One Armed Biased Push Up

Muscles worked

The prime mover is the pectoralis major, which drives the upper arm forward and across the body.

Even with a single joint doing the moving, the muscle is not working alone — the triceps straighten the elbow to finish the movement; the biceps add force at the elbow; the deltoids stabilise the shoulder and add force at the top of the range.

The abdominals take a share of the work as well.

Every exercise for:ChestTricepsBicepsShouldersAbdominals

How this movement works

Everything happens at one joint. That gives you direct control over where the tension sits; the trade-off is that the muscle gets no help, so the load that feels hard here is a fraction of what a multi-joint version of the pattern would take. Slow, complete repetitions beat heavy ones.

It is filed under strength: produce force against resistance for a countable number of repetitions, and progress the resistance over time.

What you need

The exercise ball is an unstable base on purpose. It shortens the leverage you can hold and demands constant small corrections, so the trunk works even when the movement is aimed elsewhere.

Every exercise using:Exercise ball

These train the chest too, using equipment this one does not:

• One-Arm Flat Bench Dumbbell Flyedumbbell
• One-Arm Kettlebell Floor Presskettlebell
• Plyo Push-upbody only
• Single-Arm Cable Crossovercable
• Smith Machine Bench Pressbench + smith machine + machine