The Ultimate Calisthenics Push Workout For Muscle Growth!

Are you looking for a challenging calisthenics push workout routine? The routine that will build some serious muscle using nothing but your body weight as resistance? If this is the case, you came to the right place.

This workout is designed to target your chest, shoulders, and triceps muscles. It’s a real deal. You will find it all in. Warm up, cool down, and all the exercises with sets and reps included.

The other cool thing about it – it’s completely customizable to your fitness level. Enjoy!

How To Design An Effective Calisthenics Push Workout

If you want to create your calisthenics workout for building muscle mass, there are a few important considerations to follow. The whole idea about efficiently assembling your workouts is as follows:

• Warm up before the main part of the workout: To reduce the probability of getting injured, always warm up before the main part of the workout.
• Start your workout with the hardest exercise: When you are fresh, you can do the most reps of the hardest exercise. As you go through the workout your central nervous system gets overloaded. So, you can do less and less intense exercises. Continue with easier exercises toward the end of the workout
• If you want to seriously overload each muscle group, do exercises targeting the same muscle group one after the other – otherwise, mix the muscle groups
• Do 2-4 minutes rest between sets
• Keep in the strength hypertrophy range: Do 5-8 reps per set to keep working in a strength hypertrophy range and don’t go over 15 reps unless you want to train for endurance. Pick the appropriate exercises from the corresponding progressions that will keep you working hard to stay in this range.
• End the workout with a cool-down stretching routine: To elongate and relax your muscles, end your workout with a short cool-down stretching routine.

Equipment Used In This Calisthenics Push Workout

For this workout, you will need some essential equipment:

• Exercise mat (optional)
• Bench (or some other elevated surface)
• Resistance band
• Pull-up bar (or pole, or door – something where you can fix your resistance band)

Complete Calisthenics Push Workout

Warm Up

Before plunging into this calisthenics push workout right away, please hold just a second. Warm-up is a really important part of the workout. So, important that you will never want to skip it. If you do, you are seriously asking for trouble.

Trust me, I skipped warm-up on several occasions. It turned out badly in most cases. I got injured and was forced to skip workouts completely for a week or two at best. You can forget about progressing during the injury.

You always have to lower the intensity of your workouts after the resting period is over. So it’s double trouble. First, you have to skip exercise and then you have to reduce the intensity. Not something you want when you are after building strength and muscle mass.

So, here’s a short 6-minute low-impact warm-up routine that will protect your joints from injury and warm up your muscles before the main part of the workout.

Push-ups

Now let’s start with the main part of the workout with push-ups. Push-ups are selected as a move that will target your chest muscles.

How to perform push-ups

• Start in a plank position: Your hands and toes will be on the ground. Your hands are a bit wider than shoulder width and your legs close to each other. Your body forms a straight line.
• Lower down: Bend your elbows and lower your body toward the ground. Keep on lowering down until your chest touches the ground. Don’t rest laying on the floor. Your weight should be supported with your arms, not your chest.
• Push up: Push yourself away from the ground by straightening your arms. Keep on pushing until your arms are completely straight and you are back in the starting position.
• Repeat for 5-8 reps in 3 sets

Variations

Before even starting with push-ups, you have to pick the exercise that will be just right for you. If push-ups are too hard look for easier exercises in a push-up progression. If push-ups are too easy, look for something that will challenge you more.

Incline push-ups

In a version where you want to completely overload each muscle group, you would do the easier version of an exercise targeting the same muscle group as the previous one. In this case, it’s an incline push-up.

How to do incline push-ups

• Do a push-up using an elevated surface: The positioning will be the same as in regular push-ups. The only difference is the placement of your hands. They should be positioned on an elevated surface.
• Lower down: Lower down by bending your elbows. Aim to touch an elevated surface with your chest.
• Push up: Push back up by straightening your arms. Keep on pushing until you are back in the starting position.
• Repeat for 5-8 reps in 3 sets

Variations

Like with push-ups, you can choose another exercise that will suit you perfectly. Check the entire push-up progression. Pick the exercise that will help you do 5-8 reps for 3 sets. This exercise should be easier than the previous one.

Pike push-ups

With the previous two exercises, you were working your chest muscles. To switch things up, now it’s time to target your shoulders. One of the easiest choices is the pike push-up.

How to do pike push-ups

• Start in a downward dog position: Pike push-ups are done from a pose that is very similar to a downward dog yoga pose. Ideally it will be a slightly modified downward dog pose with your upper body in a vertical position, or as close to vertical as possible.
• Lower down: Lower down leading with your head. You will be lowering by bending your elbows. Go down until your head touches the ground. But, don’t rest with your weight on your head. Touch the ground lightly.
• Push up: To return to the starting position, push yourself away from the floor.
• Repeat for 5-8 reps in 3 sets

Variations

Pike push-ups can be found in a handstand push-up progression. If this exercise is too hard, or too easy for you, you can pick another one from the progression. The perfect exercise will be the one you can do for 5-8 reps in 3 sets.

Incline diamond pike push-ups

Incline diamond pike push-up is an easier move than pike push-up. This makes it a perfect choice right after you did the pike push-up.

How to do incline diamond pike push-ups

• Start in a modified downward dog position on an elevated surface: The positioning will be similar to the positioning for pike push-ups. The difference is in the position of your hands. Your hands should be placed on an elevated surface with your thumbs and index fingers touching. This way, they are forming a diamond shape.
• Lower down: Again, you are lowering down by bending your elbows. You aim to touch an elevated surface with your head.
• Push up: Then, you push away with your arms to return where you started.
• Repeat for 5-8 reps in 3 sets

Variations

You can also select an easier or harder move depending on what suits you better. Like with pike push-ups, this skill is also found in handstand push-up progression. You can select an exercise that suits you perfectly from this progression.

Bench dips

If you want to work your triceps the first exercise that may come to your mind might be dips. It’s another calisthenics classic. In this case, we are talking about the bench dip variation that is easier to do than classic dips.

How to do bench dips

• Very important positioning tips: Bench dips can be tricky if you don’t position yourself correctly. In most cases, people place their hands on the bench facing forward. This combined with raising your shoulders to your ears spells danger to your shoulders. To avoid trouble, place your hands facing away from you to the sides and concentrate on keeping your shoulders level during the exercise.
• Lower down: Lower down your butt in front of the bench. Remember to keep your shoulders level to avoid putting unnecessary strain on your shoulders. Don’t let your shoulders come up to your ears while you are lowering down.
• Push up: Push away from the bench with your hands until you come back to where you started.
• Repeat for 5-8 reps in 3 sets

Variations

There is a limited variation of choices for targeting triceps using nothing but body weight. Some options may be:

• Bench dips
• Diamond push-ups
• Dips

Overhead Band Extensions

You can do this entire workout using only calisthenics exercises if you switch this last exercise with dips or diamond push-ups. In this case I wanted to show you how you can easily add and use a non body weight exercise too.

So, let’s conclude this workout with an exercise borrowed from the weightlifting world. This exercise is originally done using a cable machine in a gym. But, you can do it using a resistance band instead.

How to do overhead band extensions

• Tie a resistance band to a pull-up bar or a pole. It’s important that the band is placed so high that you can pull it over your head.
• Start by grabbing a resistance band with both hands.
• Pull a band over your head until your arms are straight.
• Release band tension by letting the band pull your arms back.
• Remember to keep the band under tension the whole time and not let it snap back.
• Repeat for 5-8 reps in 3 sets

Variations

If bodyweight exercise options are not enough, you can borrow some exercises from a weightlifting world using only resistance bands. Here are two options you can try:

• Overhand band extensions
• Lying triceps extensions

If you have dumbbells handy, you can do triceps extensions using dumbbells. You can do this while standing, or lying on your back.

Cool Down Stretching

Don’t forget to stretch after a workout. It will help you elongate muscle fibers and relax your muscles. So, you will be able to recover faster after the workout. A cold shower right after the workout will help with recovery too.

But don’t forget about getting a good night’s sleep of at least 8-9 hours. This is important for proper muscle protein synthesis. It’s the number one factor for your muscle growth.

Calisthenics Push Workout Conclusion

Here you have a complete calisthenics push workout. You can easily modify it and make it perfectly suitable for your fitness level.

I even let one exercise from the weightlifting world slide in. I did it so you can see how you can easily borrow gym exercises and seamlessly integrate them into your calisthenics workouts. This is especially useful when you miss exercises for targeting some specific smaller muscle groups like the biceps and triceps.

Use and tweak this calisthenics push workout to your liking and you will be well on your way to achieving your fitness goals!