Inspired by the losing weight thread.

Pushups are one of the oldest exercises known to man. Pushups can rip your whole upper body into an amazing specimen of physical fitness, defining your pecs, triceps, and shoulders. There are many different types of pushups. Military, diamond, handstand, hindu, Atlas, pike, and variations of all these. They even work your abs and parts of your legs. They can be done almost anywhere and by anyone.

So pushups do many things for you, you can;
Lose fat
Increase muscle tone
Increase strength
Increase stamina
Feel better
Prolong life
Be like Batman.
Yes, be like Batman.

I could sell you these ancient secrets, but I am going to give them to you for FREE because everyone deserves pushups. Hoever, there is a challenge to go along with this.

Before the end of January, drop down and do as many pushups as you possibly can in a row, until you just can't push at all anymore. If you can do 200 that's oustanding, if you can't do a single one that is okay too.

Your goal will be to double your daily pushups numbers. Now for some of us that is not feasible, for me, I am not going to get to 300 pushups a day in a month. But for those of you who can only do five, ten is a reachable goal.

So here is the secret. Pick one kind of pushup and stick to it. Most of you only know the standard military pushup, and that is one of the most versatile and best versions. For those of you who do not know how to properly perform a pushup here is how.

Lay prone on the floor, relax for a moment, and place your hands on the ground, at the level of your shoulders and slightly inside of them. Keep your elbows tucked in and press yourself up until your elbows are locked. Slowly lower yourself down to the bottom position, rather than just dropping, and lightly touch your chest to the floor and once again press to the top.

So here is the secret to increasing numbers of pushups, pullups, really anything.

Do them often. Pick a spot in your house, and cut your max in half (how many you can do in one sitting) and do that many every time you go through there. For me it is next to my computer, I do either 20 pushups (I get up a lot so I use less than half my max) or 40 situps. When I walk by my pullup bar I do five pullups or ten chinups.

Who is good for this?

I could try that, but I reckon my spot would be infront of my door in my room. I feel this would result in soreness.

Eh, I'll give it a try anyway.

I do 50 a day, and it works pretty well.

i'll give it a go, my upper body strength is crap but i need to loose this gut.

i never exercise beyond walking.

Man, I could probably only do 25 in a row before dropping from pain.

I can barely do 5.

Less, if it's properly.

You'll notice dramatic improvement immediately followed by much slower improvement.

When I did them a while back I got from being about to do 20 to being able to do 70 in about a week. Getting to 100 took much longer.

A few months ago I could hardly do 10. I'm not sure how many I can do now, but I have been working on it after I discovered most people can do more than 10 pushups at once.

I try to do 25 pushups and 50 situps each morning, but sometimes I'm way too lazy or in a hurry, and that makes doing it the next day so much harder. Oh well.

My upper body was torn to **** after push-up pyramids during last monday's PT.

Pushups are good for keeping what you have, but if you want REAL upper body improvement, use the bench press and the inclined bench.

Psh, those kinds of pushups are for pansies. Legless pushups all the way!

I managed 15, which is pathetic for a 13 year old.

I managed 47 in a push-up contest at school last year, and was beaten only by four push-ups.

But, since 15 is so pathetic and I really need to work on that, I'll do 10 every time I leave my room (because when I leave, I'm generally coming right back), and once that gets easy I'll work up to 15. Heck, maybe I'll set my standard at 15.

I don't agree.

They are for different purposes.

my maximum pushups nonstop in one go was 32.

When I'm healthy, I can do about 200 a day. right now I cant be bothered

if(getThingFlags(source) & 0x8){
  do her}
elseif(getThingFlags(source) & 0x4){
  do other babe}
else{
  do a dude}

Bench press is really overrated. I mean, it bulks you up but it's just not the greatest. I still really like to do it, and I also like to curl alot. But yeah, my record for pushups is between 80-90.

I used to do daily pushup's and sit ups. I would try to do 100 pushups and 50 situps but then I kinda fell off the routine.. I really want to get back into it cause I really noticed a difference!

I've found the bench press has been making me look somewhat abnormal. Killer triceps and chest is just not right without the bicep and forearm balance. Since I haven't been feeling up to gym outings lately (damned respiratory infection), I may take up this pushup challenge. It's been a while. I recommend Hindu pushups. They rock for an awesome overall (as far as pushups can go).

If I remember correctly, push ups excercise every muscle in your body.

pretty much, stomach muscles are, not sure about wang muscles tho.

if(getThingFlags(source) & 0x8){
  do her}
elseif(getThingFlags(source) & 0x4){
  do other babe}
else{
  do a dude}

You don't remember correctly.

I do a couple of sets of push ups and incline push ups when I warm up before lifting weights. I just did 40 with out much trouble.

That they do. However they are a lot more challenging, especially in public.

http://www.bronzebowpublishing.com/HinduPU.gif

That is a Hindu Pushup. The guy performing it is John Peterson. I've had some wonderful correspondence with him, and he maintains his physique with bodyweight, isometric, self-resistance, and sports exercise only. But that isn't really the point.

The Hindu Pushup is a great way to get an all around body workout and even helps build up to handstand pushups if you do not have the strength to stay in a handstand.

Nobody should be so weak that he or she can't hold a handstand. You'd have to be malnutritioned, or not have gone through puberty, or something.

edit: this is a tremendously useful and reputable article that helps you do bodyweight training .. I personally don't like bench press or freeweight training in general because it tends to cause my control of my body to decrease. Bodyweight training ftw.

http://www.dragondoor.com/cgi-bin/articles.pl?rm=mode3&articleid=229

From the article:

i cant hold one... i just spend all my days getting wrecked and doing nothing.

its ideal, but it means you have no upper body strength

If you can't hold it, that's a matter of balance, not strength. Not being able to hold it because of strength would mean that your arms would collapse as soon as your weight went over them, and you'd fall on your face without a chance to even tip over or fall down due to lack of balance.

Sorry, was talking about holding yourself up in a handstand pushup. Like actually going down from arms locked.

I do them against a wall because I am not good enough at balance or strong enough (in the core, I am uber close though) to really do a reasonable one.

i just tried a pushup but my back just bends, what the hell is wrong with my pushups

[edit] it also makes my wrists feel like they're gonna snap, i guess i dont know how to do them properly [/edit]

...Or you could just go to a gym and get super huge.

[QUOTE=Mr. Stafford]i just tried a pushup but my back just bends, what the hell is wrong with my pushups

[edit] it also makes my wrists feel like they're gonna snap, i guess i dont know how to do them properly [/edit][/QUOTE]

Drink more milk! I don't know, but since I've been neglecting my milk intake lately, I've been snapping all over the place. It's all about proper form and calcium intake (at least as far as cracking is concerned).

That's why a thorough workout isn't just based on one exercise. :p

I can do 50 in a sitting with great effort.

I tried to do them once, I think something exploded.

[QUOTE=Mr. Stafford]i just tried a pushup but my back just bends, what the hell is wrong with my pushups

[edit] it also makes my wrists feel like they're gonna snap, i guess i dont know how to do them properly [/edit][/QUOTE]


A strong core helps with your form, so do some sit ups too.




Yeah. There are core muscles in the body you have to work out to keep everything balanced. If you're going to use weights, it's best to work the chest, shoulders, biceps, triceps, forearms, abs, quads and calfs to keep everything balanced.

Hey, I like the one-place-in-the-house idea. I'll try that. Perhaps I can also resume my situps-before-sleeping rule.

But do you also do that when you have friends over?

i used to be able to do 35....now it's like 17-20 at most.

I remember when i wanted to increase them i found doing like 5-10 reps then going to 5-10 rowers (like a situp except you lay down and your feet are straight out when you sit up, bring your feet in) and kept switching and rest for a bit when i got tired, then go right back to it. think i went from 10-25 in a week when i did that.

I bench 2-3 times a week, so it might be tough to do it some days, but I'll see what I can do. I can do about 45 now in a row.

I think I'll use this month to work much more on stamina, I've been meaning to for a while.

I can hardly do one...

200 girly pushups for me! (lol)

Seriously, I can do 30 before one of my hand slips of fatigue and I crash face down on the ground. I'm also going to start pushups and situps bi-daylie. Mornin and evenin. Add that to some cardio, a healthy diet and you've got your fat burner. W00t. Maybe Jess will help me with some more cardio in the evening. :em321: (lol)

My problem with cardio is that I have a fast metabolism, so I never felt the need to do it, in terms of personal image. I was pretty skinny (am still, though more built) on the other hand, so I've always lifted. Now that I'm really getting back into bmx and running I find my lung capacity isn't what I feel it should be.

I'm a fat *** by nature.