The tiger bend push-up is a push-up where you lower to the bottom, drop onto your forearms, then drive back up onto your hands and press out. It trains transitional strength - moving explosively between positions - which feeds directly into harder skills like the muscle-up and press to handstand.
How to do it
Start in a tight hollow-body push-up: hands under the chest, glutes squeezed, toes pointed. Lower all the way down, then rock back so your elbows tap the floor behind your hands. The moment they touch, shift forward over your hands and press up in one continuous motion.
Learn more here:
Video by Gabo Saturno
Key tips
- Full range of motion. Get all the way down before dropping to the elbows, so they have almost no distance to travel
- Screw your hands into the floor. External rotation keeps the elbows tuckedA variation where the knees are pulled in towards the chest, shortening your body to make a hold or movement easier. A tuck planche, tuck front lever or tuck L-sit is the usual first rung of the ladder - the shorter the lever, the less strength it takes to hold it. instead of flaring
- Hips stay level. If they pike up on the way back, you've lost your plank - the bottom position is still a plank
- Film yourself. Your body awareness lags behind your strength here, and what feels flat is often not