Wide-Grip Push-ups
The wide-grip push-up is a push-up with your hands placed well outside shoulder width. The wider hand position puts more stretch on your chest and less work on your triceps, with your shoulders assisting. Pick it to bias your chest with bodyweight. Keep the width moderate, because going extremely wide shortens your range and loads the shoulders.
Muscles worked
The wide-grip push-ups trains the chest, with shoulders helping.
Weekly sets for chest
Hard sets per week that Swole.fit plans for chest, counting every exercise that trains it. Start a cycle near the growth line and climb toward the recovery limit before a deload.
How to do the wide-grip push-ups
- 01Place your hands about one and a half times shoulder width apart, fingers turned slightly outward.
- 02Walk your feet back into a straight plank and brace your abs and glutes.
- 03Lower your chest toward the floor, letting your elbows bend out over your wrists.
- 04Go down until you feel a stretch across your chest and your chest is just above the floor.
- 05Press back up by driving your hands together against the floor, without letting them actually slide.
Coaching cues
- Elbows stay stacked over wrists
- Feel the stretch across your chest
- Squeeze the floor together on the way up
Common mistakes
- Setting your hands so wide that you only move a few centimetres kills the training effect; narrow the grip until you reach full depth.
- Letting your wrists sit inside your elbows at the bottom stresses the shoulders; move your hands until forearms are vertical.
- Shrugging your shoulders toward your ears as you push weakens the press; keep your shoulders pulled down away from your ears.
How Swole.fit programs it
Log it once and the app plans the next session for you.
- Most sets land between 8 and 15 reps, the range the plan steers compound lifts toward for size.
- Week one starts around 2 to 3 reps in reserve. Each week you train a little closer to failure, ending around 0 to 1 in reserve before a deload week.
- Once the top of the range is easy, Swole.fit suggests a harder variation or added load.
- Sets for this exercise count toward your weekly volume for every muscle it trains: a full set for the primary muscles, half a set for the helpers.
The full method, with the maths, is in how mesocycles work.
Wide-Grip Push-ups alternatives
Same muscles, different tool. Swap in one of these when the equipment is taken or your joints want a change.
Log it. Let the app plan the next one.
Track your wide-grip push-ups free. Swole.fit picks the next weight, counts your weekly sets and tells you when to deload.