and gluteal muscles in order to elevate your hips and keep your body in a straight position.

Although you may be tempted to raise your head, it is safest to keep your neck in a neutral position in order to keep your spine straight during the movement.

5. Elevation

The higher you place your hands, the easier incline push ups become. The lower you place your hands, the harder the exercise becomes. Keep the degree of incline in mind when performing this exercise.

Benefits of Incline Push ups

1. Incline Push ups are Great for Beginners

The incline push up is significantly easier to perform than regular push ups. This is due to the change in your body position. Where the regular pushup requires you to lift roughly 65% of your bodyweight, an incline pushup with an elevation of 2 feet or 60cm requires you to lift only 40% of your bodyweight.

This is a significantly lower weight to lift. Therefore, incline push ups are better suited for beginners to develop the strength to be able to do a regular pushup.

2. Incline Push ups Target Lower Chest

Because of the direction of movement of the upper arm, the incline push up places a greater emphasis on the lower chest muscles, making it a perfect variation for those targeting that area.

3. Incline Push ups are Safer on the Shoulders

Because of the inclined position, the hands are generally beneath the chest and under shoulder level. This is a safer position for the shoulder joint and does not stress the shoulder muscles as much as regular pushups. Therefore, this variation is helpful to avoid or rehabilitate injuries.

4. Easier on the Core

Because of your elevated position, the core muscles do not have to work as hard to keep your hips from sagging. This also makes it a perfect variation for beginners who do not have the necessary core strength to perform regular pushups.

5. It’s Easy to Progress on Incline Push ups

The lower you place your hands, the greater proportion of your bodyweight you’ll have to lift. This means that the exercise gets harder with a lower incline, making it relatively easy to progress with incline pushups and maintain the progressive overload necessary for muscle growth.

6. You can do Incline Push ups Anywhere

All the incline push up requires is an elevated surface to place your hands. You can find one anywhere, whether its a bench in the gym or a wall, table, chair or staircase at home.

Disadvantages of Incline Push ups

1. Less Helpful for Advanced Lifters

Because the incline push up requires you to lift a significantly lower proportion of your bodyweight, it is less suitable for advanced lifters. That is not to say that they will not benefit from the exercise. However, they will benefit much more from harder pushup variations.

2. Limited Shoulder and Upper Chest Development

Because of the position of your hands, much of the pushing movement will be in a downwards direction. Therefore, this is is not an optimal variation for stimulating the upper chest and shoulder muscles.

Incline Push up Variations

Apply these easy modifications to your incline push ups in order to add variety to your workouts and stimulate different muscles.

1. Wide Hand Placement

Place your hands a bit wider than shoulder width apart in order to isolate your chest more.

2. Diamond Incline Push ups

Place your hands close together, forming a diamond or triangle shape with your thumbs and index fingers. This variation will target your triceps more. Learn more about diamond push ups here.

3. Use 1 Leg

Lift one leg into the air during the movement to challenge your core stability.

4. Slow Incline Push ups

Perform each repetition very slowly to maximize muscle growth. Focus on the eccentric or lowering phase and the isometric phase. Do this by taking a few seconds to lower your chest and pausing at the bottom for a few more seconds.

5. Plyometric Incline Push ups

Push up explosively so that your hands leave the surface. This will help build your upper body strength and power. Learn more about plyometric pushups here.

6. Incline Knee Push ups

This variation is even easier than the incline push up. Just get down on your knees and perform the exercise as usual.

7. Use a Medicine Ball

Place your hands on a medicine ball during the movement to make it more unstable and work your core muscles even more.

Should You do Incline Push ups?

Whether or not you do incline push ups is up to your personal goals and level of training. If you are a beginner looking to develop your upper body strength then its perfect for you. You should also check out this beginner home chest workout.

However, if you are advanced then there may be better variations to include. You can still include incline push ups as an assistance exercise or in supersets but it will not be the priority of your training.

References:

Ebben, W., Wurm, B., VanderZanden, T., Spadavecchia, M., Durocher, J., Bickham, C. and Petushek, E., 2011. Kinetic Analysis of Several Variations of Push-Ups. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 25(10), pp.2891-2894.

Cogley, Robert M ; Archambault, Teasha A ; Fibeger, Jon F ; Koverman, Mandy M ; et al . Comparison of Muscle Activation using Various Hand Positions during the Pushup Exercise. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research ; Champaign  Volume 19, No. 3,  (Aug 2005): 628-33. DOI: 10.1519 / 00124278-200508000-00024

Youdas, James W; Budach, Brian D; Ellerbusch, Jay V; Stucky, Craig M; Wait, Kevin R; Hollman, John H Comparison of Muscle-Activation Patterns During the Conventional Push-Up and Perfect· Pushup™ Exercises, Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research: December 2010 – Volume 24 – Issue 12 – p 3352-3362 doi: 10.1519/JSC.0b013e3181cc23b0