28 Day Push Up Exercise Challenge

The 28-Day Push-Up Challenge is an adaptation of the Monthly Exercise Challenge for March (#MarchUp). This challenge is back to basics with Push-Ups. We’re going to challenge ourselves with this fundamental bodyweight exercise, and you should join us.

Don’t let the word ‘Push-up’ put you off. We have three levels and three push-up variations, including a wall press suitable for the absolute beginner or a full push-up for the seasoned push-up king.  

The press-up or push-up exercise is a staple of fitness ability, being used in testing within police and military forces worldwide, and for a good reason. It’s an excellent way to test an individual’s overall strength because it relies on many components of fitness, including muscular strength from shoulders, arms, and chest with core stability and joint range of motion, especially at the elbow and shoulder. It’s also a metabolic exercise that activates multiple muscle groups and requires good cardiovascular efficiency and capacity.

Many personal trainers love this exercise as a fundamental test of strength and fitness. You can start at your level and ability, starting with a standing wall press up onto a half-up and full push-up. There are also harder progressions, such as a decline in press-ups.  

If it’s March, then you can always join in with the monthly exercise challenge for March (MarchUp)

Push Up Test

This challenge is progressive; you should see some improvement in strength throughout it. We can test its effectiveness by conducting a simple press-up test at the start and end of the month. This is simple to do. Read my article Push IT with the Press-Up Strength Test on how to conduct your test together with a tracking sheet. You will also find typical values in that article, which you can compare yourself against.

The test involves you performing as many press-ups as you can to failure. This is also a good way to determine which of the press-up variations you should choose for the challenge. 

Rule of thumb for press-up choice

• If you can’t do 10 Half Press Ups, choose the Wall Press Up
• If you can’t do one Full Press Up, choose the Half Press Up
• If you can do more than 20 Half Press Ups, Choose the Full Press Up
• If you can do more than 20 Full Press Up, choose the Decline Press Up

The above test will help you choose a suitable push-up variation to start on. You can change the push-up variation at any time; score the points for your chosen variation.

Scoring Sheet

The challenge is split into three levels to score your progress; you don’t need to keep to one level; you can mix & match and go up or down a level. Each level has a score associated with it. Use the free-scoring sheet available for download below to track your progress and tally your monthly total score.

You get either 1, 2, or 3 points for the target level and 1, 2, or 3 points for the Push-Up variation. That’s a maximum of ‘6’ per day and a minimum of ‘2’ unless you skip a day, in which case it would be ‘0’.

e.g, if you choose the LEVEL 2 target guide and the Full Push Up you will get two points for the targets achieved and two points for the exercise variation for a grand total of four points for the day, simple.

Download Scoring Sheet

28 Day Push Up Challenge Scoring Sheet 72 KB 76 downloads

Scoring sheet to be used to track the 28 Day Push Up Challenge. …

Download

28 Day Push Up Challenge Daily Target Guide

Download the 28-Day Push Up Challenge daily target guide, share it with your friends, and pin it to your fridge.

Challenge Design

This challenge is progressive with a periodized training structure to allow adaptations, recovery and progression during the challenge; the target guide, as you can see from the chart below, is a classic example of a periodized training programme. The programme features a rise and fall in intensity, progressively increasing the overall load. We have used this style of programming to structure our #28DayPushUpChallenge Push-Up challenge,

28 Day Push Up Exercise Options

Select the push-up variation suitable for your fitness level.

Level 1 (+ 1 point)

Wall Press (Beginner)

Level 2 (+ 2 points)

Half Push Up (Intermediate)

Level 3 (+ 3 points)

Full Push Up (Advanced)

Top Tips

• Maintain a neutral spine postilion by looking down at the mat
• Keep body rigid; don’t let the hips drop towards the floor
• Look for a 90-degree (right angle) at the arms.
• Engage your core stabilizers.
• Perform slow and controlled, 2 seconds up and 2 seconds down.