Okuzeka
Sports & Fitness vocabulary · Exercises & Technique

Push-up

Meaning in sports & fitness, with examples

/ˈpʊʃʌp/nounCore term

In sports & fitness, push-up means: A body-weight exercise in which you face the floor, keep your body straight and push yourself up and down with your arms.

In Turkish: şınav

How it is used

Used in fitness tests, PE, military training and home workouts. You do push-ups; variations include knee push-ups and wide push-ups. British English often uses press-up for the same exercise.

Example sentences

  1. How many push-ups can you do in one minute?

  2. If full push-ups are too hard, start with your knees on the floor.

Common collocations

  • do push-ups
  • knee push-ups
  • push-up position
  • wide push-ups
  • decline push-ups
  • plankA core exercise in which you hold your body in a straight line, supported on your forearms or hands and your toes, without moving.
  • pull-upAn exercise in which you hang from a bar with your palms facing away and pull your body up until your chin is above the bar.
  • coreThe muscles around the middle of the body, including the abdominals, lower back, obliques and hips, that keep the trunk stable during movement.
  • bench pressAn exercise in which you lie on a flat bench and push a barbell or dumbbells up from your chest until your arms are straight.

More terms: Exercises & Technique

Practise with graded reading

Reading at the right level is the fastest way to make new words stick. Pick free English books by level: