I've been on a plateau trying to maintain 165 pushups (I do them in 5 sets) and have been struggling. I made my way up from 10 over the past few months by pushing till my muscles burned waiting a couple days for the ache to subside and pushing 10% more next time. This worked pretty well for me till a month ago.. I felt like I couldn't possibly push any harder... yet I wasn't getting sore and wasn't improving. Then something occurred to me: I need to breathe. lol. Sure you can do 20+ pushups without taking much of a breath... and you can do 5 sets of 20+ easily enough too. but with 30+ you actually need to breathe. And boom I am up to 200 and finally feel sore after... which means I am getting stronger. My goal is 5 sets of 50.
Congrats! Nice one By the way you should try doing weighted pushups with a backpack full of books or water bottles or weight plates. That way you'll actually be able to achieve the same amount of volume while not having to do quite as many reps, since your work volume is what determines growth, and work volume == weight moved x reps x set. So increasing weight is a good way to progress while keeping reps the same. Add in weighted pullups, dips, leg raises, and some squats and you pretty much have a solid calisthenics full body workout ^^
@JackStrident @JesusGreen That's good advice to be fair to you mate Only reason I am replying to both of you in this post is because it depends in what terms you want to get stronger. If you want to gain muscle and get stronger, then do what JesusGreen said. However, if you aren't bothered about the aesthetic looks and just want to get stronger then keep doing the repetitions. Bodyweight training is one of the best ways to improve strength wise. Only downside is although you get stronger than when you do weight training, you don't get the aesthetic looks. Now, this only applies to calisthenic exercises like push ups, pull ups and sit ups etc...
Congrats. Now go and do The Murph and let us know how that goes. The record at the moment is 39 minutes.
That is a cool challenge but sorry no pull-ups, I'm a musician; hurts my hands too much... but I'll keep upping the push-ups... and I'll start doing squats.
If you're not doing any pullups etc, I suggest finding some other pulling exercise to substitute. Lat pulldowns are great if you have access to a gym. Dumbbell or barbell rows work as a horizontal pull but you should really have a vertical pull in there too. If pullups hurt your hands try putting a towel over the bar or wearing gloves and that should resolve the issue btw. If you're doing a lot of pushups without doing any pullups, you'll be overdeveloping the triceps, chest, and front delts, while leaving the biceps, lats, and rear delts underdeveloped. This will eventually cause you to develop rounded shoulders, a form of bad posture. Good way to check if you have rounded shoulders already or not is to stand up straight and put your hands to either side, and see what way your hands are facing: A good rule of thumb is for every pushing exercise you do, you should do two pulling exercises (since the back should be better developed for best posture).
uhhh... wow... the back of my hands definitely face forward. I thought the round shoulders was a genetic family characteristic... my dad and uncle both had that more and more as they got older... and neither did a push up in their lives as far as I know... Anyway, this is worth looking into then... I'll definitely give the towel a shot... but I am skeptical it is enough... it's more the idea of the sheer force (of holding the weight) on those tendons that I've spent so much time developing fine motor skills in that alarms me...
It's all about a dominance for pushing muscles and too weak pulling muscles. A lot of jobs where heavy stuff is moved around can create imbalances like that. It's also possible it came from something like prolonged sitting, or muscle tightness etc rather than over-developed/under-developed muscles. Tendons will strengthen over time, so as long as you're not using some external means (like say steroids) to cause your muscles to grow faster than your tendons etc, you'll always have strong enough tendons for whatever you're able to comfortably move weight wise. In other words, if you can actually do a pullup, your tendons are strong enough to handle it just fine. If you can't yet do a pullup, then stick with things you can do, like pullup negatives (I do a lot of these, since I can only do 2 pullups max, and not long ago couldn't even do 1!) where you get yourself into the top position of a pullup (jump up, or use a chair) and lower yourself down as slowly as possible over 2-3+ seconds, and you won't be putting any undue pressure on the tendons. If we're talking hands specifically then the thing to work on is grip strength. I'm not sure what instruments you play but for example if you play guitar this will actually make playing guitar easier for you too so won't just benefit your workouts! Farmers carries or suitcase carries are a great one. If you don't have access to weights, literally just fill up two shopping bags/rucksacks/bags of some kind with as much heavy stuff as you can find (if you can't make the weight even in both bags, just fill one bag and do one arm at a time). Now pick up the bag(s), and walk around with it. Remember to switch arms and do the same with each arm. Having to move around with a heavy weight in your hand will cause your grip to strengthen. Plus it's a good challenge because unlike say doing curls or whatever.. you're improving your strength in something practical that you use every day: i.e. carrying heavy things around like shopping. You can also take more pressure off the hands and forearms by switching to chinups. They're slightly less lat dominant and more bicep dominant but for all intents and purposes chinups and pullups can be substituted for each other if you find one more comfortable.
