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Pike Push-Up

When it comes to bodyweight training, the push-up is one of the most popular movements you can perform. It uses a simple movement pattern where you move your body to the ground and up again. For more advanced gymgoers this is quite an easy movement pattern to perform. 

If you’re looking for an added challenge, the pike push-up forces you into a pike position. By bringing your arms closer to your body, it requires more core stability and shoulder strength. 

In the article below, we’ve discussed everything you need to know about the pike push-up. Let's take a detailed look!

How To Do

  1. Find a suitable mat or padded area away from gym equipment. This can be at home or in the gym. 
  2. Stand with your feet hip-width apart with your arms by your sides. Assume a plank position on the ground. Your hands should be directly under your shoulders and the balls of your feet should be on the ground.
  3. Keeping a straight line from your heels to your head, breathe in, and engage your core.
  4. Bring your hips up and walk your hands back slightly until you form an inverted V shape. Keep your arms and legs straight at all times. 
  5. Start to bend your elbows and lower your body at a 45-degree angle. Pause briefly and exhale whilst bringing your body back to the top of the V shape.
  6. Repeat for the desired number of repetitions and sets.

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Tips From Expert

  • Stay on the balls of your toes and lower down at a 45-degree angle. This helps to keep balance and ensures you keep focus on your deltoids. 
  • Use slow and controlled movements when walking your hands back into the pike position.
  • Engage your core throughout the movement. This helps to keep your hips up and limits lower back stress. 
  • Avoid tucking your head into your chest or bringing your neck up. This decreases the chance of neck strain and injury.

Optimal Sets and Reps

When performing the pike push-up, use the table below to find the ideal sets and repetitions for your training goal.

Training Type Sets Reps
Strength Training 3–5 4–6
Hypertrophy 3–4 8–10
Endurance Training 3–4 12–15
Power Training 3–5 1–3
Optimal Sets & Reps of Pike Push-Up

How to Put in Your Workout Split

The pike push-up is a challenging upper-body exercise that requires good core stability. When programmed correctly, it offers many useful exercise benefits. Alongside working two of the three deltoid heads, it improves core stability and helps develop good posture. 

Here are some of our recommended ways to program it:

  • Bodybuilding Training — Program it as a full-body workout, upper body split, or as part of a shoulder workout for men or women.
  • Strength And Power Training — For strength and power, start with your main competition lifts. Program it after these before the easier isolation movements.
  • Bodyweight Training — Whether at home or in the gym, use it as part of a bodyweight workout. Program it with exercises such as bodyweight squats and lunges. 

For hypertrophy and endurance, rest for 6–90 seconds between sets. For strength and power training, a longer rest period of two to three minutes is needed.

Ensure 48–72 hours of rest between sessions for adequate muscle recovery.

Primary Muscle Groups

Anterior Deltoid

Muscles located at the front of your shoulder region

Lateral Deltoid

Muscles located at the side of your shoulder which gives your shoulders a rounded appearance.

Anterior Deltoid 

Your shoulder muscles are made up of three deltoids, or heads. These are your anterior deltoid, lateral deltoid, and posterior deltoid. Your anterior deltoid is located at the front. 

Its primary role is to bring your arms up and in front of your body. The pike push-up is performed with your arms overhead. Your anterior deltoid functions to push your body up as you extend your elbows. 

Alongside this, they help to bring your down under control as you flex your elbows.

During overhead movements, your anterior deltoids show the highest maximum isometric voluntary contraction (MVIC) at 33.3%. This is a measure of how hard your muscle is working. Because of the similar overhead arm position between that and the pike push-up, the findings can be related.

Lateral Deltoid

Your lateral deltoid, or medial deltoid, is located in the middle of your anterior deltoid and posterior deltoid. Its primary function is to abduct your arms or move them away from your body. 

When performing the pike push-up, they mainly help to stabilize your shoulders as you come up from the bottom position. They also have a smaller but meaningful role in shoulder flexion and extension as the main movement pattern. 

Secondary Muscle Groups

Clavicular Head of Pectoralis Major

Muscles located at the top of your chest, running from your armpit to collar bone. Smaller portion of your chest muscle.

Serratus Anterior

Small, fan shaped muscle that lies deep under your chest and scapula.

Triceps Lateral Heads

Muscles located on the back of your arm between your shoulder and elbow.

Triceps Medial Heads

Small muscles located at the back of your arms. Deep to the triceps long heads between the shoulder and elbow.

Triceps Long Heads

Large muscles located at the back of your arms between your shoulder and elbow. Most outside portion of the tricep.

Triceps Lateral Heads

Your triceps brachii muscle is on the upper half at the back of your arm. It can be split into three muscle groups — the lateral head, medial head, and long head.

Your lateral head is on the outside of your upper arm. It originates from your humerus, or upper arm bone, and inserts into your ulna, or forearm. 

Its primary function is to extend your elbow. Unlike the medial head, it’s only significantly active against resistance. The lateral head is the most active at 180 degrees shoulder elevation.

As you push up out of the bottom position, your lateral head extends your elbows as they come towards 180 degrees. 

Triceps Medial Heads

Your triceps medial head also originates from your humerus and inserts into your ulna. It's located underneath your lateral and long tricep heads.

With the same origin and insertion points as the lateral head, your medial head has the same elbow extension role. The main difference is in the activity depending on shoulder elevation. Compared to your lateral head, your medial head is most active as you get past 90 degrees of shoulder elevation. 

Therefore, the diagonal pike position would mean your medial heads are very active as you extend your elbows. 

Triceps Long Heads

Your long head originates from your scapula, or shoulder blade. It inserts into your ulna. As it crosses two joints, it plays a role in shoulder and elbow movement.

During the pike push-up, your long heads stabilize your shoulders as well as extend your elbows. This helps to keep a stable body position. 

Clavicular Head

Your pectoralis major is made up of three muscle groups. These are your clavicular head, sternal head, and abdominal head.

Of the three, your clavicular head is the upper part of your chest. It assists in adducting your arms or bringing them across your body. 

As you push your body up, your clavicular head mainly works to flex and stabilize your shoulder. It also has a small role in elbow extension alongside your triceps. 

Serratus Anterior

Your serratus anterior is located at the side of your chest. It originates from your ribs and inserts into your scapula, or shoulder blade. 

Its main role is to stabilize your scapula. As your arms are overhead during the pike push-up, your serratus anterior prevents your scapula from moving out of position.

Equipment

Bodyweight

Bodyweight

Requires bodyweight resistance and additional equipment for proper execution.

Variations

Exercises that target the same primary muscle groups and require the same equipment.

Arm Circle

Dynamic Arm Swing

Bear Crawl

Chest And Front Of Shoulder Stretch

Handstand Push-Up

Arm Raise Plank

Decline Pike Push-Up

Bodyweight Squat & Reach

Alternatives

Exercises that target the same primary muscle groups and require the different equipment.

Cable Lateral Raise

Squat To Overhead Press

Barbell Military Press

Dumbbell Front Raise

Dumbbell Arnold Press

Alternating Dumbbell Press

Barbell Front Raise

Weight Plate Front Raise

Dumbbell Lateral Raise

Dumbbell Seated Shoulder Press

Who Should Do?

Bodybuilders

Bodybuilders tend to have common goals that inform most of their resistance training. They want to build muscle and look better.

To accomplish this, progressive overload and training intensity are too big determinants. This means increasing a certain training variable and ensuring the exercise is sufficiently hard to perform.

Pike push-ups accomplish both of these aims. They use a challenging movement pattern that targets two of your three shoulder heads. They can also be scaled accordingly by bringing your hands further in. 

As a bodybuilder, the pike push-up is a relatively difficult bodyweight exercise to build bigger shoulders and improve upper body aesthetics. 

Functional Fitness Athletes

Functional fitness training involves exercises that improve movements performed in daily life. Functional fitness athletes use these functional, compound movements to form the backbone of their training regime. 

The pike push-up is a challenging exercise that requires a large degree of shoulder strength and core stability. Both of these are important for most functional exercises that resemble functional movements.

Alongside this, to perform the pike push-up correctly, you need full-body coordination. When adding this to your at-home shoulder workout, the pike push-up is a great way to develop it. 

Powerlifters

As a powerlifter, your main three competition lifts are the bench press, the squat, and the deadlift. The squat and deadlift require a large degree of core strength and shoulder stabilization. The bench press involves your anterior deltoids as an important secondary mover to flex your shoulders as you press. 

Because of this, the pike push-up is a great exercise to add as part of your powerlifting training. It can be programmed after your main movements as an accessory exercise. Use it to develop your anterior deltoids and core stability. 

Who Should Not Do?

Beginners

As a beginner lifter, you can improve your strength in a much shorter period compared to an advanced lifter. However, it takes time to develop the functional strength and stability needed for challenging exercise movements.

The pike push-up is classed as a challenging exercise movement. It requires a large amount of shoulder strength and core stability to push up and maintain the pike position. At this stage of training, focus on developing a solid foundation using the kneeling or the normal push-up variation. 

*Expert tip: At this stage of training, your main focus should be on consistent resistance training. Once you develop this, think more about specific movements. 

Those With Shoulder Issues

When suffering from shoulder issues such as pain or injuries, shoulder stability and range of motion are often affected. An example would be shoulder impingement syndrome. 

The pike push-up requires a big amount of shoulder flexion as your body comes down. This puts a large amount of stress on your anterior and lateral deltoids. Because of this, it might not be the most suitable exercise if you suffer from shoulder issues. 

Benefits Of The Pike Push-Up

Increases Core Stability 

Core stability forms the foundation for many everyday movements and exercise patterns. Examples include getting in the car or hitting a tennis ball. 

To perform the plank push-up correctly, your core musculature works to keep your hips from sagging and your torso from rotating. Before you go into the pike position, you engage your core muscles. 

With repeated performance, pike push-ups therefore help to develop your core muscles. Stronger core muscles increase core stability and improve movement patterns and exercise performance. 

Enhances Functional Strength

Functional strength refers to the ability to perform multi-joint movements that mimic the demands of daily life activity. These are things that our bodies are designed to be and improve with regular practice. 

The pike push-up develops several functional strength aspects. These include core stability and daily movement patterns. 

Core stability is involved in all aspects of functional strength performance. As we reach overhead, we use our core to control our movement. By enhancing core stability, we improve our functional strength with it.

The pike push-up mimics many of the movements we use during daily life and performance. Bringing our hips up into a pike position mimics getting up backward from the floor. Walking our hands back closely mimics the position used before jumping off a diving board. 

While these are examples, you can start to see how the pike push-up can positively impact aspects of functional strength development. 

Improves Posture 

In today’s society, posture is becoming more of an issue due to two main factors. People are spending more time at desk-based jobs. Also, people are spending less time moving around or exercising.

Pike push-ups provide a way to exercise that requires no equipment. Furthermore, they require a large degree of core stability to keep the pike position as you perform the push-up.

With the well-known importance of core stability on posture, pike push-ups are an excellent way to improve it. They provide challenging exercise that requires no equipment and can help to reduce lower back pain. 

Frequently Asked Questions

What do pike push-ups work?

Pike push-ups primarily target your anterior and lateral deltoids. Alongside this, your triceps, clavicular head, and serratus anterior play secondary roles.

Are pike push-ups harder than regular push-ups?

Pike push-ups are harder than regular push-ups due to the different torso positioning. Your hands are further back with your torso higher up so your anterior and lateral deltoids need to work harder.

Are pike push-ups bad for shoulders?

Pike push-ups are great for shoulder development and function when performed correctly. However, incorrect techniques may cause additional stress and increase the risk of injury.

Do pike push-ups build chests?

Pike push-ups provide a smaller muscle-building stimulus to the clavicular head of your pectoralis major. As a secondary mover, use targeted chest movements to build your chest instead.

Resources

Endomondo.com refrains from utilizing tertiary references. We uphold stringent sourcing criteria and depend on peer-reviewed studies and academic research conducted by medical associations and institutions. For more detailed insights, you can explore further by reading our editorial process.

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