There’s no doubt the classic push-up is a great bodyweight exercise. It mainly works your chest, triceps and shoulders, and helps to improve your core strength, and you can do it pretty much anywhere.
However, sticking to regular push-ups not only gets boring after a while, even if you do regular push-up challenges, but also means you miss out on other benefits that you can gain from doing variations on the move.
Some of the most common variations include diamond push-ups, where you move your hands closer together to target the triceps more, and wide push-ups, where you spread your hands further to hit the chest more.
I’ve done all manner of push-up variations in my workouts, but one variation I hadn’t come across before is the banded hover push-up, which I saw on the Instagram of fitness trainer Kyle Knapp, who also gives tips on how to do the exercise.
The only bit of kit you need for the move is a mini looped resistance band, though having one of the best yoga mats available to do the exercise on would also be handy. Knapp suggests a light resistance band is the way to go.
How to do banded hover push-ups
To do a banded hover push-up, loop the resistance band around both of your palms and get into a normal push-up position. Lower your chest towards the floor and push back up, then lift one hand slightly off the floor for a second, before putting it back down. Then do another push-up and when you come back up lift the other hand off the floor for a second.
When you lift your hand, aim to keep the tension in the resistance band while also holding the rest of your body still. As Knapp explains in his post, you don’t want to be lifting your hand too far off the floor and twisting your entire body to do it. Try and maintain a plank position while lifting your hand just slightly off the floor.
You don’t want to be lifting your hand too far off the floor and twisting your entire body to do it.
It’s a small motion, but holding your position while lifting your hand is surprisingly tough, and it engages all manner of stabilizer muscles throughout your upper body and core. If you can get through a set of 10-20 banded hover push-ups you’ll not only be strengthening all the muscles usually worked by push-ups, but also improving your core strength and stability.
Knapp provides several tips for the banded hover push-up in his post including some ways to make the move easier when first starting. You can do it as an incline push-up, where you rest your hands on a bench rather than on the floor, and moving the band higher up your arm will make it easier as well. Knapp also suggests just doing the hover at first, and adding the push-up once you’re comfortable with that.
The position of your hands also affects how hard the banded hover push-up is. The closer they are together, the easier the hover will be — spread your hands out wide and it becomes very challenging to lift your hand off the floor without collapsing.
Banded hover push-ups vs resistance band push-ups
With resistance band push-ups you loop the band around your hands and over your back, so it provides resistance when you press back up from the floor. It’s a way of increasing the challenge of a standard push-up, while the banded hover push-up introduces a new motion to the move with the hand lift, which works your core more.
For the resistance band push-up you’ll need a longer looped resistance band, and if you have one of those and a mini band handy you could combine both moves into one for a really difficult version of the banded hover push-up.
