Slide show: Weight training exercises
Woman doing pushup
Previous Next 9 of 11 Pushup

Weight training includes exercises that use your own body weight for resistance. The pushup, for example, strengthens the pectoral muscles in the front of your chest, the shoulder muscles and the triceps muscles in the back of your upper arms.

Position yourself on your hands and feet with your eyes facing the floor. Place your hands slightly greater than shoulder-width apart and your feet comfortably apart. Slowly bend your elbows and lower your chest until your chin reaches the ground.

You'll feel tension in the muscles in your back, abdomen and upper arms. Then slowly return to the starting position. Repeat.

If a pushup is difficult for you to do, try a modified pushup. In this exercise, perform a pushup while keeping your knees on the ground.

When you're doing pushups, be careful not to let your back or hips sag down or arch up. Keep your movements smooth and controlled.

From Mayo Clinic to your inbox

Sign up for free and stay up to date on research advancements, health tips, current health topics, and expertise on managing health. Click here for an email preview.

To provide you with the most relevant and helpful information, and understand which information is beneficial, we may combine your email and website usage information with other information we have about you. If you are a Mayo Clinic patient, this could include protected health information. If we combine this information with your protected health information, we will treat all of that information as protected health information and will only use or disclose that information as set forth in our notice of privacy practices. You may opt-out of email communications at any time by clicking on the unsubscribe link in the e-mail.

See more Multimedia Nov. 01, 2022