Intermediate

Decline Push-Up

Propping your feet up tips the body head-down, so the press now travels from low to high relative to your torso and biases the clavicular upper chest, much like an incline barbell press. The higher your feet, the more the front delts share the load and the harder each rep gets. It is the simplest way to hit the upper chest with nothing but bodyweight and a bench.

Equipment
Box
Body part
Chest
Type
Strength
Browse by movement
Horizontal Press
Muscles worked
Target
Pectoralis Major Clavicular
Secondary
Pectoralis Major Sternocostal, Deltoid Anterior, Triceps Brachii Long Head, Triceps Brachii Lateral Head, Triceps Brachii Medial Head
Tertiary
Upper Rectus Abdominals

How to do it

  1. 1

    Place your feet on a bench or box and set your hands on the floor slightly wider than your shoulders.

  2. 2

    Extend into a plank with a straight line from heels to head and brace your core.

  3. 3

    Lower your chest toward the floor under control, keeping your elbows moderately tucked.

  4. 4

    Press back up until your arms lock out, driving through the upper chest and shoulders.

  5. 5

    Keep your hips from sagging and your neck neutral throughout.

Tips

  • The higher the feet, the more the upper chest and front delts work, so raise the elevation to progress.
  • Keep your body rigid; letting the hips pike takes tension off the chest.
  • If your shoulders feel pinched, lower the foot height and keep the elbows tucked.

Variations

Common mistakes

  • Feet go straight onto a high box, and much above hip height the movement drifts toward a pike press for the shoulders rather than a decline press for the upper chest.
  • Long sets upside-down leave the last reps swimmy; keep decline sets shorter than your floor sets and stand up for a moment between them.
  • The bench is left free-standing, so the feet shove it backwards under pressure; wedge it against a wall or use a step that cannot travel.
  • Hands creep wider as the feet get higher, which flares the elbows at exactly the point where the shoulders are carrying their largest share of the load.
  • The top of each rep is left a few degrees short, so the triceps never finish the lockout and every rep is counted short.

Frequently asked

How many decline push-ups should you do when you are new to the exercise?
Start with the feet on a low step of around 30 cm and do 3 sets of 8 to 12 with 90 seconds of rest. When 12 reps stay clean at that height, raise the feet by roughly 10 cm and drop back to 8. Be able to do 12 good floor push-ups before you start elevating anything, because the decline adds load to a pattern rather than teaching it, and a shaky floor push-up only gets shakier with the feet up.
How do you make the decline push-up easier or harder?
Easier: lower the feet to a single stair or a stack of books, which changes the load in small steps, or return to the floor for a set. Harder: raise the feet toward hip height, take three seconds to lower, pause an inch off the floor, or wear a loaded backpack. Past hip height you have effectively built a pike push-up, which is a shoulder exercise rather than a chest one, so raise the feet only as far as the chest still does the pressing.
Do decline push-ups build the upper chest?
They bias the clavicular upper chest and the front delts, the region an incline bench press trains, using nothing but a bench, so they fill an obvious gap in bodyweight chest training. The elevation also adds load, which makes it a natural next step once floor push-ups are easy. It is a poor choice if being head-down makes you lightheaded, and a poor choice when the front of your shoulder is already sore, since the head-down angle puts more of the rep on that joint. Lower the feet before pushing through either.

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