Thread: what % of body weight in a pushup?

I've been making good progress at regaining my upper body strength. I've been doing dips and military chin-ups and recently added pushups to my routine.
Adding the pushups has accelerated my progress with those two other exercises.

Does anyone know what % of body weight you're working against with a correctly done pushup?

I think it's somewhere between 60-70%. You can always make push-ups harder by raising your legs up. Then you're pushing a higher percentage of your weight.

You can also do push-ups with somebody on top of you.

If you're really keen, you can try doing handstand push-ups. The more vertical your body becomes, the greater the resistance.

I think it varies from 40-60% depending on what position you are in the pushup. alternating 1 leg pushups is a good way to work core while increasing the %weight you are pushing. Decline pushups also throw more %weight on.

in a handstand it is 100%.

It will be over 50% of your bodyweight due to the distribution of weight between your torso and legs for a regular pushup. and increase in height of the feet compared to the arms would increase the % weight on the arms.

Elevate your feet a few inches, like on a 2 x 4, then put your hands on a bathroom scale to the get the exact amount.

MG

Sugarloaf has the best means of zeroing in on an exact amount, but in general there aren't many reliable weight ratio tables out there for push ups because everyone is built differently.

That being said, if you use Sugarloaf's method, and find you want to add weight, then just elevate your legs. Beyond that, adding weight utilizing a loaded backpack is also an effective way of increasing resistance during push-ups.

Originally Posted by flyinfree

in a handstand it is 100%.

Actually its more likely 98% Excluding your hands remember