Pseudo Planche Push-Up
The pseudo planche push-up is a push-up performed with your shoulders leaned well forward past your hands, which sit beside your waist. It heavily loads the front of the shoulders, the serratus and the trunk, and it is a standard strength builder for the planche and other straight-arm gymnastics skills.
Also called: Pseudo Planche Pushup, PPPU, Planche Lean Push-Up, Forward-Lean Push-Up · Equipment: bodyweight · Pattern: push
Step by step
- Set your hands on the floor beside your waist, shoulder-width apart, with your fingers turned out to the sides or slightly back.
- Come up onto your toes in a rigid plank: glutes squeezed, pelvis tucked slightly and abs braced.
- Lean your shoulders forward past your hands until you feel heavy load on the front of your shoulders, and hold that lean for the whole set.
- Push the floor away so your upper back rounds slightly and your shoulder blades spread apart.
- Bend your elbows, keeping them close to your sides, and bring your chest down towards the floor without losing the lean.
- Press back up to straight arms, pushing the floor away at the top and keeping your hips in line with your shoulders.
- Shoulders ahead of your hands
- Push the floor away at the top
- Elbows close to your sides
- Glutes tight, body in one line
- Keep the lean on every rep
In VALDA, these cues are one tap away on the exercise while you train.
What it trains
| Muscle | Role | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Anterior deltoid: anterior | Prime mover | C |
| Serratus anterior | Prime mover | C |
| Pectoralis major: sternocostal (mid) | Prime mover | C |
| Pectoralis major: clavicular (upper) | Secondary | C |
| Triceps brachii: lateral head | Secondary | C |
| Rectus abdominis | Stabiliser | C |
| Biceps brachii | Stabiliser | C |
| Forearm flexors | Stabiliser | D |
Evidence grades: A = strong research base · B = good · C = limited · D = coaching consensus.
What goes wrong, and the fix
Losing the lean as you press
Fix: Hold your shoulders ahead of your hands from the first rep to the last.
Hips sagging
Fix: Squeeze your glutes, tuck your pelvis slightly and brace your abs.
Shoulder blades pinching together at the top
Fix: Push the floor away at the top so your upper back rounds slightly.
Elbows flaring out
Fix: Keep your elbows close to your sides as you bend them.
Leaning in too far, too soon
Fix: Start with a small lean and deepen it gradually over several weeks.
What the research says
StrengthMuscle growthSport performance
- Lean as load — Difficulty is set by how far the shoulders lean past the hands. A common approach is to start with a small lean, often with a static planche-lean hold, before adding reps.
- Sets and reps — A common approach is 3–5 sets of 3–8 reps, ending each set when the lean or body line is lost. There is no direct research on set schemes for this exercise.
- Muscle growth — Research finds muscle growth is similar across a wide range of loads when sets are taken close to failure. With bodyweight, lean depth is the main way to keep sets hard.
- Muscle use — An EMG study found push-ups with the hands shifted forward or back from the standard position raised abdominal and back-muscle activation. The deeper pseudo-planche lean has not been measured directly.
- Placement — Research on exercise order finds the exercise done first in a session tends to show the larger strength gain, so skill-strength work like this is commonly placed early.
Log the pseudo planche push-up in VALDA, with these cues one tap away while you train and your history for it in one place.
General information about exercise technique, not medical advice. If you have an injury or a health condition, your healthcare provider is the right person to ask.