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I'm curious about the affects of "range of motion" when doing push-ups.

What are the pros/cons to doing push-ups using high reps, small range of motion vs low reps, full range of motion?

Here is how I define the differences between range of motion:

Full range - arms extended straight at the top, at the bottom the nose is touching the ground with hands near ears, push-up bars giving more range.

Small range - arms still slightly bent at the top, arms more bent at bottom, but nose not touching the floor.

My assumption: I've always thought doing push-ups with the full range of motion, even though you can't do as many reps, was better for strength.

Jon
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For strength training, you should always do full-range of motion (ROM) push-ups. Partial ROM exercises are appropriate only for intermediate or advanced lifters who need to fix a problem area in a weighted exercise where recovering from doing the full ROM would be problematic. (For instance, deadlifting an enormous amount of weight can take a week to recover from, so an elite deadlifter might do rack pulls one day and halting deadlifts another.) Since push-ups are not a weighted exercise, the recovery is not going to be an issue, and so there's no reason not to train the full ROM. If one is so weak as to be unable to do a single push-up, bench pressing a broomstick or light bar across the whole range of motion would be superior to doing partial ROM push-ups, since the muscle will then get stronger across the full ROM. Training the partial ROM will not get one strong enough to do the full ROM.

There may be other reasons to train partial-ROM push-ups, such as mass/hypertrophy or conditioning. It seems that for both of these goals there are superior methods: running, a Prowler or boxer's speed bag for endurance, and various presses for hypertrophy. It does not seem that partial-ROM push-ups are particularly useful except when one does not have access to more suitable equipment.

Dave Liepmann
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enter image description here I couldn't find any direct information about what the difference between short/full motion pushups, but what I did find (http://transformetrics.com/content/pushups-full-extension-or-limited-range) ties directly with what you state, the shorter the range, the more you can do, OR, to give the major difference, the short the motion the more you NEED to do to achieve the same affect.

In doing short-top (just the finishing top portion), short-bottom and full range myself, I found that the top-finishing motion utilizes more of the delts and chest muscles, the short-starting (bottom) utilizes the tricep and lats more....so, by doing short range top motion alone seems to reduce which muscle groups are being worked.

Meade Rubenstein
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    Doing more partial ROM exercises is not the same, qualitatively, as doing less (or any number) of full-ROM exercises. If you limit yourself to half the range of motion, you will not get stronger across the entire range of motion, and you risk decreasing your mobility across the range of motion. Doing more half-pushups might be useful for hypertrophy or endurance (though I contest whether it's ideal or efficient for either purpose), but it can never contend with full ROM exercises for strength. – Dave Liepmann Aug 21 '11 at 16:55
  • @Dave - I agree that full ROM is the ideal, but there are reasons for doing partials. For example, my bench is weakest at the bottom - push off from the chest - so, if I focus on that (being more explosive) then I can increase my overall performance by focusing a bit more on the weak spot. – Meade Rubenstein Aug 22 '11 at 00:16
  • If your bench press is weakest at the bottom, then it's possible that partial-ROM bench presses could be useful. (But that could only be the case for intermediate or advanced lifters.) But for a pushup, this doesn't make any sense: it's not a loaded exercise. If you're having trouble with it, you still need to do the full exercise. Strength training is about moving a joint through its whole range of motion. Unless you're targeting specific muscles for bodybuilding (in which case pushups seem inefficient), partial-ROM pushups are simply building less strength across less ROM. – Dave Liepmann Aug 22 '11 at 00:48
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There are situations where no one should tell you that you 'should always do something a certain way.'

If you have elbow pain, you don't need to go all the way to the floor.

You can probably do three times as many pushups if you limit the range. You'll probably get a greater result in your back muscles than you otherwise would ave..

Jack Lucas
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  • This answer could use more substance. Also, it's unclear why you mention elbow pain, since the OP did not mention it (perhaps such a mention has been removed?). – Christian Conti-Vock Mar 09 '18 at 13:33
  • I'd also like to see a reference on how limiting the ROM for an exercise would produce greater results. – JohnP Mar 09 '18 at 14:21
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I'm still amazed we argue range of motion when visual evidence is everywhere proving it has no significant difference in exercise results , unless you are competing in a full range contest like power lifting..every serious calisthenics advocate (bar benders, prisoners, boxers etc.) Do short range high rep pushups. Nobody is banging out high hundreds or thousands of pushups daily using full range. All the above mentioned are in fantastic physical shape and even bodybuilders who preach full range never actually use full range. (Watch pumping iron tell me anyone used strict form and full reps) too many people listen and don't look.everybody in fitness industry preaches full range and none of them look like high rep partial guys do. Also no body really cares whether you do full reps or not unless they don't look as good and need a reason to excuse their lack of build.no disrespect to anyone and everyone can do what they want but the visual evidence is everywhere that range of motion means nothing ,especially with the pushup

Shawn
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    "I'm still amazed we argue range of motion when visual evidence is everywhere proving it has no significant difference in exercise results" - I'd like it if you backed this up. – Alec Mar 20 '19 at 20:49
  • Shawn, welcome to fitness.stackexchange.com. I really do disagree with your answer here. At a basic level of physiology, strength is trained through a range of motion. Something like a deadlift, as an example, has different recruitment from the first to the last inch. If you only do part of a movement, you're not engaging various other muscles and connective tissues. – Eric Mar 20 '19 at 22:10