Ring Push-Ups

What ring push-ups actually train

A ring push-up is a push-up performed with the hands on gymnastic rings rather than the floor. The chest, front delts, triceps and trunk all work, as in any push-up.

The difference is that the rings move. They hang from straps, so they can swing forward, backward and outward, and they can rotate. Nothing about your hand position is fixed.

That has two effects. The first is stability. A large amount of effort goes into keeping the rings where you want them, which recruits the shoulder stabilisers and the trunk far more than a floor push-up does. Anyone trying ring push-ups for the first time after doing thirty floor push-ups usually manages about five.

The second is freedom of movement. Because the hands can rotate, your wrists, elbows and shoulders can find the position they prefer rather than being locked by the floor. That is why many people with wrist or elbow complaints find rings more comfortable than the ground, despite the exercise being harder.

The turnout at the top is the detail that makes the exercise what it is. Rotating the rings so your palms face forward at lockout adds a strong chest contraction and puts the shoulder in a more externally rotated, more stable position. It is a real part of the movement rather than a stylistic flourish.

The whole thing is adjustable by ring height, which makes it scalable in the same way an incline push-up is.

Setting up and executing

Set a pair of rings so they hang just above the floor for the full difficulty version, or higher to make it easier.

Grip a ring in each hand and walk your feet back into a plank. Squeeze the glutes and brace the abs.

Turn the rings outward slightly so your palms face forward at the top. Set the shoulder blades down rather than letting them ride towards your ears.

Lower your chest between the rings with the elbows at around forty five degrees to your torso. The rings will want to drift outward. Actively pull them towards each other as you descend.

Go until your chest is level with your hands or slightly below, which is a deeper range than the floor allows.

Press back up, turning the rings out again at the top, and stop just short of locking the elbows.

The mistakes that cost you the most

Rings drifting apart is the defining failure. Under load the rings slide outward, the arms end up wide, and the shoulder finds itself in a weak flared position with your bodyweight on it. Actively pull the rings towards each other throughout. If you cannot, raise them and reduce the load.

Starting too high or too low is the scaling error in both directions. Rings near the floor are a hard exercise that most people are not ready for. Rings at chest height are approachable. Start higher than you think and lower them over weeks.

Sagging hips happens sooner here than on the floor because the trunk is doing more. McGill and colleagues reviewed core training and its role in performance, and holding the plank position under an unstable load is exactly the kind of demand that qualifies. End the set when the line breaks.

Skipping the turnout removes one of the best features of the exercise. The rotation at the top produces a genuine chest contraction and a stronger shoulder position.

And attempting them before floor push-ups are solid is the sequencing error. Rings amplify every existing fault rather than correcting any of them.

Sets, reps and rest by goal

For muscle gain, three to four sets of six to twelve with about ninety seconds of rest. For strength work, three to four sets of five to ten with two minutes. In a fat loss phase, three sets of eight to fifteen with a minute.

Expect lower rep numbers than on the floor, often by half. That is normal and it is not a sign you have gone backwards.

Progression is by ring height rather than by reps. When you can do twelve clean reps with the rings steady and the turnout complete, lower them. From floor height, the next steps are elevating the feet or moving to archer variations.

Schoenfeld and colleagues found a dose response between weekly hard sets and hypertrophy, and bodyweight sets count provided they are hard. Refalo and colleagues found stopping a rep or two short of failure produces comparable hypertrophy to going to failure, and on rings the practical stopping point is when the rings stop staying where you put them.

Be aware that fatigue shows up as instability before it shows up as an inability to press. That is a good early warning and worth respecting.

Where it fits in your split

In the pressing block of a push or chest session.

On push, pull and legs it goes on push day. On an upper and lower split it is a pressing variation. On a full body programme it is excellent, because one set of rings gives you both pressing and rowing.

The natural pairing is ring push-ups and ring rows, which together make a complete upper body session with a single piece of equipment that fits in a bag. For anyone training at home, outdoors or while travelling, that is hard to beat.

The stability demand also makes these a useful complement to machine pressing. If most of your chest work is on machines, ring push-ups supply the stabilising work those remove.

Two or three times a week is fine.

Variations worth knowing

The standard floor push-up is the prerequisite, and twenty clean reps is a reasonable entry requirement.

The high ring push-up, with the rings at waist or chest height, is how you scale in, and it works exactly like an incline push-up with the added instability.

Elevating the feet adds load and biases the upper chest, and is the obvious progression once floor height rings become manageable.

The ring fly, where the arms travel out to the sides rather than bending, is a genuine chest isolation exercise at bodyweight and is considerably harder than it sounds. Approach it gradually and with the rings high.

Ring dips are the vertical pressing version and a large step up, since your feet are off the ground and the stability demand is at its highest.

And the archer ring push-up, with one arm straightening out to the side, shifts most of the load to the working arm and is a route towards one arm pressing strength.

What the evidence says

Saeterbakken and colleagues examined pressing variations in competitive athletes and found differences in strength and muscle activity across them, supporting the general principle that changing the support conditions changes the demand.

McGill and colleagues reviewed core training and its role in performance, which is relevant because holding the plank position under an unstable load is a genuine part of what ring push-ups train and is usually the limiting factor.

Research on scapular control and shoulder stability supports the value of the turnout at the top, which puts the shoulder into external rotation with the scapula in a stronger position under load.

Kolber and colleagues on resistance training shoulder injuries identifies the wide flared position as one of those most often implicated, which is the basis for actively keeping the rings from drifting apart.

Pallares and colleagues found full range training beat partial range training, which supports using the extra depth the rings allow.

Schoenfeld and colleagues on volume and Refalo and colleagues on proximity to failure supply the programming.

Common questions

Why are these so much harder than floor push-ups?

Because a large share of your effort goes into stabilising the rings rather than pressing your body up. The rings can swing in any direction and rotate, so your shoulders and trunk are working continuously just to keep the position. Most people manage roughly half their floor push-up reps on rings at first.

How high should the rings be?

High enough that you can do six to twelve reps with the rings staying where you put them. Chest or waist height is a sensible starting point for most people. Lower them a few inches at a time as you improve, with the floor being the standard full difficulty version.

What is the turnout at the top?

Rotating the rings so your palms face forward when your arms are extended. It adds a strong chest contraction at the top and puts the shoulder in a more stable externally rotated position. It is part of the exercise rather than an advanced flourish, and worth learning from the start.

Are rings better for sore wrists?

Often, yes. The floor locks your hands into one position, whereas rings let the wrist, elbow and shoulder rotate to wherever they are comfortable. Plenty of people who find floor push-ups aggravating find rings noticeably easier on the joints, even though the exercise itself is harder.

When am I ready for them?

When you can do around twenty clean floor push-ups with a straight body line. Rings amplify whatever your form already is, so going in with sagging hips or flaring elbows makes both worse. Start with the rings high and work down.