I only want to be able to do 1 pushup. 2 mins down, 2mins up. When I do pushups I usually do sets of 15 interspersed with sets of 30 situps. 100 pushups and 200 situps will take me about half an hour. I use lots of variations. All done on knuckles. Fists verticle - elbows tucked in, fists horizontal - elbows out, wide ones - fist horizontal, "chinese pushups" - using hands make triangle with fingers and make them touch, then push up ith them in front of your chest, tripods - one hand vertical at hip the other horizontal and out in front, tiger push ups - get a wall, put the soles of your feet against it form triangle with your body and the ground, bend your arms - all weight is on shoulders, the smaller gap between feet and hands the better.
How are the pushups going? Hi there Have you achieved your goal with your pushups yet? When I joined my current club 3 or so years ago my body got a bit of a shock when I was expected to do about 50+ pushups, I was used to about 20!! This is what I did to get me upto scratch. This is a very popular weight training routine. Usually the progression is poundages (i.e weights) but in this instance it is reps. I was used to doing 20 reps. I started the first day of the cycle with just 10 reps. A days rest then 12 reps, a days rest then 14, etc, etc. When things started getting hard I would just aim for 1 extra rep. If I struggled to get that rep then I would give myself EXTRA days rest before attempting the next set. When I got to the point when I could not do anymore I took a week off. When I resumed training I dropped myself 10 reps (if you was at say 40 then you would drop to 30) then repeat the cycle. This is a tried and tested method, very slow but progressive. Alot of people have commented on pressup style. They are all on the mark about that. I cannot honestly confess that my 100 pressup target was the perfect pressup. But to do 100 pressups nose to the ground or nearly to the ground in any style is quite an achievement and should be respected. I only did it to keep up with the others in the club. However I would rather stick to low reps with slow deliberate form. This hurts and I feel is more time effective than 100 pushups. Hope this helps or at least provides food for thought.
I do really need to get back into it. Before my last grading I had improved loads, I could do about 40 seiken push ups. We had to do 30 for the grading, so I thought I was sorted till they made us do two sets! Now I've dropped back down to about 20-25, having had a break for Christmas etc. I agree that the slow deliberate way of doing press ups is better. It takes a lot longer to get the quantity, but the quality is better, and to me that counts
I compared the sylabbi of different martial arts a while ago, 100 push ups for Shodan is pretty typical, I think the range I saw across style was something like 70 to 200. If you need to increase the number you can do, JUST practising standard pushups is inefficient. You need to also do a version with greater effort, for example: 1) Plyometric Pushups (fast, hands come away from the ground on the up motion) 2) Pushups with your feet raised about 2 ft from the floor (using a stool or similar) 3) Very slow pushups 4) Loose weights: Bench Press 5) Loose weights: Triceps Extension 6) Loose weights: Dumbell flyover
I've only recently started reading about Plyometric exercises iolair. Until then I've always thought most value is doing things slowly in a precise way. But it seems the use of Plyometric training will generate more explosive power. So there is a lot of value in doing fast push ups. What exactly are exercises 5 & 6 that u mention?
Plyometric push ups can be fast but the push-ups which iolair was mentioning where u come down in a push-up and then u push urself up so that for an instant ur both hands are in the air where u clap them and come back down. |Cain|
5) Triceps extension This is an isolating exercise for the triceps (the muscle on the back of the upper arm). The triceps is the weaker muscle involved in the push up/punching action, so is often a limiting factor in push ups. You are upright when you carry out the exercise, you have a dumbbell in one or both hands, you reach down behind your head, then straighten the arms upwards above your head. A google search for "triceps extension" quickly finds an animation of the exercise: http://www.exrx.net/WeightExercises/Triceps/DBTriExt.html 6) Dumbell flyover is an isolation exercise for the chest muscles. You lie on your back (on a bench is easiest) with your arms straight out to the sides: a dumbbell in each hand. Lift your arms up above your chest keeping them straight, then return them back to the sides. To increase strength, you need a weight you can lift about 6 to 12 times on these exercises, to concentrate on muscle endurance a weight you can lift 10 to 20 times. For the "normal" version of the exercises, take about 2 seconds to lift the weight, and 1 second to lower it: don't pause between repetitions. Warm up the muscles with a lighter weight first if your doing low reps... If you're not used to weights, do 1 to 3 sets each of 10 reps to start with.
Thanks for the advice iolair. I'll give number 5 a go. I've got my own weights and go to the gym, but I've never really learnt the best way to use them though........ I've started using heavier weights also, like you mentioned, in 3 sets of 12. How many pounds would you use for no. 5? I do something similar to no. 6, but its using a bar and from a standing position, so probably now very similar at all
Hello KGirl, if you want to boost your pushup count fast, why not trying a fitness centre? there you can train the muscles you need, with a lower load on the muscles 'preventing' an overload resulting in oh yess muscular pain. did help me quite a lot! Cya, marinus
yes we all hate them too but they are a necessary evil in developing punching power. I vary between 70 and 100 in one batch most days. I have to do many sets of 80 for my next grading... The best way of improving your capabilites to do more is to do them V-E-R-Y S-L-O-W-L-Y ! Also holding the down and halfway position for some time will help you too! Do them and do them some more. Then do them again.
train hard but proper! As a karateka you do not want to do push ups slowly, when you do pushups slowly, you train the short muscles, while for speed you need the long muscles,..... to train the proper muscles, you need to push hard and then go down slow! By the way i like the last line, well said reiki Cya, marinus
long muscles? short muscles? what the hell are you talking about? do you know? *cough dips are a much better option IMHO cough* Here comes another bottom line, brought to you by MAP's favourite clueless waster: the only way to get better at pushups is by DOING THEM. Methods like grease the groove etc. are useful (sets to less than failure every hour all day) in building up your numbers.
I think u misunderstood me macoda, we do vary our pressups to include slow and fast ones, however the best way I've found to improve your arm strength is to do slow pressups, and to hold the pressup position for as long as possible. The very best advice I can give you is to do the pressups then do them some more and then do them again until you can't. Hindu pressups can be helpful in getting up the numbers & strenght too, however since I've been still nursing my wrist tendons, I've found the extreme movement of the Hindu pressups is difficult for my wrist and it tends to make it rather sore still so I use these with caution. It's taken months to heal slowly and I'd rather not go through all that again. Naturally its harder for us women doing pressups than it is for the blokes doing pressups because they have higher upper body strength. They do however seem to struggle more on the situps/crunches than we do.
Hi Reiki, alright, sorry I indeed misunderstood.... I agree....combinations of both slow and fast pressups works best. fast ones to increase speed, and slow ones to increase the amount of muscles. Hidu pressups..... I do not understand what you mean with this I see it at the fitness centre Im training as well, for most women it's much harder than for the blokes, althoug there are women.... who do pressups with weights tree times as much as me... RESPECT! cheers, marinus
Perhaps, if you don't even know what a hindu pushup is, you'd do best to keep your advice to yourself until you are more knowledgable. Especially if you have such an inadequate conception of the difference between strength, endurance and muscle size. You'll find an explanation of hindu pressups and divebombers here: http://www.trainforstrength.com/ex-1.shtml
Warning Do not do too many pushups (or anything) at once. I recently did 500 push-ups, 500 situ-ps, and 500 hindu squats (about two days ago) and I've been hobbling around ever since... - Words of Wisdom from a Green Belt, Osu
I have been sick for a month so am back to building up on the push ups. I start with as many as I could do in good form (my first attempt I managed to do 6 in excellent form then another 8 with a smaller dip) then drop to my knees and do a few more. Another good thing is to hold myself down position in the push up for a 10 count (or longer) after I have done a full set of push ups. But, the best thing I have is a fit ball - also called a swiss ball. I got one as a present and it is really entertaining to play on, so I find that I sit on it and roll around on it and balance on it while watching tv. Push ups off the swiss ball are great because you need to maintain balance, and so both arms have to work fairly evenly. And it does not even feel like work!
I've started to use weights to help my training too. I'm thinking of applying some weight to my back or stomach to try and strengthen my press ups too, such as a weighted belt or something. Has anyone here tried this? I'd like to know if its any good? Thats a good idea, im going to try it.
Yah. I have done up to 500 + pushups in crazy seshes ( in sets of 50 with 0 - 1-3 min rests ) daily for months in a row at times over the past several yrs. Imo, all it comes down to is the amount of sugar in your joints ( particularly complex carbs .......and doesn't that feel great to work off!! When I load , I even tell myself that it''ll be a good honest hypertrophic workout and think, well .......time to work some 'o that sugar out of joints) and the alignment of your spine . I also like to do some of them without breathing and using reverse breathing techs, I even do whole sets where I do 10 or 20 or so at a time with my breath in pelvic ( lower ) diaphragm. This causes a toxic burn off and is a good reactive speed building exercise even when done at medium pace ( though lol because I know that that'll likely make no sense whatsogoddammed ever It 's a qigong / satori thing if you wondered thing...... but you don't even have to know how it works....... just do it and it will ) good luck with it Bl Btw : don't feel bad about my maxout rep no either, at the moment I'm just edging back on a regular 150- 200 and if I only do 100 or 50 in a day 3 days in row ( for whatever reason ) I don't care........ cheers
