Proper Push-Up Form: How to Do a Push-Up Correctly

A proper push-up is a moving plank: hands just outside your shoulders, body in one straight line from head to heels, elbows angled back at roughly 45 degrees, and your chest lowered until it's close to the floor before you press back up. That's the whole movement. Most of what goes wrong comes from letting one of those pieces slip when you get tired.

This guide covers how to do a push-up correctly, step by step, then walks through the eight form mistakes we see most often, with a fix and an easier version for each. It's for anyone who can already do a few push-ups and wants every rep to count. If you can't do one yet, start with our guide to doing your first push-up and come back here.

01 How to do a push-up correctly, step by step

These steps line up with the push-up instructions published by the American Council on Exercise (ACE) and the National Academy of Sports Medicine (NASM), written the way a coach would say them out loud.

1. Set your hands. Kneel on the floor and place your palms flat, slightly wider than shoulder width, fingers pointing forward. Your hands should sit under your chest, not out in front of your face.
2. Walk your feet back. Straighten your legs behind you, feet together or up to hip width apart, and rest on the balls of your feet. Your shoulders should now be stacked roughly over your hands.
3. Lock in the plank. Squeeze your glutes and thighs, brace your abs as if someone is about to poke your stomach, and let your head line up with your spine. You should be one straight line from head to heels.
4. Lower with control. Bend your elbows and let your whole body travel down as a unit, elbows angled back toward your feet. Keep going until your chest is a few inches from the floor.
5. Press the floor away. Push through the heel of your hand and drive your body back up, still as one piece. ACE suggests thinking about pushing the floor away from you, which many people find gives them a stronger press.
6. Finish tall. Straighten your arms fully at the top without slamming into the lockout, reset your brace, and start the next rep.

If your hips drop, your head sinks or your range gets shorter as the set goes on, the set is over. A clean rep counts for far more than a messy one.

02 Hand position and elbow angle

Where to put your hands

NASM and ACE both describe a hand position around shoulder width or slightly wider. The detail most people miss is how far forward the hands go. Your hands belong under your chest. When they creep out in front of your head, the push-up gets harder on your shoulders and elbows.

There's some research behind that. In a Mayo Clinic biomechanics study, nine healthy men did push-ups with six hand positions while sensors measured the load on their elbows. Placing the hands farther forward, toward the head, significantly increased the sideways (valgus) stress on the inner elbow. The same study found that bringing the hands close together raised the demand on the elbow extensors, while spreading them apart lowered it. It's one small lab study, but it matches what most coaches teach.

How to angle your elbows

NASM recommends keeping your elbows at about 45 degrees from your body as you lower. Picture your body from above as an arrow: your head is the point and your arms angle back like the sides of the arrowhead. That's the position most people find comfortable on the shoulders.

Not every source draws the line in the same place. ACE's own exercise library lets the elbows flare out as you lower and offers a tucked, elbows-at-your-sides version for anyone who wants less shoulder stress. So think of 45 degrees as a sensible default, not a law. If your shoulders feel good and your elbows aren't pointing straight out to the sides like a "T", you're in a reasonable range. For how grip width changes which muscles do the work, see what muscles push-ups work.

03 How low should you go?

NASM describes lowering until your chest nearly touches the floor. Harvard Health describes going down until your elbows reach about 90 degrees. In practice, those land in a similar place for most people: somewhere around a fist's height between your chest and the floor.

You don't need to smash your chest into the ground, and you don't need to hit a magic number. What matters is that you use the same, honest depth on every rep. Stopping halfway on rep 15 when you went all the way down on rep 1 isn't a push-up, it's a slowly shrinking push-up. If full depth isn't possible yet, raise your hands on a bench or a counter so you can reach it, rather than cutting the range short.

At the top, sources differ a little: ACE says to press until your arms are fully extended, while NASM advises against locking out your elbows. A sensible middle ground is arms that are straight but still under control, without snapping into the lockout.

04 Breathing and tempo

Breathe in as you lower and breathe out as you press up. The Mayo Clinic's strength-training guidance gives the same rule for lifting in general: breathe out on the effort, breathe in on the way back, and don't hold your breath. A lot of people clamp their breath shut without noticing, especially near the end of a hard set.

For tempo, Harvard Health suggests taking about two seconds to go down and one second to go up. That slower lowering phase makes each rep harder in a good way and makes it almost impossible to bounce out of the bottom. If you're counting for a challenge, it can feel slow at first. It's also the fastest way to find out whether your form is actually holding up.

05 8 common push-up mistakes and how to fix them

Each mistake below comes with a quick fix, plus an easier version to use while the fix sinks in. Most of them get worse as you tire, so check yourself on the last reps of a set, not the first.

1. Sagging hips

Your hips drop toward the floor and your lower back arches. This is one of the most common push-up mistakes, and ACE's instructions warn against it in both the lowering and the pressing phase. It usually means your core and glutes have switched off.

Fix: Squeeze your glutes hard before the first rep and keep them squeezed. ACE coach Pete McCall calls this a more effective cue than "contract your core." Easier version: Do incline push-ups with your hands on a bench or a counter, where holding a straight line is easier.

2. Hips piked up

The opposite problem: your butt rises into the air and your body forms an upside-down "V". It turns the push-up into something closer to a pike push-up, with more load on the shoulders and less on the chest.

Fix: Brace your abs and push your heels back so your body lengthens into a plank. Hold a 20-second plank at the top position before your set to feel what "straight" is. Easier version: Knee push-ups, keeping a straight line from your head to your knees.

3. Half reps

Only lowering a few inches, or not straightening the arms at the top. Half reps are the reason two people can both "do 30 push-ups" and mean very different things.

Fix: Place a rolled-up towel or a yoga block under your chest and lower until you lightly touch it. Easier version: Raise your hands until you can reach full depth on every rep, then lower the incline over time.

4. Elbows flared straight out

Your elbows point out to the sides at close to 90 degrees, forming a "T" with your body. NASM lists flaring the elbows too wide as a common error, and most people find this position rougher on the front of the shoulder.

Fix: Turn the eyes of your elbows (the inside crease) slightly forward, and think about pointing your elbows back toward your feet as you lower. Easier version: Slow negatives: take three to four seconds to lower with elbows tucked, then reset on your knees and push up.

5. Hands too far forward

Your hands sit in line with your face or even further ahead. As covered above, a Mayo Clinic study found this position increased stress on the inner elbow.

Fix: At the bottom of the rep, your hands should be roughly beside your lower chest. Set up in a plank first and check that your shoulders are over your wrists. Easier version: Wall push-ups, where it's easy to see and adjust your hand position.

6. Head dropping or craning forward

Either your chin reaches for the floor first, or your head tilts up to look straight ahead. Both break the straight line and can make the rep look deeper than it is.

Fix: Look at the floor slightly in front of your hands and keep a small gap between your chin and chest, as if holding an egg under your chin. Your chest, not your nose, should lead the way down. Easier version: Any incline push-up, which takes enough load off that you can focus on holding your head still.

7. Shrugging your shoulders to your ears

Your shoulders creep up toward your ears, and your neck disappears. It often shows up late in a set as fatigue sets in.

Fix: Before each set, press the floor away and pull your shoulders down away from your ears. At the top of each rep, reset that position. Easier version: Push-up plus on your knees: from the top position, push the floor a little further away so your shoulder blades spread, then let them settle. It teaches you to control your shoulder blades.

8. Rushing, bouncing and holding your breath

Fast reps that drop into the bottom and bounce out, with a held breath the whole time. NASM lists excessive momentum as a common error, and Mayo Clinic advises against holding your breath while you strength train.

Fix: Use the two-down, one-up tempo from Harvard Health, and exhale on every press. Easier version: Split your reps into smaller sets. Five controlled reps, rest, and repeat will do more for your form than one rushed set of 20.

Good reps, counted properly

Log each clean set with one tap in RepDrop and watch your total, pace and streak update as you go. The 30-day push-up challenge is free, with no account, and it works offline. For iPhone and Android.

06 Check your form: the phone test

You can't see your own hips while you're doing a push-up, and form almost always feels better than it looks. The fix costs nothing: prop your phone on the floor a few feet to your side, at about hip height, and record one set.

Watch it back and check four things:

• The line. Pause the video at the bottom. Could you lay a broomstick along your body from head to heels?
• The depth. Is the bottom of rep 1 the same as the bottom of your last rep?
• The head. Does your head stay in line with your spine, or does it lead the way down?
• The last three reps. This is where form breaks. Count how many reps you did before anything slipped. That's your real number.

For a second angle, film from the front to check that your elbows angle back rather than flaring straight out. Doing this once every few weeks is plenty. It's also a good check before you take a push-up test, since test standards assume full, clean reps.

07 When to stop, and how to protect your wrists and shoulders

Normal muscle fatigue, a burn in your chest and arms and a slowing pace, is expected. Sharp pain, joint pain, clicking with pain, numbness or tingling is not. The Mayo Clinic's advice for strength training is simple: if an exercise causes pain, stop. Try again in a few days, or with less load. And if the pain keeps coming back, it's time to see a doctor or a physical therapist.

• Wrists. A flat palm bends your wrist back a long way. Harvard Health notes that incline push-ups put less weight on the wrists and shoulders. Many people also find that push-up handles, hex dumbbells or doing push-ups on their fists (on a mat) keep the wrist straighter and feel better.
• Shoulders. Check your elbow angle and hand position first, since those two mistakes are the usual suspects. Reduce the load with an incline while you practice.
• Lower back. Back discomfort during push-ups often traces back to sagging hips. Squeeze your glutes, shorten the set, and stop before your hips drop.

Load also matters. A force-plate study by Ebben and colleagues found that hands-elevated and knee push-ups put less force through the hands than a standard push-up, while feet-elevated push-ups put more. That makes an incline the easiest way to keep practicing good form while you build up strength. Our push-up variations guide ranks the options from easiest to hardest, and doing push-ups every day covers how to fit in recovery.

Once your form is solid across a full set, the next step is building reps without losing it. How to increase push-ups has a 4-week plan for exactly that, and the 30-day push-up challenge gives you a daily target.

08 Frequently asked questions

What is the proper form for a push-up?

Place your hands slightly wider than your shoulders and under your chest, and hold your body in one straight line from head to heels. Lower with your elbows angled back at about 45 degrees until your chest is a few inches from the floor, then press back up until your arms are straight.

How far apart should your hands be for push-ups?

For a standard push-up, slightly wider than shoulder width, with your hands under your chest rather than in front of your face. A closer grip puts more work on the triceps, and a wider grip changes the feel, but shoulder width or a little wider is the usual starting point.

Should your chest touch the ground during push-ups?

It doesn't have to. Lowering until your chest is close to the floor, or until your elbows reach about 90 degrees, is a full rep for most people. What matters more is using the same depth on every rep instead of letting it shrink as you tire.

Should you lock your elbows at the top of a push-up?

Straighten your arms fully at the top, but don't snap into the lockout. Finishing with straight, controlled arms gives you a full range of motion without slamming your elbow joints.

Are knee push-ups bad form?

No. Knee push-ups are a normal, easier version of the exercise, not a form mistake. Keep a straight line from your head to your knees and use the same hand position, elbow angle and depth as a full push-up.

Why do push-ups hurt my wrists?

A flat palm bends the wrist back a long way under load. Incline push-ups take some weight off, and many people find that push-up handles, dumbbells or fists keep the wrist straighter. If the pain is sharp or keeps coming back, stop and check with a doctor or a physical therapist.

Is it better to do fewer push-ups with good form?

Yes. Ten clean push-ups train your muscles through the full range and keep the load where it belongs. Twenty rushed half reps with sagging hips mostly practice bad habits. Build the number once the form holds up.

Practice clean reps, every day

RepDrop's 30-day push-up challenge is free at 750, 1,500 or 3,000 reps. Log each set with one tap and let the app track your pace, streak and records. No account, works offline, on iPhone and Android. Custom goals and durations come with Pro.