Do pushups work biceps?

Trying to work your biceps with regular push ups is a waste of time and energy. To your biceps using push ups, you have to do reverse ‘grip’ push ups instead. Beware though, reverse push ups are much harder than regular ones to execute correctly!

Introduction

Conventional push ups barely work your biceps muscles.

There is a variation on regular pushups that work your biceps much more than the standard, conventional push ups do, though. But before discussing that variant, I'll show you how a regular push up looks first.

Then, I'll show what the aforementioned variation on the regular push up looks like, so you can compare the two.

After you've seen the correct technique for a regular push up, you'll see the striking difference in the variation and better understand why the alternative exercise works your biceps much more than the regular push up does.

So let's get started!

What does a push up look like?

To see the striking difference between regular push ups and the variation of push ups that target your biceps more, let's first begin by seeing how regular push ups look like in the first place, in each part of the exercise (starting position, concentric and eccentric phases, and the bottom position).

Starting position of a regular push up

The starting position is when your upper body is at the top with your arms extended, as displayed in the image below.

Ascending and descending phases

To do a push up, you have to lower your body to the ground until your chest barely touches the floor (which is the bottom position of the exercise, see the next section) before pushing yourself back up using nothing other than your arm and chest muscles.

Both the ascending and descending phases look and are done similarly; see the image below.

Bottom position of a regular push up

As stated in the previous section, the bottom position is when your upper body is closest to the ground. In this position, your muscles (chest and triceps, as well as parts of your deltoids) are stretched maximally in the exercise.

You can see in the image below what the bottom position in a regular push up looks like.

What muscles do regular push ups work?

The muscles worked by a push up are very similar to the ones worked by bench pressing.

Push ups primary muscles worked

• Pectoralis major
• Triceps brachii

Push ups secondary muscles worked

• Deltoids (front and side)
• Serratus anterior
• Core muscles (such as your abs)

Difference in muscles worked between push ups and bench press

A big difference with the bench press is that with push ups, your abs and overall core is targeted more due to the plank position you have to maintain during the exercise.

In the bench press, your back is supported by the bench, meaning that much less core activation is required to maintain your posture (although there is always some core activation involved, but it's much less compared to push ups).

Do pushups work your biceps?

Here is a question for you:

Do you see 'biceps' anywhere in the list of muscles worked above?

Exactly!

There is no 'biceps' in the list! And that's simply because:

Of course, there is some activation of your biceps, but that also goes for your traps, your back muscles, your leg muscles, and even your calf muscles!

Does that mean that push ups also work all those other muscles? Of course not!

The activation of all other muscles other than the primary or secondary muscles worked by push ups, is simply because your body has to maintain a particular posture (a plank position), which means there has to be some tonus in all muscles of your body.

Simply put, this muscle tonus helps to maintain your posture.

How to activate biceps in pushups

As you can see, regular push ups don't target your biceps at all. As such, it would be foolish to expect getting larger and much stronger biceps by doing regular push ups.

If you genuinely want to grow your biceps (both in mass as well as in strength), then it's best to do much more effective exercises for the biceps, such as pull ups, rows, and isolation work like dumbbell biceps curls.

If, for whatever reason, you insist on working your biceps, then luckily, there is a minor tweak you can make to regular push ups that will result in much more biceps activation during your push ups.

It involves reversing your hand position on the floor, resulting in an exercise called reverse grip push ups.

What do reverse push ups look like?

Notice in the image below that the starting position still involves making a plank posture with your upper body and legs, but my hands are now placed on the ground with my fingers pointing backward.

In other words, my hands are placed on the ground in a reversed position compared to regular push ups.

As a result, I have slightly leaned forward with my body due to the otherwise extreme angle my wrist will make because of the reverse hand positions.

Also, notice that, like in the regular push up, my upper body and legs form a straight line. In other words, do not raise or lower your hips if you want your posture and technique to be correct.

Starting position of reverse push ups

Notice in the image below that the starting position still involves making a plank posture with your upper body and legs, but my hands are now placed on the ground with my fingers pointing backward.

In other words, my hands are placed on the ground in a reversed position compared to regular push ups.

As a result, I have slightly leaned forward with my body due to the otherwise extreme angle my wrist will make because of the reverse hand positions.

Also, notice that, like in the regular push up, my upper body and legs form a straight line. In other words, do not raise or lower your hips if you want your posture and technique to be correct.

Ascending and descending phases

From the starting position, you then have to lower yourself to the bottom position. In the bottom position, your chest will barely touch the ground, just as in the bottom position of the regular push up.

The difference here is, again, the forward-leaning of your upper body, as you can see me doing in the images below.

Note also my neck how you see my muscles are more contracted, and veins pop out more. That's because the reverse grip push ups are much harder than regular ones!

After reaching the bottom position, you need to push yourself back up to the starting position.

Both the descending and ascending phases of this exercise look the same, though (see the images above).

Bottom position of reverse push ups

The bottom position is, as described previously, when your chest barely touches the floor.

Compared to the bottom position of the regular push up, note how my body is leaned much more forward due to my reverse hand positions (see image below).

How to do reverse grip push ups

1. Starting position

Starting position: To get on the starting position, get in a plank position on your hands and feet. Make sure to rotate your hands so that your fingers point backward (for reference, in a regular push up, your fingers point forward).

The starting position in reverse grip push ups is, in fact, very important and determines how much your biceps will be activated during the exercise.

Make sure to lean forward a bit to keep your balance and to reduce the strain on your wrists (the less you lean forward, the more strain is placed on your wrists as the wrist angle will be greater)

2. Descend until bottom position

Descend until bottom position: If you've nailed the starting position (which is in itself hard to actually stay in that position, as your biceps are constantly under tension to maintain the position), then the rest will be simple to execute.

From the starting position, lower yourself until your chest barely touches the ground. While lowering yourself, it is okay to lean forward a bit more in order to keep your balance.

3. Push yourself back up

Push yourself back up: Once you're in the bottom position, it's time to do the concentric part of the exercise.

From the bottom position, push yourself back up in the reverse manner of how you lowered yourself until your back is in the starting position. This means that if you learned forward more during the descending phase, now you have to lean back the same amount in the ascending phase.

4. Repeat

Repeat: After you're back in the starting position, you may repeat the exercise in the same manner for the required number of reps and sets.

If possible, try to do 3 sets of 5 reps (remember, though, reverse grip push ups are much harder than regular push ups, so don't beat yourself if you can't do 5 reps yet).

Why are reverse grip push ups so hard?

Be advised that although reverse grip push ups are a great variation that targets your biceps much more than regular push ups, they're also much harder to do!

As a matter of fact, just staying in the starting position is hard in itself.

That's because your biceps are activated a lot more to maintain the starting position by holding up all the weight of your torso.

Also, it's harder to lock out your arms in the starting position, meaning that your biceps, triceps, and chest are continuously under tension during the whole exercise and all positions of the exercise.

And to make matters even worse, the tension on your deltoids (your front and side shoulder muscles in particular) is much more compared to the regular push ups.

Because all these muscles are continuously under tension, the result is that reverse grip push ups are much harder than regular push ups.

Weight distribution and load on biceps and shoulders

Another reason why reverse grip push ups are so hard is due to the weight distribution of the human body and the fact that push up your upper body in any type of push up exercise is hard in the first place, let alone if the load is placed more on your biceps and shoulders.

The weight distribution of the human (male) body is about 56% of total body mass for the trunk and head.

So if you weigh 180 lbs (about 81.6 kg), then your head and torso will weigh about 100.8 lbs (about 45.7 kg) together.

This means that each arm has to push up at least 50.4 lbs (half of 100.8 lbs, or about 22.85kg) during a reverse grip push up, together with your deltoids and chest muscle (and to a lesser extent, triceps brachii muscles as well).

Note that I said at least, because I didn't even include the weight of your upper arms and lower body in the calculation.

Now, can you imagine doing biceps curls with 50 lbs dumbbells? That's REALLY heavy, and I bet that if you don't have much strength training experience, you won't be able to curl that weight up with strict and proper form (neither can I).

So as you see, the amount of weight on your shoulders and biceps is a LOT, and that's why the tension on your biceps and shoulders is so large during reverse grip push ups, making the exercise much harder than regular push ups.

Conclusion

Doing regular push ups is a waste of time if your goal is to grow your biceps (push ups are great for working your chest, deltoids, and triceps, though).

If, for whatever reason, you MUST do push ups with the goal of targetting your biceps, then do reverse grip push ups as described in this article.

If you truly want to grow your biceps and make them stronger, it's best to target them directly by doing lots of isolation work, such as dumbbell or barbell biceps curls. Also, don't forget to include compound exercises that work your biceps as secondary muscle groups.

Almost all pulling exercises work your biceps, so examples of compound pulling exercises that you can do are pullups and barbell rows.

How hard do you find reverse grip push ups to be?