Push-ups or bench press: which one builds bigger pecs?

Push-ups and bench press: the same movement for your pecs?

Yes. In a push-up and on the bench, your arms come back in front of your chest: for your pec major, the pectoralis major, that’s horizontal adduction of the shoulder, one of the movements it takes part in (Lulic-Kuryllo et al., 2021). On your back, you push a bar; facing the floor, you push your body: for your pecs, only the load changes.

In 20 trained lifters, push-ups, with no vest or a 10 to 30 kg (about 22 to 66 lb) weighted vest, and bench presses, at 50 to 80% of their estimated max, showed no difference, neither in the movement nor in the activity of the 8 upper-body muscles measured (van den Tillaar, 2019). In 12 active men, at the same load, the main muscles fired almost the same in both exercises, except the trunk muscles (Gottschall et al., 2018). That’s measured muscle activity, not growth.

How much load do your pecs carry in a push-up?

Part of your body weight: your feet carry the rest. In 23 people on a force plate, a regular push-up put about 64% of body weight on the hands, and 49% from the knees, figures repeated by the study described below (Ebben et al., 2011; Kikuchi and Nakazato, 2017). With the feet raised, the load was higher than in every other variation; with the hands raised or from the knees, it was lower (Ebben et al., 2011).

And that share shifts during the rep: in 28 highly trained men, the hands carried less weight with the arms straight than at the bottom of the push-up (Suprak et al., 2011). On the bench, the load is simply what you put on the bar.

Push-ups or bench press: which one grows your pecs?

Both equally, at the same load. In one study, 18 physical education students aged 19 to 22, recreational lifters with at least a year of training, were randomly split into two groups of 9. For 8 weeks, twice a week, they did 3 sets to failure with 2 minutes of rest: one group on the bench press at 40% of their max, about 24 kg (about 53 lb) for an average max of 60 kg (about 132 lb), the other doing push-ups with the position adjusted to carry the same load, from the knees for example (Kikuchi and Nakazato, 2017).

On ultrasound, pec major thickness went up 18.3% with push-ups and 19.4% with the bench, triceps thickness 9.5 and 10.3%, with no clear difference between the groups (Kikuchi and Nakazato, 2017). It’s one study, of 18 people, at a light load: it says nothing about heavy benching, and thickness was measured at a single spot, between the 3rd and 4th ribs, not across the whole muscle.

It also takes weeks: in 23 moderately trained men, 4 weeks of progressively harder push-ups or of bench presses, three times a week, raised bench max in both groups, with no clear change in muscle thickness in either one (Kotarsky et al., 2018).

Are push-ups only good for endurance?

That’s a myth: in that study, they grew the pecs as much as the bench did. Across 28 studies and 747 adults, with sets taken to failure, muscle grew just as much with light loads, over 15 reps, as with moderate or heavy ones (Lopez et al., 2021). For growth, the load matters little as long as the set goes to failure.

Strength followed: bench max rose 8% in the bench group and 5% in the push-up group, gains the authors found comparable (Kikuchi and Nakazato, 2017). In 30 students with advanced lifting experience, split into three groups, 5 weeks of band-resisted push-ups, hard enough to allow only 6 reps, built as much strength as a 6-rep bench press, while the group that didn’t train stayed the same (Calatayud et al., 2015). But for your max, heavy still wins: across the 28 studies, strength rose more with heavy or moderate loads than with light ones (Lopez et al., 2021).

Push-ups too easy: what now?

Make them harder, or move to the bar. Raise your feet: that variation loaded the hands more than any other (Ebben et al., 2011). Or add weight: for the author of the vest study, a weighted vest lets push-ups mimic the different loads of the bench press (van den Tillaar, 2019).

Or move to the bench and add plates: there, the load climbs plate by plate, and strength rises more with heavy loads (Lopez et al., 2021). Either way, keep your sets hard: that’s the condition under which push-ups grew the pecs as much as the bench.