What is best angle for push-ups?

The standard military style push up works the entire chest area, the shoulders and the tricep muscles, according to BodyBuilding.com. This is a regular flat body push up with hands on the floor, shoulder width apart. Standard push ups focus on the pectoralis major and pectoralis minor muscles.

Adjusting the hand placement works different parts of the chest with more focus while still using the full chest. The-Muscle-Experiment.com offers several types of push ups with different positioning. A push up with hands on a bench will focus on the lower chest muscles. Performing a push up with feet on a bench shifts the focus to the upper chest muscles.