How many push ups can you do at one time?

[shortylickens]

For reference I once heard about a dude at the Minnesota state fair who could do thousands. He would start in the morning and just go all day, with a couple of breaks. He could do a hundred or so while you stood there and talked to him.

 

[YoungGun21]

For those of you who don't know, you do roughly 65% of your body weight when you do a push-up.

 

[torpid]

I'm having a hard time understanding if it would even be possible to do multiple pushups at the same time. What I've come up with in theory involves a series of pulleys and ropes - and maybe some hydraulics - connecting me to an infinite number of other people where my actions somehow cause their bodies to perform pushups. I think we will need some simulation software to see. This might be a job for the steampunk subculture.

 

[DrPizza]

In college.. hundreds. I had a really tough karate teacher. After any particularly bad day for our group - in addition to the 10 knuckle pushups we'd do at a time, every time *anyone* made a minor mistake (not a tight fist, stomach muscles not tight, stance isn't perfect, etc.) - our punishment would be 100 consecutive knuckle pushups, followed by 100 sit-ups (2 sets of 50) on an inclined portion of the indoor track.

A kid on the 3rd floor of my dorm back then challenged the rest of his floor on a bet - he could do more consecutive pushups than the rest of his floor (30-some people) combined. He won & had a light girl sitting on his back while he matched the last couple of guys on the floor.


Today? I'd be lucky to do 20.

 

[Arkaign]

For those of you who don't know, you do roughly 65% of your body weight when you do a push-up.

Yep, well it can be a bit + or - depending on how tall you are, and whether or not you have a large upper body or a large lower body or both.

To make a point of this, most people don't have a lot of weight between their knees and their feet (%-wise), but doing 'girl' push-ups where you rest your knees is ridiculously easy in comparison to a full-body pushup. That's leverage for ya. For those of you in the 5'6" - 5'8" range of height, those of us at 6'4" range have a bit harder time due to that.

 

[jjzelinski]

6'3", 185lbs

I can do around 60

 

[Arkaign]

Did a quick 30 second run, I think I counted 32. I'll try again in about 10 minutes and see how many I can crank out in a minute w/ good form.

I'm not calling shens by any means, but yeah it's astonishingly difficult to do rapid pushups in perfect + complete form. I sort of laugh when someone says 'watch me do 100 pushups', and then they proceed to do sloppy half-reps where their chest only comes to within maybe 2" of the floor rather than within a few fractions of an inch like it should be.

 

[lxskllr]

In college.. hundreds. I had a really tough karate teacher. After any particularly bad day for our group - in addition to the 10 knuckle pushups we'd do at a time, every time *anyone* made a minor mistake (not a tight fist, stomach muscles not tight, stance isn't perfect, etc.) - our punishment would be 100 consecutive knuckle pushups, followed by 100 sit-ups (2 sets of 50) on an inclined portion of the indoor track.

A kid on the 3rd floor of my dorm back then challenged the rest of his floor on a bet - he could do more consecutive pushups than the rest of his floor (30-some people) combined. He won & had a light girl sitting on his back while he matched the last couple of guys on the floor.


Today? I'd be lucky to do 20.

That sounds like my old karate teacher. It was usually 50 though if I remember right. 100's pretty hardcore.

 

[Arkaign]

Good form : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eh00_rniF8E

Bad form : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4l00fhfIO2k&feature=related

 

[El Guaraguao]

kinda hard to do pushups for me. I keep pushing the planet away.

 

[Terzo]

kinda hard to do pushups for me. I keep pushing the planet away.

When push comes to shove, the planet pushes back!

 

[SunSamurai]

I couldent imagine being able to only do 1-10. I feel weak as hell only being able to do about 40 before I got too tired. HOW DO YOU PEOPLE SURVIVE?

 

[DrPizza]

That sounds like my old karate teacher. It was usually 50 though if I remember right. 100's pretty hardcore.

Awesome guy though - after we finished our belt exams, he'd announce who moved up (generally everyone who took the exam.) Then say "Okay, hit the showers & I'll meet you guys over at <one of the fraternities> - I got a keg for you guys to celebrate."