How do you call a “push up” in your language and what is the name of this exercise in your language as well as the literal translations?

31 comments

1. In dutch we call it opdrukken literally pushing up. But we also use push up as a word.

2. Well, *technically*, it’s not my language, as “push-up” is the US term. In the UK the correct term would be “press-up”. Something I was never able to do myself as I was always a bit pathetic that way.

   Wouldn’t the literal translation in German be something like “aufdrücken”? “Stoß herauf” sounds like you’re bumping into something.

3. It’s called *armhävning* meaning “arm heave”.

   A direct translation of “push up” into Swedish would be something like “upptryck”. It’s a perfectly usable word, but doesn’t refer to the exercise. It’s used as *”he was pushed up against the wall”* or such.

4. The Swedish word “armhävning” would be “arm heaving”, with heave as in to lift something heavy.

   The literal translation of “push up” would be “stöt upp”, but that would be interpreted as being related to “uppstötning”, a belch/gastric reflux/regurgitation.

5. In Polish, we call it “pompka”, which means little, usually hand operated pump.

   Literal, word for word translation of “push up” would be “pchnięcie w górę”, which… yeah it’s not great.

6. In french it’s called “pompe”, the noun that comes from the verb “pomper” (to pump)

7. “Отжимание”. Literally: to separate one from the other by force. In the case of exercise, lift the body off the ground by muscle strength.

8. in Italian they are called “flessioni” -> flexion or Bending.

   another term is “piegamenti” which means the same thing

9. Pompen (”to pump”) but push-ups gets used almost as, if not more frequently than pompen

10. Depends. Many (most?) People call it an “armbøjning” (meaning arm-bending) while others insists that it’s correctly called an “armstrækning” (meaning extending the arm) because that’s what the exercise is mostly about. I suspect the former word is the original and people came up with the second because they found the first one illogical and then decided it was the correct name

11. I actually had to look the etymology up. The greek word is “κάμψη” and it basically means to bend something (I suppose it is referring to the arms).

12. > Germans call it a “Liegestütz” (meaning lounge support, like the supports of a sun-lounger).

    Well, that’s a intentional mistranslation. “Liegen” means to lie flat, horizontally (like in a bed), and “stützen” means to physically support something. So “Liegestütz” means that you’re in a position where you have to support your weight (stützen) which is also a (near) horizontal position.

    While it’s most commonly used for push-ups, “Liegestütz” can also be used just for the “up” position of the push up. So when explaining some other exercise, you could explain it by saying “go to a Liegestütz position, and then lift your right leg up”, for example.

13. Atsispaudimas.

    Very weird to translate but probably “action of pressing self away”

14. In Bulgarian, it’s “лицева опора” which literally means “face support”. I’m not sure what the exact logic is tbh 😄

15. In Spanish (Spain) it is called “flexión”. Don’t know if in other Spanish-speaking countries they call it in another way.

16. My gym teachers swapped between “push-up” or “flessione”

17. In Finnish it’s “punnerrus”
    Not so sure about what it means literally, “punnertaa” is the verb and is likely just another version of the word “push”
    Pull-up is leuanveto, which is literally “chin pull”

18. Well the literal translation is lying blanket. Which sound REALLY stupid. It sound like “shkivot smiha”
    In israel

19. Flotări. The “ă” is pronounced like the English “uh”.
    Don’t know the exact literal translation but it’s something to do with weaving.

20. In hingarian it’s “fekvőtámasz”, meaning something along the line of lying-support.

21. In Czechia 🇨🇿 we call it “klik” which basicaly means “click”

22. In portuguese we call it a “flexão”, literally a flexion.

23. In Latvian “atspiedieni” – pushaways (from something) or “pumpīši” – pumps diminutive. Probably a bunch of regional variants too.

24. 🇪🇪In estonian we say “kätekõverdus” which roughly means handbending, where “käed” means arms and “kõvedus/kõverdama” meaning bending🇪🇪

    Edit: but it’s also referred to as “pumpama” which meand to pump

25. In Hungarian we call it fekvőtámasz, meaning “lying support” as in lying down. The exercise is called karhajlítás – nyújtás, meaning “arm bending and stretching.”

26. In Catalan we call it “flexió”, literally “bending”

27. Kľuky(cranks), but most people call it Kliky(clicks).

28. “skleca” or “sklek”, not sure where it comes from, maybe from the verb “skleniti” which means to connect or meet with ends, come together, etc. maybe like being paralel to the ground and meet it flatbodied while doing pushups..

    A perhaps related word is “sklep” which means a joint, like a knee or elbow etc., or it could mean an assumption based conclusion.

29. The Norwegian word is *Armheving*, meaning arm-raising, as in “raising your body off the ground using your arms”. Many younger people just call it a “push up” though.

30. In Danish it’s armstrækker, which translates directly to “arm stretcher”. A lot of people will tell you that it’s called armbøjninger or “arm benders” but that’s a misconception and would be a Danish word for pull ups. Generally Danes are happy to adopt English terms though and most gym exercises are just referred to by their English names.

31. in Hungary we call it fekve nyomás which translates to basically “pushing while laying down”. Strange, as always