Push Up Workout Plan: 3 Day Progression

About this plan

Twenty-four push-up variations across three sessions, arranged as a ladder from a wall push-up to a pseudo planche. This is not a plan to do more push-ups — it is a plan to move up through the versions.

Day one is the on-ramp: wall push-ups, incline push-ups on a bench, kneeling push-ups, scapula push-ups, push-up plus, a twenty-second isometric hold, kneeling shoulder taps and a plank. Day two moves horizontally — close-grip, wide-hand, negatives, push-up to side plank, shoulder taps, incline scapula push-ups, hollow holds and plank-to-push-up. Day three is the hard end: pike, diamond, archer, single-arm from the knees, hands-release, pseudo planche.

Two exercises deserve more attention than they usually get. The scapula push-up trains the serratus anterior — the muscle that lets your shoulder blades move around the ribcage rather than sitting stuck. Weakness there is why some people's shoulders ache after a push-up session, and it is why day one and day two both include one. The negative push-up on day two is the fastest route to a first full rep: you only lower, taking five seconds, then reset on your knees. Lowering is stronger than pushing, so this trains the movement before you can do it.

Every set is one set. That is unusual and deliberate — this is a skill session rather than a volume session, and quality across many variations beats fatigue across one.

Progress by moving up a variation, not by adding reps. If eight kneeling push-ups are clean, try five from the floor. The archer and pseudo planche on day three are genuinely advanced; treat them as something to attempt rather than complete, and stop the set the moment your hips drop.