In a few of my recent articles, I shared some push-up tips and variations. Today, I wanted to share one of my personal favorites—the Spiderman Push-up.
The reason I love this one is that it not only targets the upper body and core like any great push-up, it also forces some serious mobility and range of motion on the hips.
The goal of the Spiderman Push-up is to draw your knee in toward your elbow on the same side of your body while you perform the push-up. As soon as you bring your foot off the ground, you create a higher level of engagement on the abs to stabilize you throughout the movement.
Here are some tips for performing the Spiderman Push-up:
• Set up with a tight core and create full body tension by squeezing your glutes, legs, abs and upper back.
• Lower down into a push-up and pull your right leg up with a bent knee toward your same side elbow.
• As you come back up to the top position of the push-up, bring your leg back to the starting point and switch sides on the next repetition.
• This is a very advanced movement, so make sure you can complete at least 10 solid push-ups from your toes before graduating to this exercise.
• If you do want to try it, a great regression is to put your knees on the floor and perform the movement with one knee down.
Here’s a video demonstration for the Spiderman Push-up. Add this into your upper body session or into a full body strength and conditioning circuit. Be sure to leave a comment if you have any questions, and also let me know how it goes for you.