Push-Ups and Squats for Beginners: A Simple Start

This is general fitness guidance, not personalized advice. If you have an injury, a health condition or any doubt about whether exercise is right for you, check with a doctor or physical therapist before you start.

Why these two moves

Push-ups and squats ask a lot of your body for no equipment and no gym. Push-ups work your chest, shoulders, triceps and the muscles that hold your trunk steady. Squats work your thighs and hips, and mirror something you do all day: sitting down and standing up.

They also fit the guidelines. The World Health Organization’s 2020 physical activity guidelines (Bull et al., 2020) recommend that adults do muscle-strengthening activities on 2 or more days a week, alongside aerobic activity of 150 to 300 minutes of moderate or 75 to 150 minutes of vigorous intensity per week, and that they reduce time spent sedentary. A few sets of push-ups and squats count toward the strengthening part.

Push-ups: form cues

Whatever version you choose, these cues apply:

• Hands under or just outside your shoulders, fingers spread, pressing into the floor or surface.
• A neutral spine. Your body should make one line from head to heels (or head to knees in the knee version). Squeeze your glutes and brace your stomach lightly so your hips do not sag or pike up.
• Elbows at roughly 45 degrees from your body, not flared straight out to the sides.
• Controlled tempo. Lower for about two seconds, pause briefly near the bottom, then press up. Speed hides weak form.
• Neck neutral. Look at a spot on the floor slightly ahead of your hands.
• Breathe. In on the way down, out on the way up.
• Stop if you feel pain. Muscle effort is fine. Sharp pain in a shoulder, wrist or elbow is not.

Easier variations

If a full push-up from the floor is not available yet, you are in good company. Choose the hardest version you can do with good form for a handful of reps.

1. Wall push-ups. Stand an arm’s length from a wall and push.
2. Incline push-ups. Hands on a kitchen counter, then a sturdy table, then a couch cushion on the floor. The lower the surface, the harder the move.
3. Knee push-ups. Knees on the floor with a straight line from head to knees.
4. Slow negatives. From a full plank, lower yourself over three to five seconds, then rest on your knees and reset.

Squats: form cues

• Feet about shoulder-width apart, toes pointing slightly out.
• Sit back and down, as if reaching for a chair behind you, with your chest tall.
• Knees track in line with your toes. They can drift forward a little, which is normal. Avoid letting them collapse inward.
• Heels stay flat. If they lift, widen your stance a bit or reduce your depth.
• Neutral spine. Keep your back flat, not rounded and not exaggeratedly arched.
• Controlled tempo. Lower for two seconds, then stand tall by pressing through your whole foot.
• Stop if you feel pain in your knees or back.

Easier variations

• Box (or chair) squats. Squat down until you lightly touch a chair or box, then stand. The seat gives you a target depth and a safety net.
• Partial-depth squats. Go only as deep as you can with good form and add depth over weeks.
• Counter-supported squats. Hold onto a counter or door frame to help with balance.

How often, how many, and how to progress

Think in terms of a floor, not a ceiling. The WHO guidelines recommend muscle-strengthening on 2 or more days a week, and nothing in that suggests you must exercise until you are exhausted. For a beginner, a reasonable pattern might look like this:

• Frequency: short sessions on alternating days, or a few reps most days if you like the rhythm. Listen to your body.
• Volume: 2 to 3 sets of a number of reps that feels challenging but leaves a couple of reps in reserve.
• Rest: about a minute between sets.
• Progression: when you can do all your sets cleanly, change one thing. Add a rep, lower the incline, deepen the squat or slow the tempo. Change only one variable at a time.

Soreness the day or two after starting is common. Joint pain is not, and neither is anything that makes you feel unwell. Take a rest day, and see a professional if it persists.

Build the habit, not just the muscle

Strength comes from showing up, which makes this as much a habit problem as a fitness one. Lally and colleagues (2010) studied how habits form in everyday life and found that the time needed for a behavior to become automatic varied a lot between people and between behaviors, and that missing a single day did not derail the process. So set the bar low enough to be hard to skip.

Gollwitzer (1999) found that specific “if X, then Y” plans can help people follow through on their goals. Try one: “After I brush my teeth in the morning, I do five squats.” “When the kettle goes on, I do a set of incline push-ups at the counter.” Tie the movement to something you already do.

If you are short on time or in public, small moves still count as practice: calf raises while waiting in line, desk push-ups, or a wall sit.

Where Doomreps fits in

Doomreps is built on the idea that a few reps can become your gateway back into your own phone. It locks the apps you choose, and at home you earn unlock minutes by playing a pixel-bird game controlled by camera-tracked push-ups or squats: each rep flaps the bird, and a score of 5 or more banks minutes. If you cannot do big moves, low-key options like calf raises and desk push-ups exist, and Hold mode lets you earn minutes with a plank or wall sit. The point is to attach a small amount of movement to a habit you already have. You can read the reasoning in Earn Your Screen Time With Exercise, or check out the app.

For why the phone side of the loop is so sticky, see Why You Can’t Stop Scrolling. If you want to understand what movement can do for how you feel in the moment, read Exercise vs Scrolling: Which Lifts Your Mood?.

The takeaway

Choose the version you can do well, keep your spine neutral, move with control, and stop at pain. Do it on 2 or more days a week at minimum, in line with the WHO guidelines, and progress by changing one thing at a time. Most of all, tie it to something you already do every day, so that the habit has a place to live.

Sources

• Bull, F. C., et al. (2020). World Health Organization 2020 guidelines on physical activity and sedentary behaviour. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 54(24), 1451–1462.
• Lally, P., van Jaarsveld, C. H. M., Potts, H. W. W., & Wardle, J. (2010). How are habits formed: Modelling habit formation in the real world. European Journal of Social Psychology, 40(6), 998–1009. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.674
• Gollwitzer, P. M. (1999). Implementation intentions: Strong effects of simple plans. American Psychologist, 54(7), 493–503.

This article is for general information and isn’t medical advice. If you have an injury or a health condition, talk to a doctor or physical therapist before starting a new exercise routine.