maratoolDrop Push
How to do the drop push
- Position low boxes or other platforms 2-3 feet apart.
- Move to a pushup position between them, supporting yourself by placing your hands on the boxes.
- With good posture, drop from the platforms by pressing up and moving your hands to shoulder width, cushioning your landing by absorbing the impact through the arm.
Muscles worked
The force comes from the pectoralis major, which drives the upper arm forward and across the body.
A plyometric repetition is over before a slow contraction could contribute anything, so it has to produce that force immediately on contact.
Because more than one joint is moving, the work does not stay in one place: the deltoids stabilise the shoulder and add force at the top of the range; the triceps straighten the elbow to finish the movement.
How this movement works
The working muscles shorten as they drive the load away from you, and more than one joint changes angle to do it. Load spreads down a chain instead of sitting on one muscle, which is why a compound push handles more weight than any single-joint alternative — and why joint position, not the muscle, is usually what fails first.
It is filed under plyometrics, which trains the stretch-shortening cycle: loaded fast, released immediately. Contact time matters more than volume, so these belong early in a session.
What you need
These train the chest too, using equipment this one does not:
- Dumbbell Bench Press with Neutral Gripdumbbell
- Dumbbell Bent Arm Pulloverbench + dumbbell
- Extended Range One-Arm Kettlebell Floor Presskettlebell
- Flat Bench Cable Flyescable
- Incline Bench Press with Bandsband + bench
Difficulty
Listed at intermediate level. It assumes you already own the underlying pattern and can hold position under load — if the position breaks before the target muscle tires, drop back to a beginner variation until it does not.
Of the 105 chest exercises in this database, 22 are listed at intermediate level.
Photos: free-exercise-db — public domain (Unlicense) Full attribution →
ⓘ Informational only — not a substitute for professional fitness or medical advice.