Weighted Drop Push-Up

How to do the Weighted Drop Push-Up

1. 1Start in a high plank position with your hands slightly wider than shoulder-width apart and your feet together.
2. 2Lower your chest towards the ground, keeping your elbows close to your body.
3. 3Once your chest is just above the ground, explosively push yourself up, lifting your hands off the ground.
4. 4As you push up, quickly move your hands out to the sides and slightly forward, allowing your body to drop down towards the ground.
5. 5Catch yourself with your hands in the wider position and immediately lower your chest towards the ground again.
6. 6Repeat the push-up motion, dropping down and catching yourself with your hands in the narrower position.
7. 7Continue alternating between the wider and narrower hand positions for the desired number of repetitions.

Tip: Screw your hands into the floor as if turning the fingers outward to set the shoulders before each set.

Muscles worked

Common mistakes

• Hips sagging or piked — the body should stay a straight line from head to heels; squeeze the glutes and brace the abs before each rep.
• Elbows flared to 90 degrees — flaring the arms out wide loads the shoulder joint; keep the elbows tucked to about 45 degrees from the torso.
• Cutting the bottom short — chest should come to within a fist of the floor; if that means fewer reps, do fewer reps.
• Head dropping first — the chin reaching for the floor makes it look like a rep when it is not; keep the head neutral and lead with the chest.

Where it fits in a workout

Push-ups work as a warm-up before bench press, as a finisher after chest work or as the main push exercise when training with no equipment. Superset them with inverted rows or a band pull-apart for balance.

How many sets, how heavy and how hard: see what the ACSM position stands support.

Variations and alternatives

When to talk to someone

• Chest discomfort, feeling faint or lightheaded, or trouble breathing during or after exercise can be signs of a heart attack. In the US, call 911 right away; elsewhere, call your local emergency number.
• Heart, metabolic or kidney disease, or symptoms like these when you are active: talk to your doctor before you start or step up training.
• Pregnant: ask your obstetric care provider which exercise suits you.

More exercises

• All chest exercises
• All weighted exercises
• Archer Push-Up
• Banded Close Grip Push-Up
• BOSU Push-Up
• Dome Side BOSU Push-Up
• Clock Push-Up
• Close Grip Push-Up

Sources

1. ACSM position stand on exercise quantity and quality (Garber et al., 2011)
2. ACSM preparticipation health screening (Riebe et al., 2015)
3. ACOG Committee Opinion No. 804 on exercise in pregnancy (2020)
4. CDC: About Heart Attack Symptoms, Risk, and Recovery (2024)

Sources checked on October 17, 2026. Full citations are in the exercise library.