Feet Elevated Pike Push-Up
What Is the Feet Elevated Pike Push-Up?
Feet Elevated Pike Push-Up is a compound exercise that primarily targets the shoulders, and also engages the triceps, the upper chest and the muscles that hold the shoulder blades in place. It is an intermediate-level movement performed with the feet on a flat bench and the hands flat on the floor, so the hips ride high and the press runs close to vertical instead of horizontal.
Raising the feet is the standard next step after the floor Pike Push-Up. The movement has no competition or fitness-test role, but it is the middle rung of the bodyweight vertical pressing ladder that ends at the Handstand Push-Up, and it is the usual way to keep training overhead strength when no weights are available. In a program it sits where a shoulder press would sit: the main pressing exercise of a bodyweight session, or accessory work after heavier pushing.
How hard it is comes down to two things you control. The higher the bench and the closer your hands sit to it, the more vertical your torso and the larger the share of your bodyweight your shoulders have to move, while a lower box or feet set further from your hands gives some of that back. What foot height cannot change is depth. With your hands on the floor the repetition ends when the top of your head reaches the floor, which is why the step above this one is the Pike Push-Up (Between Benches), where raised hands let the head travel below them.
It suits anyone who already presses well in the floor pike position and wants more load without buying equipment, and it carries over directly to hand balancing work such as the Wall Handstand Hold. If your hips sink or your head stops well short of the floor, go back to the floor version until you can run 8 to 10 clean repetitions there, and keep general pressing strength moving with the Push-Up and the Decline Push-Up alongside it.
Muscles Worked
- Deltoid
- Primary
- Pectoralis Major
- Medium
- Serratus Anterior
- Medium
- Upper Trapezius
- Medium
Instructions
- Set a flat bench behind you and check that it cannot slide.
- Kneel with your back to the bench, set your hands flat on the floor and place your feet on top of it one at a time.
- Walk your hands back toward the bench until your hips stack high over your shoulders and your body forms a steep inverted V.
- Set your hands flat on the floor slightly wider than shoulder-width, fingers pointing forward, with your arms straight.
- Keep your legs straight and your feet about hip-width apart on the bench, and brace your abs so your lower back does not arch.
- Let your head hang in line with your spine, with your gaze back toward your feet rather than forward.
- Bend your elbows and lower the top of your head toward the floor between your hands, keeping your upper arms traveling back at about 45 degrees rather than straight out to the sides.
- Stop when the top of your head is just above the floor, with your hips still stacked high.
- Press through your palms and straighten your arms fully to return to the start position.
- Take no weight through your head at any point, and start the next repetition from the same high pike.
Common Mistakes
Hips sagging out of the pike
Letting the hips drop flattens the body into a decline push-up and hands the work back to the chest.
Flaring the elbows out to the sides
Driving the upper arms straight out crowds the front of the shoulder at the bottom instead of keeping the press where it is strongest.
Pushing off the head
Resting the top of the head on the floor and using it to start the press loads the neck and takes the work off the shoulders.
Craning the neck to look forward
Lifting the chin to see ahead extends the neck under load and tips the body out of the pike position.
Cutting the descent short
Stopping with the head well above the floor skips the range where the shoulders do most of the work.
Unstable setup
A bench that can slide, or feet perched on its edge, turns a hard set into a fall.
Injuries
Feet Elevated Pike Push-Up is a medium risk exercise when performed with proper technique. Raising the feet puts more of your bodyweight over your hands than the floor Pike Push-Up does, and it does it with the shoulders working close to overhead, so the front of the shoulder, the wrists and the neck all take more than they would in an ordinary push-up.
The wrists usually complain first. Your palms are flat on the floor, which holds the wrist near the end of its extension range for the whole set, and the steeper the pike the more weight sits on it. Push-up handles, parallettes or a pair of light dumbbells, as in the Dumbbell Push-Up, keep the wrist straight and stacked over the forearm. Warming the wrists before the first set and adding foot height gradually does more than any of them.
The front of the shoulder is the next concern, and it is mostly a question of elbow path. Driven straight out to the sides, the upper arms crowd the joint at the bottom of every repetition, while letting them travel back at about 45 degrees keeps the press where the shoulder is strong. The neck needs the same care, because your head is moving toward the floor under load. Keep it in line with your spine and never let it carry weight; if you catch yourself pushing off the top of your head to start the press, the set is finished.
If you cannot reach the floor with your hips high, lower the bench, move your feet further from your hands, or drop back to the floor Pike Push-Up. When the full range gets easy, raise the feet higher, slow the descent, or move on to the Pike Push-Up (Between Benches) for depth this version cannot give. A sharp pinch at the front of the shoulder, wrist pain rather than ache, or any tingling or pressure in the neck ends the set, and none of the three is worth training through.
- Primary Focus
- Shoulders
- Equipment
- Body weight and bench
- Modality
- Strength
- Difficulty
- Intermediate
Alternative Exercises
Frequently Asked Questions
- Q: How high should the bench be?
A standard flat bench, roughly knee height, is the usual step up from the floor and is where most people stay. Go higher only once you can control the full range there, because every extra inch of foot height moves more of your bodyweight onto your shoulders.
- Q: When am I ready to put my feet on a bench?
When you can complete 8 to 10 floor Pike Push-Ups with your hips high and your head coming all the way down on every repetition. If the last few turn into half reps, stay on the floor version a while longer.
- Q: How is this different from the Pike Push-Up (Between Benches)?
Your hands are flat on the floor here, so the repetition ends when the top of your head reaches it. The Pike Push-Up (Between Benches) raises the hands as well as the feet, which lets the head drop below hand level and adds range this version cannot reach.
- Q: Can it replace an overhead press?
It trains the same vertical pressing pattern with nothing but a bench, which makes it a sound stand-in at home or while traveling. It cannot be loaded in small increments, though, so a Dumbbell Shoulder Press or Barbell Overhead Press is still the better tool once you are chasing maximum strength.
- Q: How many sets and reps should I do?
Three to four sets of 6 to 10 controlled repetitions, each stopped a rep or two short of failure, suits most people. Treat it as strength work rather than a conditioning finisher, and slow the descent before you raise the bench when you want a set to be harder.
- Q: My wrists hurt during the set. What can I do?
Put your hands on push-up handles, parallettes or a pair of light dumbbells so the wrist stays straight rather than bent back. Warm the wrists up first, and drop back to a lower bench for a few weeks while you build tolerance to the position.