Master Wall Push Ups for Long Term Strength

If you have trouble banging out a ton of push ups on the floor then wall push ups are a great alternative for you.

Don’t get FOMO about this. Getting strong and improving how you move is all about mastering the basics. You can’t run until you learn how to walk!

You don’t have to do wall push ups forever. Just until you get strong enough to go back on the floor for regular push ups.

In this article, I’ll show you how to do wall push ups and give you some guidance on when it’s time to get back on the ground for a greater challenge.

Why do Wall Push Ups?

The beauty of regressing a strength exercise is that because the level of challenge is much lower you can really pay attention to what you’re doing.

When you’re just fighting for your life to get a couple of extra reps, you’re not really learning anything new about your movement. You will also be compensating like hell because the only concern is to get more reps, not necessarily quality reps.

This means that you will use whatever muscles and joints you need to in order to get a few more reps. But it won’t necessarily be the most efficient use of your body, which is why so many people report getting pain and discomfort when doing push ups.

If you want to get stronger for the long-term in a pain-free way, it’s critical to reduce the intensity of an exercise so you can understand what you’re doing.

How to do a Wall Push Up

When you do a push-up on the wall rather than on the floor, your lower body is essentially out of the picture. This means less load to push which makes the exercise much easier.

In this variation, you can really focus on what your neck, shoulders and ribcage are doing. So before I tell you how to do it, I recommend you do a few reps on your own to see how it looks and feels for you.

If you can be by a mirror or record yourself, this would be optimal. If not, that’s ok too and you can pay attention more to how the exercise feels.

Here are some things to pay attention to:

• Pay attention to what your ribcage is doing. Make sure it is not flaring forward. Think about tucking your pelvis and keeping the ribs down while you perform the exercise.
• Ensure you are not absorbing too much tension in your neck. Keep your shoulders down and relax your neck throughout the exercise.
• The scapula should spread apart from each other at the top and come together in the lowering part of the movement. This is an essential part of the exercise.

Progressing Past Wall Push Ups

Once you can easily do 3-4 sets of 10 reps of wall push-ups, I recommend moving on to kneeling push ups. Bring all of what you learned in the wall push ups to this variation.

The level of intensity will increase in this variation so your form will be challenged more. The way you to get stronger with bodyweight training is by maintaining good mechanics as the intensity increases.

There is a “goldilocks zone” to exercise where the intensity is just enough to challenge your form but not so difficult that you can’t even do a couple of reps before your form breaks down.

Your form should stay solid for at least the first 3-4 reps. If you feel like you can’t do kneeling push ups at this level yet then go back to wall push ups and do more sets and/or reps for a few weeks. Once the kneeling push ups get easy (10 reps for 3-4 sets), try regular push ups. 

Closing Thoughts 

It took me a long time to swallow my pride and regress exercises that were too challenging for me. Fitness is presented to us in our culture as something that needs to be exhausting - no pain, no gain. 

But how far has this approach gotten you? If you're like most people and have a busy life with many responsibilities, you don't need another extreme stressor like frequent intense exercise. 

Difficult exercise has its place but if that's all you do, you are unlikely to see your movement improve. Focus on getting a little stronger each day rather than swinging for the fences every time you workout.