Pike Push-up

What is Pike Push-up:

The Pike Push-up is a bodyweight overhead pressing exercise working primarily the shoulder flexors, shoulder abductors, and elbow extensors, particularly the front and middle deltoids and triceps brachii. It involves assuming a modified push-up position, raising the hips more than normal, and forming an inverted V with your body. This variation shifts the emphasis onto your shoulders compared to traditional push-ups.

Key Benefits:

  • Size and Strength: Targets the front and middle delts, upper chest, and triceps, promoting muscle growth and strength improvement.
  • Shoulder Emphasis: Targets the front and middle deltoids more than other push-up variations due to the inverted position emphasizing shoulder flexion and abduction, promoting shoulder muscle growth and strength.
  • Joint Stability: Enhances shoulder and elbow stability by engaging supporting muscles throughout the movement, contributing to joint health and injury prevention.
  • Core Activation: Requires core engagement to maintain stability and control throughout the movement, contributing to core strength and stability.
  • Functional Strength: Improves shoulder flexion and abduction strength, elbow extension strength, and overall fitness, translating to improved performance in daily activities and sports.
  • Versatile and Scalable: This can be performed with or without added resistance and can be modified in terms of body positioning to adjust difficulty, making it adaptable for all fitness levels.
  • Convenience: This exercise can be performed virtually anywhere without equipment, making it accessible and convenient for most individuals.

Variations:

  • Back to Wall Handstand Push-up: A more advanced overhead pressing variation where you are in an inverted position with your back facing the wall and feet on the wall for support.
  • Chest to Wall Handstand Push-up: A more advanced overhead pressing variation where you are in an inverted position with your chest facing the wall and feet on the wall for support.
  • Free Handstand Push-up: A more advanced overhead pressing variation where you are in a free handstand position, requiring you to balance yourself with only your hands.
  • Standard Push-up: A foundational pushing exercise that primarily targets the chest.
  • Wall Pike Push-up: Ideal for beginners, similar to the wall push-up. Perform Pike Push-ups with your hands on the wall, gradually lowering them to increase the difficulty as you progress until you can do them on the floor.
  • Elevated Pike Push-up: Place your feet on an elevated surface to distribute more of your body weight on your shoulders to increase the difficulty.
  • Weighted Pike Push-up: Increase the intensity by adding resistance with a weight vest or a backpack to intensify the movement rather than modifying your body positioning or opting for a harder variation.

Grip Variations:

  • Narrow to Shoulder-width Grip: Lessens the shoulder abduction aspect of the movement, thus making it more of a front deltoids and triceps exercise.
  • Wider than Shoulder-width Grip: Incorporates more shoulder abduction aspect into the movement, emphasizing the lateral head of the deltoid engagement along with the front deltoid and triceps.
  • On Floor: Balancing with your fingers and palms alone, requires a more stable body from shoulders to toes, making it harder to balance.
  • On Paralletes: It allows you to use your forearm muscles more efficiently by gripping paralletes, thus making it relatively easier to balance. However, doing the extra range of motion will make the exercise harder.
  • On Yoga Blocks: Similarly, it allows you to use your forearm muscles more efficiently by gripping the yoga blocks, thus making it relatively easier to balance. However, doing the extra range of motion will make the exercise harder.
  • On Gymnastic Rings: Due to the instability aspect of performing the exercise on rings, which also depends on the length of the straps, the exercise will be much harder to perform.

How to perform Pike Push-ups:

  • Starting Position: Get into a standing pike position with your hands slightly wider than shoulder-width apart. Your head should align with your arms, and your knees should be as straight as your flexibility allows. Engage your core and maintain shoulder elevation and slight protraction.
  • Execution: Initiate the movement by depressing your shoulders and lowering yourself towards the ground, allowing your head to go slightly forward between your hands. Hold this position briefly, then return to the starting position.
  • Repetition: Repeat the movement for your desired number of repetitions.

Breathing Technique:

Proper breathing is crucial for maximizing performance and maintaining stamina throughout the exercise. Experiment with what you're comfortable with and let you perform your best. For starters, you can try the following:

  • Inhale: Inhale at the starting position.
  • Exhale: Exhale at the end position.
  • Hand Position: From a pronated hand position, rotate your hand slightly outward to help reduce the strain on your wrists.
  • Flexibility Limitation: The point of the exercise is loading the front and lateral deltoids through the shoulder flexion and abduction, not strictly maintaining straight legs. While it helps to keep it straight for stability and standardization purposes, it shouldn't be a limiting factor in your performance. So, feel free to bend your legs as needed and just adjust your body positioning to maintain the appropriate level of intensity.
  • Scapular Engagement- Starting Position: You can either choose to maintain shoulder depression at the starting position or shoulder elevation, engaging the levator scapulae and upper traps, strengthening your shoulder elevation strength in preparation for more advanced overhead push-up variation involving shoulder elevation to counteract depression through gravity and better stabilize yourself.
  • Scapular Engagement- Execution Phase: Maintain scapular depression and slight protraction throughout the execution phase of the exercise to stabilize the shoulders and engage the muscles more effectively.
  • Shoulder Rotation: Maintain shoulder external rotation for better stability throughout the exercise.
  • Modify as Needed: You can modify the intensity by adjusting the degree of your pike or the height of your hips over your shoulders.
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    Additional Information:

    Ways to make it easier:

    • Focusing only on the Concentric or Eccentric phase
    • Getting your feet farther from your hands, decreasing the pike
    • Decreasing the Range of Motion - partial reps, only go as far as you can handle
    • Using external force for support - resistance bands, a partner or something
    • Regressing to an easier variation/exercise

    Ways to make it harder:

    • Playing with the Tempo & adding an Isometric phase (pause/hold)
    • Getting your feet closer to your hands, increasing the pike
    • Leaning a bit more forward on your way down
    • Elevating your feet - The higher it is, the harder the exercise gets
    • Increasing the Range of Motion - using a pair of paralletes or yoga block
    • Adding resistance - wearing weight vest or backpack
    • Progressing to a harder variation/exercise