The pushup is often viewed as a simple, fundamental exercise, yet it remains one of the most challenging bodyweight movements to perform correctly. While difficulty is often attributed to a lack of upper body strength, the true complexity lies in its demanding combination of physics, muscular coordination, and core stability. Understanding the biomechanics and physiological requirements explains why it is so physically taxing. The challenge is less about raw pressing power and more about managing the significant load created by your body acting as a long lever.
The Core Challenge of Leverage and Bodyweight
The primary reason the pushup feels difficult is the mechanical disadvantage created by positioning the body as a lever. During a standard pushup, your body functions as a second-class lever, with your feet acting as the fulcrum and your hands providing the effort. This long lever arm requires a substantial amount of force to lift the load.
Research indicates that a standard pushup requires lifting approximately 64% of your total body weight. This percentage typically ranges between 60% and 75% depending on factors like limb length and center of gravity placement. For a person weighing 180 pounds, this means attempting to press roughly 115 pounds in a single repetition, a considerable load for an unassisted bodyweight exercise.
The difficulty is further compounded by the relationship between your hands and your center of gravity, typically located near the navel. The horizontal distance between your hands and your center of mass creates a large torque, or rotational force, that your muscles must counteract. Elevating the hands on an incline dramatically reduces this torque by shifting the center of gravity closer to the fulcrum, making the incline pushup feel easier. Conversely, elevating the feet increases the horizontal distance, making the exercise significantly harder by requiring you to press closer to 70-75% of your total body weight.
Key Muscle Groups That Stabilize and Drive Movement
A successful pushup is not purely an upper body movement, but a full-body exercise demanding synchronous muscle action. The movement is driven by three primary movers: the pectoralis major (chest), the triceps brachii (back of the arms), and the anterior deltoids (front of the shoulders). These muscles contract to extend the elbow and adduct the shoulder, pushing the body away from the floor.
The stabilizing muscles often determine failure, even if the primary movers are strong. The entire body must maintain a rigid, straight line, essentially executing a moving plank. This requires sustained isometric contraction from the core musculature, including the rectus abdominis, obliques, and transverse abdominis.
If the core stabilizers—along with the glutes and erector spinae—fatigue before the chest or triceps, the rigid body line is lost. This results in “sagging hips” or “worm” movement, where the pelvis drops toward the floor. This loss of stability increases strain on the lower back and makes the movement mechanically inefficient, demanding more effort from the struggling primary movers. The serratus anterior, located along the side of the ribcage, also plays a key role by ensuring the shoulder blades remain stable against the back, preventing a winging motion.
Common Form Errors That Increase Difficulty
Technical errors in pushup form can drastically increase the perceived difficulty and risk of joint strain. One frequent mistake is flaring the elbows out to a 90-degree angle from the torso. This position places excessive stress on the shoulder joint capsule, potentially leading to impingement, and shifts the load away from the chest onto the smaller anterior deltoids. The ideal elbow angle is approximately 45 degrees from the torso, which maximizes the recruitment of the chest and triceps while protecting the shoulder.
Another common error is allowing the hips to either sag or pike too high. When the hips sag, it indicates a failure of the core and glutes to maintain the plank position, causing the lumbar spine to arch and placing undue pressure on the lower back. Conversely, raising the hips into an inverted “V” shape, sometimes called a “downward dog” pushup, significantly shortens the lever arm. While this makes the movement easier on the core, it reduces the load on the chest and triceps, limiting strength development for a true pushup.
Progressive Strategies for Building Strength
To overcome the challenge of the pushup, a progressive training approach is required to gradually increase the percentage of body weight being lifted. The most effective starting point is the incline pushup, where hands are placed on an elevated surface like a bench or sturdy counter. A higher incline reduces the load to as low as 40-50% of body weight, making the exercise manageable while maintaining correct body alignment and muscle activation.
As strength improves, the height of the incline should be lowered incrementally, forcing the body to press a greater percentage of its mass. This step-by-step reduction in height is a controlled path toward the full floor pushup. Another powerful technique is the use of negative pushups, which focus solely on the lowering phase of the movement.
Negative pushups involve starting in the top plank position and lowering the body as slowly as possible—aiming for a controlled three-to-five second descent—before returning to the starting position by kneeling or walking the hands back up. This technique builds eccentric strength, which is the muscle’s ability to control a load as it lengthens, a capacity critical for mastering the full movement. Incorporating auxiliary exercises, such as dedicated plank holds to build core endurance and triceps extensions, will also provide the necessary stability and power to conquer the full pushup.