There are countless ways to make a push-up harder. We’ve covered plenty of them. You can add load, change your hand position, elevate your feet or simply slow the whole movement down. But while most variations are designed to squeeze a little more muscle-building potential out of your chest and triceps, the loaded beast push-up adds some dynamism and brings the rest of your body into play.

Starting in a compact, hips-back position before driving forwards into a push-up, the movement combines a dynamic hip and shoulder stretch with an explosive transition into one of the most reliable upper-body strength exercises there is.

The result is an exercise that develops your chest, shoulders and triceps while demanding plenty from your core, hips and quads. You’re also moving repeatedly through deeper ranges at the hips and shoulders, making it an efficient way to train strength, mobility and athletic movement without needing separate sessions for each. That’s what we like to call bang for your buck.

The ‘loaded beast’ position comes from the Animal Flow system. Start on all fours with your knees hovering just above the floor, then push your hips backwards towards your heels while keeping your hands planted.

From this coiled position, drive forwards, extending through your hips and knees until you arrive in a strong plank. From there, lower into a push-up, press back up and reverse the movement, sending your hips back into the loaded beast position.

You can keep the movement slow and controlled or make the transition forwards more explosive. Either way, the aim is to make the two positions flow together rather than treating them as separate exercises.

Build Upper-Body Muscle

It might look fancy and new-age, but there’s still a humble push-up at the heart of every rep.

Your pecs, anterior delts and triceps have to lower and press your bodyweight just as they would during a conventional push-up. Take your sets sufficiently close to failure and they’ll contribute to muscle growth, just as they always have.

The difference is that by driving forwards from the loaded beast position, you have to actively decelerate through the lowering phase, increasing the amount of tension your muscles have to absorb.

Improve Mobility While You Build Strength

The loaded beast position takes your hips back towards your heels while your arms remain extended in front of you, creating movement through your hips, ankles and shoulders before every push-up.

Crucially, you’re not simply dropping into these positions and holding a stretch. You’re actively moving into and out of them under control, making the exercise as much about owning your range of motion as increasing it.

This one can be genuinely cathartic for your lower back.

Train Your Entire Body as a Unit

A standard push-up already demands plenty of core tension, but the loaded beast variation adds another layer.

Your legs and hips have to create and absorb force as you move backwards and forwards, while your trunk transfers that movement into your upper body. Rather than isolating your chest or shoulders, you’re asking everything from your quads to your pecs to contribute to one continuous movement before doing it all again in reverse.

Develop Explosive Power

Drive aggressively out of the loaded beast position and the exercise becomes more than a mobility-strength combination.

You’re accelerating your body forwards before immediately controlling that momentum through the push-up, forcing your upper body and trunk to deal with more than simply moving your bodyweight up and down.

That makes it an accessible way to introduce a little more athleticism into your training without immediately progressing to clapping press-ups.

Level Up Your Warm-Up

Not every set needs to become a full-on chest workout (as much as we’d like it to).

A handful of smooth loaded beast push-ups can take your shoulders and hips through a useful range of motion, wake up your core and gradually introduce load through your upper body. That makes them particularly useful at the start of an upper-body or full-body workout.

Chest: Drives the pressing portion of every rep.

Shoulders: Press your body away from the floor and stabilise throughout the movement.

Triceps: Extend your elbows during the push-up.

Core: Braces and transfers force as your body moves backwards and forwards.

Quads: Maintain the hovering beast position and help drive you forwards.

Glutes and hips: Control the transition between positions.

Upper back: Stabilises your shoulder blades throughout the movement.

• Start on all fours with your hands beneath your shoulders and your knees beneath your hips. Hover your knees a few centimetres above the floor.
• Keeping your hands planted, push your hips backwards towards your heels. Keep your knees hovering and allow your arms to extend in front of you. You should feel as though you’re actively loading a spring rather than simply sitting back.
• Drive through your feet and extend your legs, propelling your body forwards until you arrive in a strong push-up position.
• Hold a solid plank as you lower your chest towards the floor, keeping your elbows at roughly 45 degrees to your torso.
• Explosively press back to the top, then in one fluid movement bend your knees and send your hips backwards into the loaded beast position. Rebound from there and flow straight into the next rep.

1. How you perform these should depend on why they’re in your programme.
2. As part of a warm-up or mobility session, slow everything down and use the loaded beast position to explore as much comfortable range as possible through your hips, shoulders and lower back.
3. If strength and explosiveness are your priority, attack the transition forwards with more intent, but don’t let speed turn the push-up itself into an afterthought. Land in a strong position, control the descent and make your chest, shoulders and triceps do the work. Don’t just hit the deck and bounce straight back up.
4. The value of the loaded beast push-up isn’t that it’s inherently better than a regular push-up. It’s that it gives you something a regular push-up doesn’t: the opportunity to combine pressing strength, mobility and coordinated full-body movement without needing any additional kit.

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