We found the best way to fire up your lower body during a push-up

You do push-ups primarily to increase arm strength and tone those triceps. When you want to train the rest of your body, you whip out the squats, planks, and burpees. But there’s a way to work your upper and lower body with TRX push-ups. You just need the right equipment.

When it comes to push-ups, evidently the most popular and well-known version (on the floor) isn’t the best you can be doing. In an older study, published in the Journal of Exercise Science & Fitness, researchers compared push-ups done on the floor to those utilizing wobble boards, stability disks, fitness domes, and TRX suspension trainers. It was no competition. GQ reports that while the other instability devices did help the exercise hit more muscle groups, performing a push-up while suspended in the air was by-far the best way to fire up the lower body.

Now, finding a TRX suspension trainer isn’t nearly as easy as grabbing an exercise ball at the gym. But if you do have access, you’ll feel the lower-body effects immediately. In the video below, Nike trainer and certified TRX instructor Joselynne Boschen explains exactly how to perform the exercise. Start by standing with your knuckles in line with your shoulders and slowly bend your arms into a push-up position, then straighten them to bring yourself back up. Once you want to add more difficulty, step back a couple feet and perform the push-ups at more of an angle.

Instead of just your arms aching after you’re finished, you’ll be feeling these push-ups everywhere.



This lunge sequence from Ariana Grande’s trainer works every angle of your lower body. Or, tone your lower body with this 10-minute, ballet-inspired workout.