just found out that i can only do 3 pushups

[brianmanahan]

now i hate myself

so i going to do 1 extra pushup a day until i can do 100

does that sound like a viable plan?

 

[deadlyapp]

100 over how much time? There are very few people who can do a hundred unbroken. I can do somewhere in the 20's now unbroken but I don't really feel like push ups are that great a gauge of your overall strength - just one other thing.

I haven't done any research into whether or not large quantities of reps in a long time domain actually do anything (think working to max push ups, every hour for 8 hours), but that's what I did for a while to build strength (but never gauged if I made progress). Would do like 15 push ups every hour while I was at work.

 

[brianmanahan]

it's 100 over the course of a day, and 10 or 20 at a time

 

[shortylickens]

thats bad.

In the Navy I had to do 60 in a two minute period. Even though I'm now fat and lazy I can still do around 20.

 

[brianmanahan]

i know it's bad

i get a nasty headache when i try to do them and my arms turn to jelly

 

[bononos]

now i hate myself
so i going to do 1 extra pushup a day until i can do 100
does that sound like a viable plan?

Were you always inactive, never played any sports or did you have an injury and quit?

 

[Riverhound777]

If the only thing you are going to do is pushups, then I suggest doing burpees instead. Includes a pushup, but much more. Do 100 burpees over the course of a day, win!

 

[QueBert]

I have the Runtastic Push Up app on my phone and I love it.

 

[Ackmed]

When you start, make sure to do them correctly. Cheating on reps only hurts yourself. Keep your back straight, hands in correct placement, extend your elbows and go down far enough. When you can't do any more, drop to your knees and do a few more. Nothing wrong with it.

 

[Riverhound777]

When you start, make sure to do them correctly. Cheating on reps only hurts yourself. Keep your back straight, hands in correct placement, extend your elbows and go down far enough. When you can't do any more, drop to your knees and do a few more. Nothing wrong with it.

Are you saying elbows out, i.e 90 degrees? Seems most learn this way, and that's how I always did them, but lately i've been told to keep elbows in close to the body.

https://breakingmuscle.com/learn/pimp-your-push-up-3-common-mistakes-and-5-challenging-variations

 

[Ackmed]

While you can use hand placement and body placement (elevated or not) to work different parts of the chest or tri's, as a standard I would keep the hands/elbows closer to the chest than out. That link is actually pretty good in my opinion.

 

[brianmanahan]

Were you always inactive, never played any sports or did you have an injury and quit?

nah i was pretty active as a kid, baseball in leagues and basketball for fun

and i still ride bikes 50+ miles nowadays and walk 9 golfing about once a week in the summer, but my arms are just puny straws i guess.

even when i was more fit and weighed 30 lbs less i always had a heck of a time with pushups, couldn't do more than 15 or 20

 

[Jeeebus]

If the only thing you are going to do is pushups, then I suggest doing burpees instead. Includes a pushup, but much more. Do 100 burpees over the course of a day, win!

burpees are the devil. I try to do them twice a week (on non-weight days). I do descending sets. Do 10x, rest, do 9x, rest, do 8x, etc. Death.

Anything more than 13x or so kills me doing them that way.

 

[brianmanahan]

i'm up to 5 pushups now, that's a %60 increase!

 

[VirtualLarry]

I can't recall the last time I did a push-up. Or a pull-up. Mostly, exercise of any sort.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

I can't recall the last time I did a push-up. Or a pull-up. Mostly, exercise of any sort.

You should start.

Wick-away and running shoes will eat into your computer parts budget though. But with all the endorphins, you might not care.

 

[Yakk]

I do push-ups as punching practice for martial arts. Good for the triceps. I started I could only do 1 1/2 push-ups, went to over 60+ per set. Nowadays I do approx 10 reps of 20 per workout to keep form.

Yes it's possible to go from 1 push-up to 100.

 

[desy]

You could add variety too, a set with a raised leg and alternate. one hand on a ball and the other on the ground and alternate, from an incline an explosive push off, with a hex dumbbell and rows etc

 

[momeNt]

This might be kind of personal, but were you able to hold your upper body up during missionary-style sex? 2 push-ups seems like you would be shaking from the weight almost instantly. I'm like a 10 push-up max guy and its tiring for me

 

[dave_the_nerd]

This might be kind of personal, but were you able to hold your upper body up during missionary-style sex? 2 push-ups seems like you would be shaking from the weight almost instantly. I'm like a 10 push-up max guy and its tiring for me

There are other positions for that.

 

[brianmanahan]

uhh i have no idea about any of that stuff

 

[Kaido]

now i hate myself

so i going to do 1 extra pushup a day until i can do 100

does that sound like a viable plan?

The best push-up plan I've ever used is a weekly progress one. The key is not to cheat & skip ahead, because this ruins the plan. It works like this:

1. You start out with however many pushups you can do. Right now, that's 3 pushups.

2. You do a countdown with the number of pushups you can do, then hold yourself up & wait for your stamina to catch up, then reduce that number by 1 & countdown, all the way to 1. That maybe be a little confusing. Basically, do 3 pushups, and on the last one, push yourself up (into the upright pushup position) and wait a minute until you can do more. Then do 2 pushups, push yourself up, and wait until you can do 1 pushup. 3, 2, 1. Don't flop on the floor or stand up between sets. Part of the program is holding yourself up between sets, as you count down & drop off the digits with each decreasing set.

3. Each week, add one on. So next week, do 4 pushups. So 4, then 3, then 2, then 1, all while holding yourself up between decreasing sets. Do this until you get to 20. When you can count down from 20 (20, then 19, then 18, all the way to 1), you can do 210 pushups. Stick with that for the rest of your life. Roll out of bed & do your 20 countdown every day, forever. It's a very easy program to do because you don't need to go anywhere, you don't need any gym equipment, and it only gets one pushup harder every week (well, technically it multiplies weekly because you're adding on the next number up on top of the countdown, but you get the idea).

4. You can take a day (or two) off every week if you want to, so skipping weekends is OK. You can also do them both morning & night if you want to. The key is not to skip ahead because you're progressively building muscle. Just stick with adding one a week until you hit 20. Don't cheat and jump from 9 to 12 just because you can...just stay with the +1 weekly increase, slow & steady. You are growing muscle & stamina over time, that's the whole point of the program.

5. It's okay to plateau. Just rewind for the next week. If you get stuck at say 13 pushups, then do 13 again the next week, and adjust to 14 the week after. There's no rush. Once you hit 20 (again, 20, then 19, then 18, etc.), that's the most you'll do on this program, then you just trim down the overall time it takes you until you don't need any rest periods anymore. No rush.

6. Once you hit 20 (again, that's 210 pushups total), you can start to decrease your rest periods & increase your speed. Eventually you will not need a rest period between 20 to 19, 19 to 18, etc. Once you can do a straight shot of 210, it takes around 6 minutes to bang them out. Nice quick morning workout program!

7. I've walked a ton of people through this program. It works great! It's easy to follow & never gets overwhelming because you're only ever adding more more pushup to the set on a weekly basis.

8. So here's a basic plan for you, based on where you're at now: (adjust for plateauing)

Week 1: 3 countdown
Week 2: 4 countdown
Week 3: 5 countdown
Week 4: 6 countdown
Week 5: 7 countdown
Week 6: 8 countdown
Week 7: 9 countdown
Week 8: 10 countdown
Week 9: 11 countdown
Week 10: 12 countdown
Week 11: 13 countdown
Week 12: 14 countdown
Week 13: 15 countdown
Week 14: 16 countdown
Week 15: 17 countdown
Week 16: 18 countdown
Week 17: 19 countdown
Week 18: 20 countdown

Without plateauing, and assuming you stick with it, in less than 5 months, you'll reach the highest level of 20-countdown of pushups. If you want to try out this program, take a shirtless picture of yourself on Day 1 and then at the end of Week 19 so you can see the difference.

9. You can use your smartphone or a webcam on your computer to make sure your form is good. It's really easy to get bowed arms or a curved back & not realize your form is bad. Watch some Youtube videos on how to do it properly & then film yourself to make sure you're doing it right, or have someone spot you.

10. If you do nothing else fitness-related but this program & then stick with the 20-countdown for life, you'll have a really decent athletic foundation. From here, you can go into some crazy calisthenics stuff if you want to get visually shredded (or even a nice basic bodyweight program that incorporates dips, squats, etc.), or get pretty strong doing stuff like yoga planks, or just stay with the basic program.

 

[brianmanahan]

awesome @Kaido, thanks a lot! i have started working on this method and am going to stick with it. i've been able to do the 3-2-1 the last couple of days and will switch to 4 next week.

 

[Kaido]

awesome @Kaido, thanks a lot! i have started working on this method and am going to stick with it. i've been able to do the 3-2-1 the last couple of days and will switch to 4 next week.

It works & it's not impossible to do. A lot of programs are way too overwhelming for people who aren't exercise enthusiasts to stick with. Post in this thread at least once a week to help keep yourself motivated. I have a few threads where I did that & it really helps communicating with a team, even if we're just virtual figments of your imagine on an online forum, haha.

I'm interested in exercise for the results (health & aesthetics), but I hate doing it lol. This is easy to do when you roll out of bed. Boom, done. I can't remember exactly what the equivalency is, but iirc being able to do the whole 20-count 210-pushup set in one go is the cardiovascular equivalent of running like 3 miles or something, or so I heard. It helps get you over that initial out-of-shape hump too...there's kind of a speedbump when you first get into working out that makes everything really hard for a few weeks, then all of a sudden things get easier, your body kicks into gear, and it even gets fun!

Other than that, my regular cardio is 45 minutes on a VR exercise bike. Not to get grody, but I have garbage digestion & need cardio to stay regular. Right now, I pretty much just have a simple 15-minute calisthenics program (pushups, pullups, dips off a chair, bodyweight squats, crunches, etc.) & then some cardio on the indoor stationary bike. An hour total sounds like a long time, but the calisthenics portion goes quick because you're busy focusing on reps & the cardio is way fun because I'm usually driving around a VR tank blowing stuff up, it's great

Also, old's basement is actually a members-only Lifer's gym.

 

[Kaido]

i know it's bad

i get a nasty headache when i try to do them and my arms turn to jelly

If it helps, you can start out with "girlie" pushups...just do them on your knees (with your feet up) instead of full-body. That's how I had to start out. I wasn't out of shape because I was never in-shape to begin with

Random google picture for reference: