While the bones and soft tissues of your back are some of the strongest in your body, push-ups are a body-weight exercise that can cause lower back pain if you use the incorrect form or have weak core muscles.
Here are three reasons you might experience back pain when performing push-ups — plus how to fix it.
1. You're Using Incorrect Form
When you complete push-ups correctly, they primarily work your chest, triceps, and shoulders, which are all upper-body muscles. But they also engage the hips and abdominal muscles.
One way you can develop lower back pain from doing push-ups is by using improper form. More specifically, you may be letting your hips sag when lowering yourself down to the ground, which puts pressure on your spine and can cause lower back pain to flare up.
To prevent sagging hips during the down phase of a push-up, keep your abs and quads engaged as you lower yourself to the floor.
How to do a push-up with correct form
- Position yourself on your hands and knees, with your hands under your shoulders and your knees under your hips.
- Step back with your feet and straighten your legs so that you're balanced on your palms and toes.
- Check your body and hand position. Your body should make a straight line from head to hips to heels, and your hands should be directly under your shoulders or slightly wider apart.
- Bend your elbows at a 45-degree angle to your body and lower your body to the floor.
- Ensure your body remains in a straight line from the neck through the spine to the hips and down to the heels.
- Press into your palms and push the floor away from you to return to a high plank, keeping your body in a single, straight line.
Tip
Doing knee push-ups or incline push-ups will put less pressure on your back.
2. You Need to Improve Your Core Strength
While the push-up primarily targets your chest, triceps, and shoulders, it also engages your core. Weak core muscles can contribute to incorrect form, like sagging hips, during push-ups.
By strengthening your core, you'll not only improve your performance with push-ups, but you'll also maintain a more stable spine throughout the day and during push-ups. This will help reduce the risk of lower back pain and injury.
This is because your core muscles include more than just your abdominals. A large, deeply set muscle called the erector spinae provides crucial support in straightening and rotating your back, as well as providing stability.
The stronger this and other core muscles are — including the obliques, transverse abdominis, rectus abdominis, and pelvic floor — the more support your spine has. Your glutes, hips, and pelvis are also involved in your core strength and support.
Core Exercises to Improve Strength and Prevent Back Pain
Add the following moves to your exercise routine to strengthen your core.
1. Plank
Holding a plank means you're engaging all of your core muscles at once, as opposed to a sit-up, which only targets part of the core.
- Lie face down with your forearms on the floor and your elbows directly beneath your shoulders. Keep your feet flexed with the bottoms of your toes on the floor, and keep your feet and legs together. Use a mat or towel if this is more comfortable.
- Press into your forearms and rise up on your toes so that only your forearms and toes touch the floor. Your body should hover a few inches off the floor in a straight line from shoulders to feet.
- Draw your navel toward your spine and tighten your glutes.
- Look at the floor to keep your head in a neutral alignment, and breathe steadily and evenly.
- Hold for at least up to 30 seconds before lowering yourself to the floor.
This is one set. Repeat this two or three times.
2. Side Plank
This supports the core and back by strengthening the muscles along the side of the body.
- Lie on your right side with your feet stacked and your right elbow under your right shoulder, forearm along the floor.
- Press through your right forearm and lift your body up so that you're balancing on your right forearm and foot. Keep your knees, shoulders, and hips in a straight line. Tighten your abdominal muscles for support.
- Put your left hand on your hip or extend it toward the ceiling. To increase the difficulty, perform the motion while balancing on your right palm instead of your forearm.
- Hold for at least 10 seconds or at least three deep breaths before lowering yourself to the floor.
- Repeat on the other side.
3. Bird Dog
Also known as a quadruped, this is a useful movement for training your body to keep the lower back stable while moving your arms and legs.
- Get on your hands and knees with your hands directly in line with your shoulder and knees in line with your hips. Engage your abdominal muscles.
- Look down at the floor and brace your core (tucking your tailbone just slightly) to create a straight line from the tip of your head to your tailbone. Avoid letting your back sag or arching it too much.
- On an exhale, reach your left arm straight out in front of you until your upper arm is in line with your ear. Simultaneously, reach your right leg straight behind you, fully extending your knee. They should be as close to parallel with the floor as you can get.
- Pause here for a moment.
- Reverse the motion and return to the starting position.
- Switch sides, reaching your right arm forward and raising your left leg back.
- Pause and then go back to the starting position.
4. Dead Bug
The dead bug is another exercise that's great for stability in the pelvis and hips, building core strength to help the limbs work as they should.
- Lie flat on your back with both arms stretched out on the floor behind you and your legs extended in front of you. Keep your lower back in contact with the floor throughout the entire exercise.
- Lift your right leg toward you until your knee reaches a 90-degree bend. At the same time, keeping our left arm straight, lift it forward until it's pointing toward the ceiling.
- Slowly and with control, extend your right arm and left leg away from each other.
- Lower your limbs as far as you can while keeping your lower back on the ground. Fight the impulse to arch your back by tightening your abs and pressing your belly button down to anchor your lower back to the floor.
- Exhale as you return your right arm and left leg to the starting position with the same slow, controlled movement.
- Repeat with your left arm and right leg, then return to the center again. This counts as one rep.
5. Glute Bridge
This activates the glutes and helps provide core stability by counteracting underused glute muscles for individuals who spend a lot of time sitting every day:
- Lie on your back with your arms resting by your sides, knees bent, and feet flat on the ground hip-width apart. Your feet should be close enough to your hips that if you reach one hand at a time toward each heel, you can just touch it with your fingertips.
- Relax your arms alongside your body. Think of your shoulders being "glued" to the floor to help keep your spine neutral.
- Squeeze your glutes and core, and press your heels into the ground to drive your hips up toward the ceiling, forming a diagonal line from your knees to hips to chest. Resist the urge to arch your lower back as you raise your hips. Focus on maintaining a neutral position for your spine throughout.
- Hold this position for a few seconds while engaging your glutes. To add difficulty, you can alternate bringing each knee off the ground for several seconds during this step, then lowering it with your foot flat on the floor before raising the other.
- Slowly lower your hips back down to the ground and reset in the starting position for a second before lifting back up.
3. You're Doing Back-Intensive Push-Up Variations
You may experience lower back pain with more challenging push-up variations that increase activation in this area.
These variations might include forward push-ups, where you place your hands in front of your shoulders, and backward push-ups, where you place your hands behind your shoulders, according to an earlier study. People who get lower back pain should be cautious when attempting these variations.
If you've noticed back pain during or after performing these variations, take a break from them and chat with a personal trainer or physical therapist to narrow down the cause of your lower back pain.
The Takeaway
- Push-ups can lead to lower back pain if you're using incorrect form, have a weak core, or are trying certain push-up variations that increase pressure on the lower back.
- Working on your core with exercises such as planks, side planks, dead bugs, and glute bridges may help to stabilize your lower back during push-ups by improving core strength.
- If you have an existing lower back problem or start to find push-ups painful, speak with a healthcare professional about using them in your workouts. They may be able to suggest alternatives or more comfortable modifications.
EDITORIAL SOURCES
Everyday Health follows strict sourcing guidelines to ensure the accuracy of its content, outlined in our editorial policy. We use only trustworthy sources, including peer-reviewed studies, board-certified medical experts, patients with lived experience, and information from top institutions.
Resources
- The Anatomy of a Push-Up: Exploring Proper Push-up Form and Technique. National Academy of Sports Medicine.
- Perfecting the Push-up for All Levels. American Council on Exercise. April 9, 2019.
- A Guide to Your Core Muscles, from a PT. Hospital for Special Surgery.
- Straight talk on planking. Harvard Medical School. November 13, 2019.
- Exercises to improve your core strength. Mayo Clinic. August 25, 2023.
- Bird-dog. American Council on Exercise.
- Mullane M et al. Exercise Technique: The Dead Bug. Strength and Conditioning Journal. October 2019.
- Dead Bug. National Academy of Sports Medicine.
- How to Do a Glute Bridge: Form, Workouts, and More. National Academy of Sports Medicine.
- Glute Bridge Exercise. American Council on Exercise.
- Marcolin G et al. Selective Activation of Shoulder, Trunk, and Arm Muscles: A Comparative Analysis of Different Push-Up Variants. Journal of Athletic Training. November 2015.