hundredpushups.com

[Gradstudent78]

Originally Posted by javyn

edit: BTW, when trying to do the pullup/chinup or whatever where my palms are facing away from me is QUITE a bit more difficult. I can barely do 5.

Pullups are where your palms face away, chinups are where they face towards you.

 

[whacked]

^ What he said.

The easiest way to improve bodyweight pushups and pullups is to just keep doing them everyday, with increasing reps(for each set). Kinda like taking the SATs.

Which is why I really don't see the point of working toward 100 pushups in a set, other than just for **** and giggles.




BTW, I think it's possible to gain (some) size and strength on a strict bodyweight routine. You just have to do some stupid amount of push/pulls every session (think 300 or so for each) to make it the equivalent of regular workouts. Good if you don't have ready access to free weights, I guess.

 

[LA Guy]

Originally Posted by whacked

^ What he said.

The easiest way to improve bodyweight pushups and pullups is to just keep doing them everyday, with increasing reps(for each set). Kinda like taking the SATs.

Which is why I really don't see the point of working toward 100 pushups in a set, other than just for **** and giggles.

The principle that you get better at doing somethin by doing more of it goes for pretty much every exercise, including weight lifting. There are certain weight lifting exercises that I can do insane numbers of reps on at high weight, because I've been doing the exercise for years.

Pushups, done correctly, really exercise the core, as well as the shoulders and chest, and really help muscle endurance. I would really recommend them to guys just for the core. I've found that a lot of cosmetically fit men have trouble with things like sprinting and martial arts because they lack good core strength. Also, having a strong core gives you good explosive power.

Re. Pullups - the difficultly level really depends on how wide your grip is. I can do 30 BW close gripp pullups (these are the sorts you can see the military doing). The wide grips, which exercise the outer lats, are considerably more difficult. I can do 15, and I find that difficult. Chinups I can do nearly indefinitely. Well, no. But I've done well over 30 in a row and not found it nearly as hard as the pullups.

 

[javyn]

OK thanks. I can do 30 chinups and 5 pullups then

 

[Tck13]

Originally Posted by LA Guy

Pushups, done correctly, really exercise the core, as well as the shoulders and chest, and really help muscle endurance. I would really recommend them to guys just for the core. I've found that a lot of cosmetically fit men have trouble with things like sprinting and martial arts because they lack good core strength. Also, having a strong core gives you good explosive power.

+1

 

[mwill132]

It is definitely possible to get gains in strength and size using only your body weight. If anyone want a easy to use program using only your body weight Google "Matt Furey" and check out his line of books. I have "Combat Conditioning" and it gives detailed workouts for every level of exerciser. I saw good results off of it. Just thought someone might like to check it out.

 

[Jumbie]

Originally Posted by mwill132

It is definitely possible to get gains in strength and size using only your body weight. If anyone want a easy to use program using only your body weight Google "Matt Furey" and check out his line of books. I have "Combat Conditioning" and it gives detailed workouts for every level of exerciser. I saw good results off of it. Just thought someone might like to check it out.

Matt Furey is a tool.

You can find all the info in his books for free on the web; and I'm not talking about illegally obtaining his books either. Okay, he's a smart tool cause he certainly capitalized on those movements but it's well known that when Matt was in his prime he was weight training. This includes the pics of him on the cover of his books/videos.

Try visiting some of the free sites like bodyweightculture.com or something similar. You will find a lot more info on there and some really great ideas for training without equipment. Some of those guys are nuts though with what they do.

 

[eidolon]

Originally Posted by whacked

^ What he said. The easiest way to improve bodyweight pushups and pullups is to just keep doing them everyday, with increasing reps(for each set). Kinda like taking the SATs.
Not even. The best way to improve bodyweight pushups is by doing regular and decline benches and bent over rows to the upper chest. The best way to improve pullups, if you cannot do them without assistance, is by pushing yourself hard enough on supinated and pronated pulldowns to the point where you can do one solid pull/chin, then doing forced reps once you're up.

BTW, I think it's possible to gain (some) size and strength on a strict bodyweight routine. You just have to do some stupid amount of push/pulls every session (think 300 or so for each) to make it the equivalent of regular workouts.

This doesn't even make sense physiologically. You are reaching a point in the number of repetitions where even an inherently resistance exercise (pullups and chinups) turns into an aerobic exercise. Without extraneous load growth is marsupialed compared to a similar regimen with weights (even doing pullups and chinups with a vest), and it is not possible beyond the beginning stages of a program for one without extraneous designed correctly to match the gains (not just in muscle gains, but increased cns efficiency, in issues of bone density where only heavy lifting really does anything to combat age-related density decreases as far as exercises go) one with load designed correctly.

Originally Posted by LA Guy

Pushups, done correctly, really exercise the core(1), as well as the shoulders(2) and chest, and really help muscle endurance(3). I would really recommend them to guys just for the core.(4)
(1) Meaningless buzzword. Abdominal recruitment and usage of stabilizers is inferior to almost any exercise with weights where you are standing. (2) They don't, unless you go mostly vertical. (3) Almost meaningless, also inferior to almost any weighted exercise. (4) Then you have no idea what you're doing and what you're talking about, and you are like every other person when it comes to fitness and nutrition who just says **** they barely think is right without ever researching it because they heard it or it intuitively makes sense to them, and as a result continue to propagate confusion amongst most people. It's ******* obnoxious. There are plenty of topics in life that are mostly subjective (politics, fashion, any kind of preferences, really) and there are a few topics, like this, where there is what is correct, and what isn't. You can enjoy doing X, you can see results doing X, it does not mean X is better, and your experiences doing X and not Y and Z really don't mean much because the sampling size is 1. Not two sides to a story, one side and the wrong side, because efficiency can be proven. For people who really need lower back and abdominal development at the point where asymmetries are becoming dangerous, or if they're rehabbing from lower back injuries or abdominal hernias, push-ups aren't even on the longest list of things you do. They're too strenuous for someone just recovering, they do almost nothing otherwise. Push-ups aren't in the repertoire of any PT who knows what they're doing beyond trying to get a baseline on a patient, and someone with a strength and conditioning background sure as hell isn't going to have someone do push-ups to build "core" strength.

Originally Posted by Jumbie

Matt Furey is a tool.
+100

 

[gdl203]

Originally Posted by eidolon

(4) Then you have no idea what you're doing and what you're talking about, and you are like every other person when it comes to fitness and nutrition who just says **** they barely think is right without ever researching it because they heard it or it intuitively makes sense to them, and as a result continue to propagate confusion amongst most people.
(...)
It's ******* obnoxious
Priceless

 

[Tck13]

Originally Posted by eidolon

Not even. The best way to improve bodyweight pushups is by doing regular and decline benches and bent over rows to the upper chest.
Your information is totally backwards (based on personal experience with bodyweight excercises - about 3 years - and weightlifting for about 10). Bench, decline, and incline presses won't help with doing more pushups. How do I know this? I weightlifted for many years and then started doing bodyweight excercises. I could hardly do the bodyweight excercises because I didn't have the 'core' strength that you don't seem to believe exists. I couldn't do a lot of bodyweight excercises even after weightlifting for many years. I really get the impression you've never even done the excercises that you are talking about because you really don't seem to know what your talking about despite have lots of theories about the topics in this thread. The original poster was correct in saying that doing bodyweight excercises daily (or at least consistently) will improve just like repeating any other excercise will acheive greater results.

Originally Posted by eidolon

This doesn't even make sense physiologically. You are reaching a point in the number of repetitions where even an inherently resistance exercise (pullups and chinups) turns into an aerobic exercise. Without extraneous load growth is marsupialed compared to a similar regimen with weights (even doing pullups and chinups with a vest), and it is not possible beyond the beginning stages of a program for one without extraneous designed correctly to match the gains (not just in muscle gains, but increased cns efficiency, in issues of bone density where only heavy lifting really does anything to combat age-related density decreases as far as exercises go) one with load designed correctly. (1) Meaningless buzzword. Abdominal recruitment and usage of stabilizers is inferior to almost any exercise with weights where you are standing. (2) They don't, unless you go mostly vertical. (3) Almost meaningless, also inferior to almost any weighted exercise. (4) Then you have no idea what you're doing and what you're talking about, and you are like every other person when it comes to fitness and nutrition who just says **** they barely think is right without ever researching it because they heard it or it intuitively makes sense to them, and as a result continue to propagate confusion amongst most people. It's ******* obnoxious. There are plenty of topics in life that are mostly subjective (politics, fashion, any kind of preferences, really) and there are a few topics, like this, where there is what is correct, and what isn't. You can enjoy doing X, you can see results doing X, it does not mean X is better, and your experiences doing X and not Y and Z really don't mean much because the sampling size is 1. Not two sides to a story, one side and the wrong side, because efficiency can be proven. For people who really need lower back and abdominal development at the point where asymmetries are becoming dangerous, or if they're rehabbing from lower back injuries or abdominal hernias, push-ups aren't even on the longest list of things you do. They're too strenuous for someone just recovering, they do almost nothing otherwise. Push-ups aren't in the repertoire of any PT who knows what they're doing beyond trying to get a baseline on a patient, and someone with a strength and conditioning background sure as hell isn't going to have someone do push-ups to build "core" strength. +100
Yeah, now I'm convinced. You're clueless. How long have you been weightlifting and doing bodyweight excercises?

 

[eidolon]

Originally Posted by Tck13

Your information is totally backwards (based on personal experience with bodyweight and weightlifting for many years).

x100

I really get the impression you've never even done the excercises that you are talking about because you really don't seem to know what your talking about despite have lots of theories about the topics in this thread.

I'm not going to go through another round of justifying myself to someone whose experience amounts to "I've been lifting for a while."

The original poster was correct in saying that doing bodyweight excercises daily (or at least consistently) will improve just like repeating any other excercise will acheive greater results.

I never said he was wrong, I said there are better ways to improve doing body weight push-ups (improve as in the amount you are capable of doing) than actually doing body weight push-ups. Someone who is having problems doing a significant amount (>30, I guess) of push-ups will see greater results faster from doing some specific upper-body maximal strength work than they will from continually doing push-ups.

Yeah, now I'm convinced. You're clueless.

Please pick one of the 500,000 definitions of "core" and explain how push-ups directly impact shoulders and "really help" muscular endurance. I trust whatever your answer will be, because you are obviously tremendously familiar with applied exercise physiology. I guess I really should be wary of these arguments, because the internet experts whose only expertise is hyperbole and lacking substance really seem to feed on exercise and nutrition topics.

 

[Tck13]

Originally Posted by eidolon

x100 I'm not going to go through another round of justifying myself to someone whose experience amounts to "I've been lifting for a while." I never said he was wrong, I said there are better ways to improve doing body weight push-ups (improve as in the amount you are capable of doing) than actually doing body weight push-ups. Someone who is having problems doing a significant amount (>30, I guess) of push-ups will see greater results faster from doing some specific upper-body maximal strength work than they will from continually doing push-ups. Please pick one of the 500,000 definitions of "core" and explain how push-ups directly impact shoulders and "really help" muscular endurance. I trust whatever your answer will be, because you are obviously tremendously familiar with applied exercise physiology. I guess I really should be wary of these arguments, because the internet experts whose only expertise is hyperbole and lacking substance really seem to feed on exercise and nutrition topics.
You still didn't answer my question. How long have you been weightlifting and doing bodyweight excercises (I'm sure never...)? I'll post more about your other questions in a bit.

 

[eidolon]

Originally Posted by Tck13

You still didn't answer my question. How long have you been weightlifting and doing bodyweight excercises (I'm sure never...)?
You didn't even ask that question (so it's kind of hard for me to have dodged a question you didn't ask), but still,

I'll post more about your other questions in a bit.

I'm sure you will, once you have enough time to scour the internet to come up with answers that make you sound extremely well-informed. e; I'm going to head out for a while and eat something, you be sure to let me know what information you turn up from some 1-page website selling an ebook with big block text and stock photos and amazing claims of xxxxtreme body weight secrets they don't want you to know about!

 

[whacked]

Originally Posted by whacked

^ What he said.

The easiest way to improve bodyweight pushups and pullups is to just keep doing them everyday, with increasing reps(for each set). Kinda like taking the SATs..

Originally Posted by eidolon

Not even. The best way to improve bodyweight pushups is by doing regular and decline benches and bent over rows to the upper chest. The best way to improve pullups, if you cannot do them without assistance, is by pushing yourself hard enough on supinated and pronated pulldowns to the point where you can do one solid pull/chin, then doing forced reps once you're up.

Originally Posted by Tck13

The original poster was correct in saying that doing bodyweight excercises daily (or at least consistently) will improve just like repeating any other excercise will acheive greater results.

Not to sound like a flip-flopping tool

, but I think eidolon actually has a point here, or at least my personal experience seems to agree. Before yesterday I hadn't thought I would be able to do ~60 straight pushups; I usually got fatigued enough to stop around the 35th or so, albeit I didn't really go all out.


For the last 3 weeks I've been doing a routine consisting of lots benches(not new) and bentover rows(far more often than I used to do), with periodization (planned out in detail, a new thing for me). And almost no serious pushup works. Yet my pushup max rep have apparently jumped up a fair bit.


I guess I should have said "the most simple way" instead of "the easiest way".


And as with most everything else, I'm sure repeatedly doing pushups would yield diminishing returns after a certain point. As in, before you're able to do 30 straight pushups, doing them everyday in increasing amount should enable quick gain, but after that, not so much.

 

[Tck13]

Originally Posted by eidolon

x100

I'm not going to go through another round of justifying myself to someone whose experience amounts to "I've been lifting for a while."

I guess it's hard to justify something you've never done.

As someone who's already been through college (which you haven't completed yet) and played Ice Hockey up to the minor league level (after playing in college), and worked with professional sports team trainers, and then moving onto Muay Thai and BJJ for the past couple of years, I'm well aware of what actual training consists of (especially after having had personal trainer douchebags like yourself who weren't even close to being in shape).

Originally Posted by eidolon

I never said he was wrong,

Sure you did. I believe you said, "Not even". What would that mean other than what he said is wrong?

Originally Posted by eidolon

I said there are better ways to improve doing body weight push-ups (improve as in the amount you are capable of doing) than actually doing body weight push-ups. Someone who is having problems doing a significant amount (>30, I guess) of push-ups will see greater results faster from doing some specific upper-body maximal strength work than they will from continually doing push-ups.

And you are wrong. As I said. Doing bench or any kind of bench presses won't improve your push ups. That's a joke.

Originally Posted by eidolon

Please pick one of the 500,000 definitions of "core" and explain how push-ups directly impact shoulders and "really help" muscular endurance.

So, now there IS a core? Which is it?

Originally Posted by eidolon

I trust whatever your answer will be, because you are obviously tremendously familiar with applied exercise physiology. I guess I really should be wary of these arguments, because the internet experts whose only expertise is hyperbole and lacking substance really seem to feed on exercise and nutrition topics.

Pot.



This might help you understand about the difference between bodyweight and free weights. Lind from Natural Bodybuilding.com

Let's move on to the bodyweight vs. free weights debate. Bodyweight exercises are superior for wrestling and other grappling and martial arts, gymnastics, and for those who want to join the armed forces. Weight training is superior for brute strength, football, lifting competitions, and many of the sports. However, when training for other sports, free weights should be combined with sprints, some bodyweight exercises, as well as sport specific drills.


Why are bodyweight exercises superior for grappling, combat, and gymnastics? For several reasons. First of all, in each of those activities one needs the ability to use a muscle group over and over again at high levels - that is, muscular endurance, which is developed very well by bodyweight exercises like squats, push-ups, sit-ups, etc. Second, each of those events requires body awareness.


I define body awareness literally as being aware of every part of your body at any given point in time in any given position. The problem with weight lifting exercises, even the good ones like snatches, cleans, jerks, or bent pressing, is that you use "weight awareness" - that is, you have to be aware of where the weight is at all times more than where your body is. As long as the weight is lifted and caught in the correct position(s), the body will naturally follow suit (or else the lift fails).


However, bodyweight exercises take the weights out of the equation. To successfully do such challenging exercises as handstand push-ups, one-legged squats, headstands, and bridges, you have to be focusing on every part of your body. That is why they are so good for wrestling, and other combat sports where your body is in many different positions during a match, and to be able to successfully recover and counter attack, you must have full awareness of where each part of your body is at all times. Similarly, in gymnastics, where you flip and end up in many different positions, body awareness is crucial.


Not all bodyweight exercises develop body awareness equally. Some of the ones I mentioned above such as handstand push-ups and bridging do a very good job, but regular push-ups on the other hand develop it to a lesser extent. The more a bodyweight exercise requires agility and balance, the more body awareness it develops.


Bodyweight exercises are also good for people always on the road, those without money to purchase weights, and those with very little time, as a set of push-ups or squats can be squeezed in at odd moments during the day.


So what are weights good for? Many things! Nothing packs muscle on a skinny frame like heavy, intense lifting. Nothing is better for increasing brute strength and power - the kind used to lift a heavy box, open a jar that's stuck, tackle a 210 pound running back running at the speed of light, smash a homerun over the Green Monster at Fenway Park, or throw the discus record distances. However, you should choose useful exercises that work many muscles at the same time, exercises such as cleans, snatches, jerks, presses, squats, and deadlifts, using barbells, dumbbells, or sandbags.


Let's sum it all up. Use machines very sparingly. They have poor crossover to real life activities. Use a predominantly bodyweight exercise regimen when training for such activities as wrestling and combat sports in general, gymnastics, diving, acrobatics, and the military, where you have to use muscles again and again and need highly developed body awareness, or simply if you're always on the road or have very little time. Use a predominantly free weight exercise regimen for most other sports and activities, but include some bodyweight exercises, and no matter what kind of activity you're engaged in, sprinting in all its forms will enhance your athleticism and fitness.