A pushup a day

RWBRWB Icrontian
edited September 2008 in Fitness
http://westcoastgrid.blogspot.com/2006/12/your-new-years-resolution.html

Some buddies of mine posted this on our forum I figured I'd get more involved. I'll be starting tomorrow morning just before work doing 20 or so(dunno how much I can do, but I'd bet it's more :p) and simply add 1 more per day as I've read it. Same for sit ups as well.

Anyone else interested?

Comments

  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited March 2008
    I'll give it a shot. I already do 75 of each a day, so I'll increase it from there.
  • ThelemechThelemech Victoria Icrontian
    edited March 2008
    ...I will try it as well....sounds interesting !
  • RWBRWB Icrontian
    edited March 2008
    Good job then on that 75, I think the max I could ever do was 55.

    A buddy created this spreadsheet for those of us beginning like yesterday...

    Now for others joining in if you read the article it's not that you gotta do this all in one sitting, like he split his up after reaching a certain number so he did 60 in one go and it takes up a total of like 20-30 minutes of his day.

    Just +1 per day, sounds so easy and I think even now I could handle 365 a day, doing like 10 here and 10 there throughout the day.
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited March 2008
    You should split it up into sets anyway. Doing any exercise that many times in a row is a recipe for injury, and means you're not doing an exercise that will benefit you in any way.
  • RWBRWB Icrontian
    edited March 2008
    I think I'd get bored after 60 in a row anyways... unless it gets just so easy to do I can watch TV while doing it like when I am on the elliptical machine.
  • NomadNomad A Small Piece of Hell Icrontian
    edited March 2008
    This is a brand of what's called 'greasing the groove,' a common way of overcoming limitations in body weight movements, more effectively applied to pull-ups. (For reference, pull ups are palms away, and much more difficult than chin ups where your palms are toward you).

    Essentially what you do is you try to do a set of as many as you can, stopping just before failure--meaning your final rep should be a complete rep, not a forced kicking and screaming half rep. Over the course the day you continually do more sets, by the evening you'll probably have more than a hundred completed. In doing so, you increase your total number gradually and your body adapts.

    It works well for pull ups, I used a method at the gym where I shoot for a total number, such as 30, and do as many sets as necessary to get to that number. I've found it to be effective, I consider myself bad at pull-ups and pull downs, but it has taken my reps from five consecutive to about fifteen consecutive in a little under two months.

    However, you must consider this doesn't have a linear translation to push-ups. Pull-ups you are using 100% of your body weight, the goal is to eventually do repetitions while adding weight to your initial bodyweight. In a push-up you're only pushing about 40-60% of your weight, so after about twelve consecutive repetitions it's merely inducing fatigue. Twelve reps is a feat that should be within reach even by a relative novice after a few weeks, at most, months. Twelve pull-ups, on the other hand, can take quite a lot of time for someone to hit.

    Furthermore, additional weight to a pull-up is more easily achieved than that of a push-up, it's nearly impossible to place weight safely on your back between your shoulder blades. By doing so, you're simply turning it into a bench press.

    Some people like push-ups for burnout effect, where they do a heavy set on bench or dumbbells and then drop right into wide-gripped push-ups to activate pectoral muscles. Rarely does anyone use them to great result for muscle growth. In my opinion, clappers (plyometrics) will produce better results and have a more profound affect on other conditioning exercises.

    In a nutshell, if you have fundamental problems with push-ups--such as an inability to do them, or improperly doing them (nose touches floor, ass down)--you should consider this, but if you are capable of push-ups you should look towards weighted chest movements.
  • GHoosdumGHoosdum Icrontian
    edited March 2008
    I use pushups for burnout during chest workout days. I don't think they're very useful for building additional muscle once you've got a stable base, however.

    Nomad, at what point would you recommend adding weight to pull-ups? Right now I'm nowhere near feeling like I'm doing too many reps per set (7 is about my highest set) but when you mention 15 reps it makes me think - how many reps at body weight is a good point to spur you to start adding weight?

    The pushup-a-day thing is something that my dad tried when I was a kid. His theory was that it wouldn't feel substantively worse as each day progressed. He failed after about a month, but he wasn't breaking it into sets, he was trying to go straight through, which at the time I didn't think anything of but now realize is the wrong way to go.

    It reminds me of the story of the guy who owned a farm and when a calf was born, he decided to deadlift the calf every day as it grew. He obviously never made it to lifting the full-grown cow, but it's interesting to study and try to figure out where the eventual point of failure will occur in any kind of progressive loading "workout" like that.
  • NomadNomad A Small Piece of Hell Icrontian
    edited March 2008
    GHoosdum wrote:
    Nomad, at what point would you recommend adding weight to pull-ups? Right now I'm nowhere near feeling like I'm doing too many reps per set (7 is about my highest set) but when you mention 15 reps it makes me think - how many reps at body weight is a good point to spur you to start adding weight?

    I think it's a very individualistic choice. Some say eight, some say, six, some will say twenty. I'd tell you to follow your bodies inclinations, but it also depends on your goals. More reps will build endurance, but may not build growth substantially. Conversely if you want to attack both ends, you could have a high rep day, then at the end of the week do a low-rep with weight added day. You could also do one of these two each week.
  • mmonninmmonnin Centreville, VA
    edited March 2008
    I would think varrying the working would be key to avoid the plateau effect.

    There have been times where I would do pushups and situps every day after FedEx and it would get to the point where my normal sets of varrying pushup types were not enough so I made each kind harder. Elbows in and hands closer to the feet so more weight would come down on my upper body. Doing them slower than more methodical definitely makes them harder. Then it was with the feet on something about a foot in the air so quite a bit more than the 40-60% of my body weight was on my hands.
  • HarudathHarudath Great Britain Icrontian
    edited April 2008
    I've been doing 10-15 pushups every couple hours several times a day for about a week. When I started I couldn't do one pull-up but I did like 5 today... not bad for a week's progress :D I'll increase the number once it becomes easier
  • edited September 2008
    Hey guys, here's what we did in the Marine Corps, pyramid sets of "Jack Bauers"(lots of 24 fans) anyway. Figure however many pushups you can do max set. Divide that by 4. Now start at 1 or whatever you prefer, after you do a pushup you stop, go to your knees and do a "Jack Webb"(again a Marine Corps thing, I have no idea) anyway a shoulder press, palms up. Do the same amount of these as you did pushups. Go up to your determined amount then come back down.

    Increase your top point as needed. You won't get bigger doing this but you will get increased stamina, believe me around the 15 mark lifting your arms over your head gets pretty challenging if you're not used to it. This also helps because it keeps you from getting into a rythmn and letting that carry you.

    That's my input.
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