The Push-Up Project
The exact total body training protocol you need to unleash your inner badass, build total body strength, and find your full push-up potential.
What if the time you spent working out helped you actually see tangible improvements in your strength and feel really jazzed about goals that have nothing to do with shrinking your body?
If you are an active woman who enjoys exercise, you already know the benefits for your overall mood, energy levels, stress reduction, and health.
It’s usually a no brainer for you to get your workouts in – that’s YOUR time, you love the sweat, and you don’t like it when life gets in the way of you moving your body!
But maybe you’re stuck in one of these scenarios?
You’re doing a run here, a weight based circuit there, saving workouts on Instagram, and oh! There’s a free class in your town center, so you’ll try that too.
You get into #AllTheThings, but really some focus is what you’re craving.
Or, you do regularly strength train, and you’re starting to think you’d like to set some motivating fitness goals that go beyond getting your workouts done. You aren’t sure what that could look like though!
Nobody’s ever helped you think about performance goals before, but you’re intrigued at the thought of seeing what your body is capable of doing. Getting a bit more purposeful sounds like an attractive option to kick things up a notch.
Or, you’re showing up solidly in your fitness, but you aren’t seeing as much of a return on your efforts as you’d like to see… especially for the time you’re putting in compared to others in your life!
You know the scale isn’t the end all be all, but your honest truth is that you’d like to see some muscle definition and just feel a little more comfortable in your clothes. You’re allowed to want that for yourself, by the way!
Wouldn’t it be so amazing to have a training program that:
Provides you with structure and intentionality – so you know exactly what to do in an efficient and effective way and don’t have to decide “what workout am I going to do today?”
Gives you a step by step blueprint to follow to achieve one of the most common performance goals out there, and one that you don’t need any equipment for whatsoever? Hi, push-ups!
And of course, see some muscle for your hustle, baby. 😉
It’s time for you to kick your fitness habits up a notch and bring out that goal getter in you. She’s waiting for you to let her shine!
WELCOME TO THE PUSH-UP PROJECT
A comprehensive, do-it-yourself training program designed to help you get stronger, progress your push-ups, and feel like a badass – no matter your current fitness level! Get focused, get intentional, and achieve your fitness goals from home or the gym, WITHOUT the guesswork.
With The Push-up Project, you will:
Fast track your push-up progress + hone your technique
By following the workouts in The Push-up Project, you will build a solid foundation for taking your push-ups to the next level.
You will learn the most efficient, effective, and safe ways to excel with this powerhouse exercise, you will understand exactly what to do (and what NOT to do) when it comes to form, and you’ll have all the progressions you need right at your fingertips – ones that actually help you reach your end goal.
Read: no kneeling push-ups over here!
The exercises in The Push-up Project workouts are scalable for any fitness level. They will help you work toward your first proper push-up from the floor, progress to being able to do MORE push-ups flawlessly, and continue your journey to more advanced variations.
Build overall full body strength + improve your mobility
The workouts in The Push-up Project are not ONLY about progressing your push-ups themselves.
The Pushup Project is designed as a well-rounded, bang for your buck, FULL body training program. Why? Because it’s important for your body to be able to work cohesively as one strong unit, and I know you’ll just love feeling strong all over.
Build your upper body, lower body, and core strength in a balanced way, and get the mobility work you need to help your push-up performance (hello shoulders!) and keeping your body feeling good and operating optimally.
Refresh your fitness routine + get more intentional
If you’ve been doing the same thing for a while now and feel it’s time to kick your fitness habits up a notch, The Push-up Project can give you that little oomph you need to either get consistent, break out of a plateau, or challenge yourself in new ways.
That brand new program feeling is always motivating in and of itself, and of course having an empowering end goal you’re aiming for can help you feel more focused and purposeful in your fitness.
Build new definition + see muscles you've never seen before
In the Achieve with Athena community, we exercise and move our bodies because of how it makes us FEEL, and not solely for aesthetics.
But that doesn’t mean we don’t appreciate a good #FlexBreak, seeing arm definition, or catching sight of our muscles in the mirror every now and then!
If you have physique goals, The Push-up Project can help you get there. The workouts are built with progressive overload in mind so you can challenge yourself week after week and see the results of your hard work!
Skyrocket your confidence, both in + out of the gym
What happens in your fitness has a direct translation into what happens in your day to day life.
The Push-up Project can help you feel and perform better in OTHER workouts you love to do, as well as in your non-training activities. It will help you feel better physically as you do things like carry your groceries in from the car on one trip or get up more comfortably from the floor.
And of course there is that beautiful moment awaiting when you WILL hit the goals you perhaps don’t think are possible right now – you’ll feel unstoppable! THAT feeling is one that will carry forward into how you show up at work, at home, in your relationships, and for yourself!
All of the above and more are possible for you, regardless of whether you’ve been working out for 10 months or 10 years!
“Push-ups are one of those things that as a woman, and when I was a little girl, was always described to me as being really hard. Like, it’s just expected that I won’t be able to do them!
The idea of being able to do 10 push-ups? That will allow me to say “screw that” to these random notions that are out there about what women are supposed to be able to do or not. I love that working on this goal helps me feel in control of my own body instead of just accepting that my upper body is weak just because I’m a woman. No!
Just because that’s what we grew up hearing, doesn’t mean I can’t claim a different story for myself and my body. My drop and do 10 push-up goal is empowering to make it work for me and prove everyone else wrong.”
-Jenah Blitz
Meet Your Push-up Project Coach!
Hi, I’m Athena Concannon.
I’m an ACSM certified personal trainer, a Precision Nutrition certified nutrition coach, and the owner and founder of Achieve with Athena.
And I’m so excited to bring you The Push-up Project.
I’ve worked in the health and fitness industry since 2005, and I’ve heard from hundreds and hundreds of women how frustrating it can be to spend a lot of time working out, feeling like you’re doing “all the right things,” only to not really be getting the results you want.
I also know this from my own personal experience, which is why I created a training program to address some of the mistakes that I personally made myself in my earlier years of my strength training journey.
These are the exact things I wish I had learned earlier and what I help my clients with in my coaching practice now!
Meet Your Push-up Project Coach!
Hi, I’m Athena Concannon.
I’m an ACSM certified personal trainer, a Precision Nutrition certified nutrition coach, and the owner and founder of Achieve with Athena.
And I’m so excited to bring you The Push-up Project.
I’ve worked in the health and fitness industry since 2005, and I’ve heard from hundreds and hundreds of women how frustrating it can be to spend a lot of time working out, feeling like you’re doing “all the right things,” only to not really be getting the results you want.
I also know this from my own personal experience, which is why I created a training program to address some of the mistakes that I personally made myself in my earlier years of my strength training journey.
These are the exact things I wish I had learned earlier and what I help my clients with in my coaching practice now!
Let me tell you a little bit more about some of these mistakes:
When I first started ACTUALLY strength training is not when I first THOUGHT I was strength training.
Meaning, I did workouts with weights in group fitness classes, and I did circuits on my own that I picked up here and there on from other fitness bloggers (Instagram swipe workouts weren’t a thing back then!).
Nothing wrong with those things!!
BUT here’s what was working AGAINST me and my goals:
I wasn’t challenging myself enough – never using a heavy enough load to elicit a muscle response.
I wasn’t resting enough between sets – accidentally turning all my workouts into cardio.
I was doing far too much volume week to week – not giving my body ample time to recover between workouts.
And I was switching things up WAY too often – never repeating a workout, so for the sake of variety, not allowing my body to get better or stronger at one thing progressively over time.
In 2014, I got more intentional and focused with strength training, and my body responded.
I became more comfortable navigating weights in general, I became more aware of an untapped strength I didn’t know I had, and I experienced the strength training confidence boost that you can’t really understand until you experience it for yourself.
“I didn’t know I was that strong, I wonder what else I can do!,” is one of my favorite moments in coaching, when a client excitedly realizes her body is capable of doing something she never thought it could do or that society has made her feel will always be out of reach.
I remember feeling SO pumped to explore what else my body was capable of doing.
And let me tell you, it was incredibly empowering to start focusing on performance goals and what else I could achieve physically, instead of harping so much on unrealistic fitness culture ideals and numbers that had to do with getting SMALLER.
I started setting goals around gradually using more weight and doing more reps.
I started chasing performance goals for the first time: things like being able to deadlift and squat my bodyweight, perform unassisted chin ups, and improve my pushups.
This brought so much more JOY into my fitness journey – I started falling in love with the process.
I embraced the PRACTICE required to continue making progress toward my goals, and this “practice makes progress” mentality is one of the things I can confidently say helps me continue to show up in my fitness every day – it helps so many of my clients too! We’re high achievers, what can we say?
I hired Athena as my coach about a year ago, and she has helped me reach so many performance-based goals in that time!
My most recent goal that I achieved under her guidance was a 205 lb deadlift. She helped me work up to a 185 lb deadlift just from her strength-based programming which had me working on deadlifts every week, along with other exercises that work my lower body. After I hit 185, I asked her on a coaching call “do you think I can hit 200 for my birthday?” which was about 6 weeks away at that time. Because I have so much trust in her expertise and guidance, when she said “hell yes,” I knew I would hit that goal no problem.
She wrote my next program to include a second day of deadlifts and gave me specific guidance on what numbers to hit week by week to reach my goal. She checked in on the week leading up to my birthday and gave me a last minute pep talk and tips when I was having doubts the week before. I ended up lifting 205 on my first attempt and it wasn’t even that hard!
I love having a coach I can trust to help me reach realistic strength goals and give me that push to see what my body is capable of doing.
-Ashley Parent
These are the exact reasons I’ve designed The Push-up Project the way I did, and I am so excited for badass women all over the world to go through the program!
I wrote The Push-up Project so you don’t repeat the same mistakes I did in my training.
You’ll know how to tell if you’re challenging yourself enough with the reps and sets provided, you will actually be told to rest between sets, and you won’t need to learn a million new moves every single week.
You will LOVE the simplicity and structure of The Push-up Project, nevermind feeling 100% confident in its expert design to help you with BOTH your overall strength goals AND your push-up goals.
The Push-up Project includes 3 essential factors needed to reach ANY performance endeavor in your fitness. I call these the #TrainingTrifecta, and they are what’s missing from a lot of programming out there.
FREQUENCY
You cannot expect to make progress on your push-ups if you do not practice them frequently. Are you only doing push-ups once a week, but then wondering “what gives?”
In The Push-up Project, you will be performing push-ups in each of your main lifts so you can have the opportunity to practice often and be able to incorporate different variations too.
SPECIFICITY
To get better at push-ups, you don’t ONLY do push-ups. You need drills to help with the exact areas of weakness preventing you from progressing in the first place.
In The Push-up Project, the exercise selection is strategic so you can build overall upper body strength (both pushing and pulling), core and hip strength, glute strength, shoulder mobility, wrist mobility, and more.
PROPER PROGRESSIONS
Finally, you won’t be able to progress effectively if you don’t check your ego at the door. Too many people butcher push-up form for the sake of doing a more “advanced” variation.
In The Push-up Project, you will meet yourself where you are and focus on form quality FIRST. This will help you get the most bang for your buck from your workouts and help prevent injury or overcompensating.
“I couldn’t have cared less about push-ups previously.
They were hard, and not in a good way, but in a “my body feels all wrong kind of way.” Until Athena programmed a variety of push-ups so I could learn: hand release, incline, tempo, and more.
Now I don’t hate them anymore, and I think it’s a cool move to feel strong.
-Laura Hiatt
Please understand that The Push-up Project is more than just a workout collection.
It is something that will help take you OUT of a more is better mentality.
It’s not a program that has you leaving your workouts feeling exhausted, but energized.
It’s not a 6 days a week #NoPainNoGain #NeverMissAMonday #NoExcuses kind of approach.
It doesn’t glorify doing the HARDEST STUFF straight out straight of the gate – again, only when you’re ready.
And it will help you cultivate patience while you lean into the process of what it takes to actually achieve a goal. No quick fix promises over here!
Basically, when you purchase The Push-up Project, you know you are getting a legitimate program written with realistic expectations and healthy guidelines in mind – no extremes!
Up until recently, when I’d hear “push-ups”, I would immediately flash back to my middle school gym teacher telling me I should do “girl push-ups” from my knees if I wasn’t strong enough to do them from my toes. Luckily, I know better than that now!
I have been more consistent than ever before with my strength training & exercise for over a year now, but I’ve still always shied away from push-ups because they are hard for me, and I’ve always felt like I’m not strong enough to do them correctly.
But throughout my time working with Athena, she has always encouraged me and challenged me to DO THE HARD THINGS! So, when she recently asked me about performance goals, I hesitated at first (because once it comes out of my mouth, I know there’s no going back!), but I eventually told her that I’ve always dreamed of being able to do 3-4 full sets of 10-12 push-ups from my toes.
Right away, Athena assessed where I was at currently, and she gave me useful tools and a realistic plan to help me succeed with my new goal, including the right push-up progressions and relevant filler moves in multiple workouts throughout my workouts. Scapular protractions + retractions are my new best friend!!! 🙂
With a supportive and knowledgeable coach like Athena, I have the confidence in myself and the accountability I need to be successful in my goals, even if I feel like I have a long way to go sometimes!
-Kelsey Craig
When you purchase The Push-up Project, you will get a training program that’s broken into 3 separate training phases:
Phase 1: Establish Your Foundation
The first phase of The Push-up Project is all about creating a solid, full-body strength base from which you will continue to build upon.
Just like you wouldn’t start construction on a house without a solid structure first, you should not skip steps and leap into exercises you might not be ready for.
The workouts in phase 1 provide you with the progressions that will help you get to your first push-up from the floor and/or do more push-ups from the floor than you can currently perform.
You will also do strategic accessory exercises that have a direct correlation to these goals.
Phase 2: Build Your Progressions
The second phase of The Push-Up Project is where you will continue to hone your push-up technique.
Your foundation is set, and now it’s time to build on the groundwork you laid for yourself!
The workouts in Phase 2 will allow you to identify what push-up variations feel best for you to work on next so you can keep developing your skill set.
As far as the non-push-up exercises go, you’ll get the perfect mix of both new moves to try and more challenging versions of the accessory moves from Phase 1.
Phase 3: Advance Your Technique
Finally, the third phase of The Push-Up Project is where performing regular push-ups starts to feel pretty effortless! Your journey doesn’t have to end there though.
The workouts in Phase 3 will allow you to continue to build your overall strength level, and you will get to play around with different ways to advance to both more challenging push-up variations and novel ways to perform the other non-push-up moves from Phases 1 and 2.
Think of Phase 3 as being when the walls on the house are up and you get to focus on more of the “fun” stuff – like picking out paint and deciding how you want things to look!
Each phase of The Push-up Project is designed to be completed for at least 4 weeks, with progressive overload in mind.
After you complete a phase, you will have the option to either repeat that phase again or move on to the next, depending on where you feel your progress is at!
What I absolutely love about the breakdown of The Push-up Project is that it meets you wherever you are at and gives you the option to work at your own pace.
There is no set timeline of when you “should” be done with one phase and on to the next – it takes as long as it takes!
Here’s what you get when you purchase The Push-up Project:
SIGNATURE PACKAGE
ONLY $119!
FULL BODY STRENGTH PROGRAM
The training program is divided into 3 different phases to be completed at your own individual pace. Each training phase comes with 3 45-minute lifts per week to keep things DOABLE!
VIDEO TUTORIALS + WORKOUT CHARTS
The workouts provide a link to form tutorials as well as a clear prescription for sets and reps, rest, additional notes, and alternative options for each move. The goal is for you to feel like you are training with Athena in person and have the guesswork taken out of it
3 TOTAL BODY WARM-UPS
Each of these short dynamic warm-ups will help prepare you for the specific movements coming later in your strength workout and ensure your body is prepared for loading. They will also help with core and glute activation and postural awareness.
SAMPLE WEEKLY WORKOUT SCHEDULES
These examples will provide you with different options for structuring your weekly workouts, so you know exactly what to do when, including where to consider putting your favorite cardio.
WORKOUT COMPANION GUIDE
To make sure there are no stones left unturned, this comprehensive guide covers everything from what to expect from the workouts, to form, to how to select load and progress over time, to how sleep, stress, and nutrition are relevant to your workouts.
VIP PACKAGE
ONLY $247!
EVERYTHING INCLUDED IN THE SIGNATURE PACKAGE
- The full body strength training program
- Video tutorials and workout charts
- 3 total body warm-ups
- Sample weekly workout schedules
- A thorough workout companion guide
PLUS:
1:1 LIFT AUDIT SESSION
Use this private coaching session with Athena to get feedback on form and ensure you are getting the most bang for your buck out of your training sessions.
You can also use this time to talk out any additional questions you have about the program or troubleshoot any personal challenges that might come up.
PROGRESS TRACKING BOOKLET
This printable progress tracker is designed to help you record details and notes about your workouts so that you can make sure you are progressing week after week.
Being able to check off your workouts week to week will also help with accountability and motivation!
HIGH PROTEIN SNACK LIST
This downloadable PDF will provide you with some food ideas to help you prioritize protein, which will be essential for supporting your strength training workouts and muscle gains!
Why the Push-up Project?
There are thousands of free workouts on Pinterest, 30 day push-up challenges, and other fitness programs out there. You might be wondering: what makes The Push-up Project different?
MAINSTREAM PROGRAMS
Focus only on the end result, which can feel overwhelming, out of reach, and make it easy to give up along the way.
Tell you to “just do more push-ups,” which is vague and not helpful if you feel like your progress is stalled.
Emphasize quantity instead of quality and want you to do push-ups daily for 30 / 50 / 100 days. You get a calendar with numbers on it and no other guidance.
Tell you that you just need to build up your weak upper body and recommend doing some bicep curls and triceps dips.
Recommend you modify your push-ups by doing kneeling variations, never getting you anywhere closer to your goal.
End after 1 push-up from the floor is accomplished or you hit another number. There's no direction on where to go next to continue your journey.
Do not give you the whole she-bang, leaving you still having to piece together the rest of your workouts and wonder if what you're doing makes any sense.
THE PUSH-UP PROJECT BY ATHENA
Focuses on the process over the outcome, in a step by step format, so you stay focused and keep your head in the game.
Strategically incorporates other exercises directly correlated to improving push-up performance.
Doesn’t want you to hurt yourself! Push-ups are programmed a few times a week, but with ample recovery between workouts so you don't overdo it or burn out.
Is designed as a full body program and emphasizes the most bang for your buck compound exercises for upper AND lower.
Explains WHY dropping to your knees is not effective and provides more optimal options that meet you where you are.
Is designed to help you make continued progress even AFTER you nail that 1, 5, or 10 push-ups from the floor, with countless ways to keep going.
Gives you everything you need to do, from your warm-ups to your mobility work to at least 12 weeks of your exact strength training protocol, and more.
The Push-up Project isn’t just any old workout collection you can swipe off the Internet from a fitness “influencer” with zero credentials to their name.
Instead, it gives you the exact expert-written roadmap you need for an efficient and effective training program you can TRUST! Reach BOTH your push-up goals AND the rest of your full body strength goals, knowing Athena has almost 2 decades of experience in the fitness industry AND your best interests in mind every step of the way.
Athena has been so helpful in my push-up work! I came to her a few months ago looking to refresh some of my workout goals, and she gave me some performance goal examples, which included push-ups. I was very excited to give them a go, as, to my memory, I’ve never been able to do one and I knew that once I could, it would make me feel super badass!
Athena explained some different progressions, most of which where new to me, sent me some form videos, other moves that would help with push-up strength, and we talked through how to incorporate working towards my goal into my planned workouts for the week. I learned that doing push-ups once a week in an upper body lift wasn’t going to cut it if I wanted to progress!
In the past couple months, my push-ups have definitely improved – a slight drop in incline and definitely an increase in the volume that I can do without stopping, which feels so good!
Honestly, I wouldn’t have known where to start without Athena pointing me in the right direction, and she’s given me valuable tools to make this goal a reality!
-Serrie Anderson
Choose the package which best meets your needs:
SIGNATURE PACKAGE
FULL BODY STRENGTH PROGRAM
VIDEO TUTORIALS + WORKOUT CHARTS
3 TOTAL BODY WARM-UPS
SAMPLE WEEKLY WORKOUT SCHEDULES
WORKOUT COMPANION GUIDE
VIP PACKAGE
EVERYTHING INCLUDED IN THE SIGNATURE PACKAGE, PLUS...
1:1 FORM AUDIT SESSION
PROGRESS TRACKING BOOKLET
HIGH PROTEIN SNACK LIST
Again, The Push-up Project is for you if:
- You know you need to prioritize a strength training program with progressive overload, but you haven’t fully committed to the process. You’re ready to be more intentional about it and get the guidance you need that’s been keeping you from going all in.
- You have push-up goals that you want to see come to fruition – #NoMoreKneeling for you – and you want to go about it safely and effectively.
- You don’t want to have to think about what you have to do for your workouts anymore or wonder if you’re putting them together in a way that makes sense. Just having them ready for you to grab and go would be SUCH a time saver in your busy life. One less thing on your mental load, one less decision!
- You know you’ll get an incredible amount of satisfaction from seeing your progress over time in your workouts, and you’re ready to settle into the process of working toward something very tangible. You can’t wait to say, “I just did that thing!” and show off your new skills.
- You want to see some muscle definition on your body and catch a glimpse of your biceps poppin’ in your tank tops after putting in the consistent work!
- You’re just ready to shake things up in your fitness! You aren’t someone who shies away from hard things, you’ve been wanting a new program to follow, and The Push-Up Project is here at the perfect time to give you a new challenge.
Ready to do this thing!?
Just choose which package you want to purchase below, click on the button, enter your information, and you’re in for the presale pricing! You’ll receive a confirmation email to your inbox within 20 minutes, and the full program will be delivered to you on Monday, May 24th when The Push-Up Project officially launches to the public.
SIGNATURE PACKAGE
Let’s do it!
VIP PACKAGE
Let’s do it!
Frequently Asked Questions
What equipment do I need? Can I follow this program from home?
The workouts in The Push-up Project can absolutely be done from a home setting. They also can be done in the gym. At the very minimum, you will need access to dumbbells and resistance bands. If an exercise does involve additional equipment, there will always be an alternative provided for you.
Can I do this program in conjunction with other workouts I'm already doing?
You can. However, for optimal results it is recommended to follow The Push-up Project workouts as written instead of mix and matching or piecing workouts together. This is not to say you cannot take aspects of The Push-up Project and weave them into your week. For example, if you have an established cardio regimen, The Push-up Project is an excellent option for supplementing with a full body strength training program. You just want to be mindful of your overall training volume in any given week so you aren’t overdoing it.
I want to grab the program now, but I'm not sure I can start it right away. Could I save it for another time?
Because of the do it yourself nature of this program, you can start whenever makes the most sense for you, and there is no official start date! You can begin as early as you receive the program to your inbox, or you can tuck the program away and save it for a season that makes more sense for you!
Is this program best for beginners? Can I still get a lot out of it if I've been training for a while and/or can already do a push-up?
The Push-up Project is not just for newbies! Regardless of whether you are a beginner looking to build a solid foundation or you are more experienced in your fitness, The Push-up Project can help take you to the next level, whatever that level may be! Use it to help you work on technique and form, so you can continue to progress in both your push-up AND overall strength journey.
Can men do this program too?
Absolutely! The Push-up Project is appropriate for people of all genders.
How long are the workouts?
Each workout is designed to take approximately 45 minutes. Please note that this is an average time and everyone will be a little bit different, depending on factors such as whether your rest periods are a little longer, whether you add the mobility work as fillers or do them separately, if you are manipulating barbells with plates, or if you change the workouts in any way from how they are written.
What about cardio?
The Push-up Project is not a cardio program. It is a full body strength program. However, this does not mean you cannot do your cardio favorites on your own!
Is there any coaching involved with this program?
The Push-up Project is a do-it-yourself training program. If you purchase the signature option, there is no coaching involved: you get the program, and you are off and running on your own! If you purchase the VIP package, you will receive a 45-minute Form Audit, which is a private coaching session with Athena. These single sessions are perfect for anyone who wants to receive some form feedback and/or ask any questions about anything in the program. Examples include how to best structure your workouts over your week given your other activity levels/schedule or reviewing any modifications/exercise alternatives you might need. For any coaching beyond the Form Audit, it is recommended you set up a free connection consult with Athena and chat about your goals and options.
What if I have more questions?
Do not hesitate to reach out! Email Athena at info@achievewithathena.com, and we’ll make sure you’re taken care of. We respond to inquiries within 24-48 hours.