Celebrity trainer David Kirsch knows what it takes to build a strong body. The NYC-based founder of wellness hub Madison Square Club has more than two decades of experience helping people—including celebrities like Jennifer Lopez, Kate Upton, Heidi Klum, and Liv Tyler—reach their fitness goals.
In a recent Instagram video, Kirsch shared one of his go-to total-body strengthening moves that he writes targets the arms, chest, and core: Spiderman push-ups. You can check out the move here:
“This is a pretty comprehensive exercise,” Kirsh tells SELF. “If you’re short on time, you can do it as a standalone move and feel like you accomplished something” because it works so many muscle groups at once. You can also incorporate it into your regular upper-body or core workout, he adds.
Kirsch has done Spiderman push-ups, or variations of them, with Jennifer Lopez and Kate Upton as well as his “ultimate clients,” his twin daughters Francesa and Emilia.
Spiderman push-ups are really hard. They require nearly every major muscle group in your body, including your core, glutes, outer thighs, hip external rotators, upper back, chest, triceps, and biceps, Kirsch explains.
Within your core, this push-up variation specifically targets your obliques (the muscles on the side of your abdomen) as well as your rectus abdominis (aka, your abs, the muscles that run vertically on your abdomen).
Single-leg movements in general are a good idea because they can help pinpoint muscle imbalances that exist on one side of your body, and they help improve balance and core stability.
In this specific move, “the moment you lift your leg up, you are forcing your core to stabilize your body,” explains Kirsch. “If not, you would fall over. Lifting that leg up immediately draws your core in.”
The single-leg element requires more strength from your core because “you have three points of contact on the ground instead of four,” Mark DiSalvo, NYC-based certified strength and conditioning specialist, tells SELF. This means that your stationary leg and glutes have to work extra hard to compensate for the leg that’s elevated, and all of the stabilizer muscles in your core activate to maintain balance.
Spiderman push-ups are also “a very advanced anti-rotation exercise,” DiSalvo says. Anti-rotation movements involve contracting your entire core and holding it completely still as you perform a movement—in this case, bringing your leg toward your elbow. Anti-rotation exercises are great for building both core strength and stability.
In the Instagram video, you’ll see Kirsch makes his Spiderman push-ups even harder by placing his hands atop an upside-down BOSU ball, which creates instability that “makes you engage your core more to prevent the BOSU from wobbling,” he explains. “It raises the bar that much more in terms of core engagement.” Because Spiderman push-ups are a super advanced movement even without the BOSU, you’ll likely need to work up to them over time.
“You need to externally rotate your hips in order to complete the movement,” says DiSalvo. This requires strength in your hip abductors—the muscles on the side of your butt responsible for moving your leg out and away from your body to the side—and improves your hip mobility.
Training your hip strength and mobility can improve the overall functioning of your glutes, which rely on the mobility of your hips to perform tasks from walking to squatting to heavy lifting.
