The pike pushup is a bodyweight exercise that simulates the movement of an overhead press, effectively building strength in the shoulders. It primarily targets the anterior and medial deltoids, with secondary involvement from the triceps and upper chest. Understanding the correct volume is paramount for achieving results, whether your goal is muscle hypertrophy or strength gain. This guide provides recommendations on repetitions and sets based on your current fitness level.
Mastering the Pike Pushup Technique
The foundation of effective training begins with a perfect repetition, which requires establishing the correct inverted V-shape with your body. Begin in a standard pushup position, then walk your feet closer to your hands while keeping your legs and back straight, hinging deeply at the hips. This positioning elevates your hips and shifts your body weight directly over your shoulders, maximizing the resistance on the deltoids.
Hand placement should be slightly wider than shoulder-width, with fingers pointed forward or slightly outward, ensuring wrist comfort and stability. The head should aim to descend toward the floor on a path that forms a triangle with your hands, rather than diving straight down. This targeted descent maintains the necessary forward lean and mechanical tension on the intended muscle group.
The execution involves bending the elbows, keeping them tucked in at about a 45-degree angle relative to the torso, and lowering your head in a controlled manner. The descent should stop just before your head touches the floor, maintaining tension and preventing impact. The ascent is a powerful push back to the starting inverted V-position, using the shoulder and triceps muscles to extend the elbows fully.
Maintaining a straight line from the wrists through the elbows to the hips is highly important for safety and efficacy, preventing excessive strain on the lower back. A slight bend in the knees is permissible if hamstring flexibility prevents a completely straight-legged V, but the hip hinge and straight back must be prioritized over leg extension.
Establishing Your Rep and Set Goals
The optimal number of pike pushups depends on your current strength level and specific training goal, whether strength or muscle growth. For beginners mastering the form, the focus should be on consistency rather than high volume, aiming for a repetition range that allows for perfect form failure. A suitable starting point is three sets of five to eight repetitions, ensuring each rep meets the technical standards.
Once you can comfortably complete three sets of eight repetitions with excellent form, you can transition to an intermediate volume designed for muscle hypertrophy. This phase involves increasing the overall work capacity, moving to four sets of ten to fifteen repetitions per session. Rest periods between these sets should be approximately 60 to 90 seconds, allowing for sufficient recovery to maintain intensity across all sets.
Intermediate trainees should aim to perform this exercise two to three times per week, allowing at least one full rest day between sessions for muscle repair and adaptation. This frequency aligns with general resistance training guidelines for maximizing strength and size gains.
For advanced athletes, the standard pike pushup may no longer provide sufficient stimulus for progressive overload, even at high repetition counts. At this level, volume can be pushed to five sets of fifteen or more repetitions, or the focus can shift to more intense variations. Advanced trainees often use weighted vests or resistance bands to keep the repetition range within the lower, strength-focused spectrum of five to eight repetitions per set.
Once you can perform four sets of fifteen repetitions easily, it is more productive to scale the difficulty of the exercise rather than simply adding more repetitions. This approach ensures the time under tension and mechanical load remain high enough to trigger continued muscular adaptation.
Scaling Your Pike Pushup Practice
If your current set and repetition scheme becomes too easy, or if you struggle to complete the prescribed volume, adjusting the exercise leverage is the most effective progression method. To make the pike pushup less challenging, you can decrease the load by elevating your hands onto sturdy objects like yoga blocks or low steps. This modification reduces the angle of the inverted V, shifting less body weight onto the shoulders and making the movement easier to control.
Alternatively, you can ease the exercise by performing the movement with your knees slightly bent and resting on the floor, which significantly reduces the total weight being pressed. This variation allows you to focus purely on the vertical pressing motion without the added demand of supporting the lower body weight. These modifications ensure you can still train the movement pattern even when full pike pushups are too difficult.
To increase the difficulty and continue building strength, the most common method is to elevate the feet onto a bench or plyometric box. Raising the feet increases the verticality of the body and places a greater percentage of the body weight directly onto the shoulders, closely mimicking a full handstand pushup. This progression provides a strong stimulus for advanced strength.
Once foot-elevated pike pushups are mastered, the next natural progression is to move toward wall-assisted handstand pushups, which represent the peak bodyweight vertical pressing movement. This gradual increase in the angle of the body ensures continuous progressive overload, preventing plateaus in your upper body strength journey.