Help my pushups.

[Flabbergasped?]

Age: 16
Height: 6' 1''
Weight: 180

Basically, I decided to stop lifting, since my activities involve too much cardio, and strength won't serve me very much. If you remember, I do like 10 hours of breakdancing and 5 hours a soccer a week.

However, I've decided to keep doing bodyweight exercises to keep my muscles toned and build endurance (especially in triceps/shoulders, which are really important for breaking). For some reason though, I can't do pushups (or pullups, for that matter), at all. I think the most push-ups I've done continuously is 15-18. Under duress (I had to do this many or I would fail PE and not graduate, my coach was a douche), I did 38 straight. This is when I couldn't bench the bar, I couldn't move my arms the rest of the day.

I bench 135 now, but pushups are still insanely hard.

What's the procedure for improving them? Just do them all the time? Sets and reps like in lifting, 1-2 times a week? Weighted?

I'd like to be able to do 100 in one sitting. I know that's five times what I do now, but it's possible in this lifetime.

Help me SS!

 

[Modro]

i find start small, ie. sets of 5, then slowly build up to 8 then 10 etc

 

[THE_ADDMAN]

absolutely its possible. buddy and I went from doing 20, to over 100.

do like 2 sets of ur 20 every night, then gradually add 5 each week or so to ur sets

 

[shaunuk]

Basically, like any training, you need progressive overload to keep your body getting stronger. Wear a weighted backpack and start doing pushups, gradually adding either reps or weight to the backpack. This should make the number of bodyweight pushups you can do go up.

-shaun

 

[LoneSilver]

Don't forget push up bars they give you more range but a bit harder but when I did the same ol' same ol' push ups I bought these push up bars they felt harder then went back and did the regular and pushed out so many more.

Yes weighted push ups are key to building up a good push up.

LoneSilver

 

[shaunuk]

You could do 3 sets to failure 3-4 times a week..experiment with that.

-shaun

 

[blinkwatt]

Basically, like any training, you need progressive overload to keep your body getting stronger. Wear a weighted backpack and start doing pushups, gradually adding either reps or weight to the backpack. This should make the number of bodyweight pushups you can do go up.

-shaun

Good info.

 

[organizedconfusion]

Deck of cards for the push ups..nuff said.

how many pull ups can you do? if you can manage 1,i'd get a pull up bar and set it up in your house.Rep out how ever many you can do until you have a total of 50.That sounds like alot but if you're doing them 1-2 at a time,it's possible..just takes a while to get it up there. I'd do this twice a week,work up to 3x or until you can do 10-20.I can do about 10 chin ups straight,where as before i could only do like barley 1.

 

[Teflon_Mcgee]

With push-ups, repitition is key.
Train to failure. It works with push-ups. Do every set to failure then recover and repeat.

Twice a day do 100. Your goal is to get it down to as few sets as possible. Evenually getting it down to one set of 100.

In each set once you reach failure DO NOT GET UP. Maintian yourself in the up position with your back straight. Rest there until you can crank out one or two more. Then get up. Eventually you can get all 100 without getting out of that position.

Also alter grip width. You probably want to focus on shoulder width or wider if your goal is just reps. later on add diamonds and divebombers.

Also put some weight in a back pack and do push ups. I use a big rubber band around my back that adds about 50lbs at the top.

 

[Kev07]

Chest touchers (do push ups where your chest touches the ground every rep)

and just do it over and over again, if your goal is 100, i'd say do 200 in one day.

or just join the military, when i was in the NJROTC in high school, my push ups went from 9 really crappy push ups to 80(in 2 minutes) by the end of the year.