The pike pushup is a bodyweight exercise that effectively targets the shoulders, particularly the anterior and medial deltoids, while also engaging the triceps and upper chest. This exercise utilizes a vertical pushing pattern, making it a highly effective foundational movement for developing the overhead strength needed to progress toward more advanced skills like the freestanding handstand pushup. By shifting a significant portion of your body weight onto the upper body, the pike pushup trains the necessary stability and strength for inverted movements.
Establishing the Starting Position
Begin by placing your hands on the floor, positioning them slightly wider than your shoulders, with your fingers pointing forward or slightly turned out for comfort. From a standard pushup or plank position, lift your hips high and walk your feet closer to your hands until your body forms an inverted V-shape. The goal is to get your hips as high as possible, aiming to stack them directly over your hands.
Keep your legs and arms as straight as your hamstring and shoulder flexibility allows, maintaining this tight, triangular structure. Engage your core muscles firmly, pulling your navel toward your spine, which helps prevent the lower back from arching during the movement. You should be balanced on the balls of your feet, ready to initiate the descent with your weight already shifted toward your hands.
Executing the Movement
To begin the repetition, initiate the downward motion by bending your elbows in a controlled manner, directing them backward and slightly outward at an angle of about 45 degrees. As you lower your body, your head should travel forward, aiming to touch the floor at a point several inches in front of your hands. This forward lean is crucial, as it ensures the primary load is placed directly onto the shoulders, mimicking the mechanics of a handstand pushup.
Continue the descent until your forehead or the crown of your head lightly grazes the floor, achieving a full range of motion without resting your weight. The forearms should remain relatively vertical throughout the movement to maintain shoulder joint stability. Once you reach the bottom position, powerfully press through your palms and straighten your elbows to return to the inverted V-starting position. At the top, fully extend your arms and actively push your shoulders toward your ears to achieve complete shoulder elevation before starting the next repetition.
Adjusting Difficulty and Avoiding Errors
To make the pike pushup easier, a common regression is to perform the exercise with a reduced range of motion, using an object like a yoga block or thick book beneath your head to shorten the distance to the floor. Another effective way to decrease the load is to elevate your hands on a stable surface, such as a sturdy box or step, which reduces the percentage of body weight supported by the shoulders. Conversely, to increase the difficulty, you can elevate your feet onto a box, bench, or chair. Raising the feet increases the verticality of the body position, thereby placing a greater proportion of your body weight through your shoulders, which is a direct progression toward a full handstand pushup.
A frequently observed error is allowing the elbows to flare completely out to the sides, which places excessive, undesirable stress on the shoulder capsule and rotator cuff tendons. Another mistake involves aiming the head straight down between the hands, which turns the movement into more of a chest press and fails to properly load the anterior deltoids in the vertical plane. The core must also remain tightly engaged throughout the movement to prevent the hips from dropping or the lower back from arching, which compromises spinal neutrality and reduces the effectiveness of the exercise.