pushup

Other forms: pushups

When you exercise by lying on your stomach, raising yourself up on extended arms, and lowering your body again, you do a pushup. Doing pushups strengthens muscles in your arms, chest, and shoulders.

If your basketball coach tells the team to do twenty pushups, she wants you to raise and lower your body from the floor using your arms — pushing yourself up over and over again (twenty times, to be exact). Pushups are a common calisthenic or weight-bearing exercise in gym class, the military, and at home when you need a relatively easy way to make your arms stronger. In Britain, it's also called a press-up.

Definitions of pushup

1. noun

   an arm exercise performed lying face to the floor and pushing the body up and down with the arms
   synonyms: press-up

   types:

   widegrip pushup

   a pushup with the arms widely separated

   type of:

   arm exercise

   exercise designed to strengthen the arm muscles