Pushups on Consecutive Days

[Rebel Pilot Gar]

One of my big goals for the 6 week challenge is being able to 50 straight pushups. I've been doing 3 reps of an increasing number Mon, Wed, and Fri but really having trouble with getting the increases in there. Keeping good form, I've gotten 11 straight pushups.

So my question - Would it be bad to do pushups say 5 days in a row then take 2 days of break from all arm exercises and continue that for the remaining weeks of the challenge?

The daily routine would be a mixture of these two routines every other day:

100 total in sets of 10 pushups spread across the day

100 pushups in as few sets as possible, with short break in between

Is this valid or will I likely end up hurting myself? Are there better types of routines I could be doing?

Any advice or stories of what worked for you would be greatly appreciated.

[Knightwatch]

100 pushups a day is an entirely valid thing to do. I do it myself. For your purposes, though, you may not even need to go that high right away. If you're able to knock out 11 pushups in a single set right now, I'd say you only have to do 7 or 8 per set, but you got the right idea, that you want to do several sets spread thinly thoughout the day. Ten sets is a great target if you can swing it, but even 5 or 6 will help you make progress.

The every few days, bring up the volume some more, but just a bit at a time. Either add a rep to every set, or a few reps to a few sets, or an extra set through the day. The idea, though, is that each individual set should feel easy. If your cap is currently 11, and you started out bringing each set to 10, you may burn out. Give yourself time and to slowly bring up the volume. Once you're hitting easy, multiple sets of, say, 25-30-ish, you can start dialing in a few thing to knock out a set of 50.

Good luck!

[Rebel Pilot Gar]

Cool, thanks for the tips Knightwatch! I'll start working on that. Maybe half of the sets in the morning and the rest sometime after work.

Just for clarification - how do I know how much to bring up the volume by? 2 pushups per set? 5? Or do I just increase as many as feel easy?

Also, pushups do not work near dogs. My lab saw me doing a set and decided to be helpful and crawl under and between my arms.

[katscratch]

Also, pushups do not work near dogs. My lab saw me doing a set and decided to be helpful and crawl under and between my arms.

Ha, so true! I have yet to complete a plank at home without my dog jumping up to lay on my back.

Good luck, sounds like you're well on your way to smashing this goal:)

[rix]

Hey, we got the same goal and I just wanted to start a thread about it - I hope you don't mind if I add my questions to your thread since they are related pretty closely.

I want to get to 50 pushups, too, and decided to follow the 100 pushups program. I didn't take rest days unless my muscles were sore, but the program is increasing the reps too fast for my pace (my muscles pointed this out through days of soreness). Therefore I'm now looking for a new training plan - hopefully one that still takes me till 50, but decidedly one that doesn't has soreness as part of the plan. Occasionally it's fine, but I don't want to actively include it.

So, a week ago i cranked out 20 pushups, which made my muscles go sore, and my new max is (I just tried it) 13. Great.

I'm spending the next days mainly at home, but I am at a loss about my new training plan: Should I do many sets over the course of the day? Or should I train once the day? Should I take rest day or can I train every day if I don't do too many reps per set? How fast should I increase the reps (I'd start with 8 or 9)?

Knightwatch, you said that many sets spread througout the day are a good idea - how about rest days? And do you recommend doing a single set many times, or maybe more sets at a time?

[engineman312]

once in a while i'll challenge myself to do X amount of pushups every 30 minutes or so, over the course of the day. usually the number is 10-15. over the course of 16 hours, that is 320-480 push ups. in the beginning of the day, the push ups are easy... but then by the end of the day you can be struggling with them. the next day your chest looks amazing, but you have t-rex arms.

matter of fact, i'm due for a challenge like this soon...

[Rebel Pilot Gar]

Hey, we got the same goal and I just wanted to start a thread about it - I hope you don't mind if I add my questions to your thread since they are related pretty closely.

Not a problem at all! I will definitely be interested in seeing how you are training and getting along with your part of the challenge so I can moderate how well I am doing on my end. I am also wondering how often I should take rest days from the 100 pushups routine.

Since Friday, my workout has been 11 sets of 8 and 2 sets of 6 to total 100 pushups per day. This has worked pretty well, but i have definitely been feeling it in my core and arms as the day goes on. Good luck with your own goal!

[David Bard]

How far apart are the 13 sets? Around one an hour?

[rix]

Since Friday, my workout has been 11 sets of 8 and 2 sets of 6 to total 100 pushups per day. This has worked pretty well, but i have definitely been feeling it in my core and arms as the day goes on. Good luck with your own goal!

Wow, that's a lot! I think I'll try doing this today and will tell you how it worked for me. Good luck yourself and keep going!

Oh, and please tell us if you find an optimum number of rest days.

[Rebel Pilot Gar]

How far apart are the 13 sets? Around one an hour?

No... Honestly, I haven't really structured them to a time period. Min time between sets is about 10-15 min. I have a few where there are hours between sets. I'm not doing the routine at work so that's an 8-9 hour block with no pushups. I'm trying to get 50 before work and 50 after.

For example here's my idea for a weekday morning:

Get out of bed => pushups

Bathroom => pushups

Shower/Brush Teeth => pushups

Get Dressed => pushups

etc etc etc

I don't know if I should be giving myself a time limit for them yet... just trying to get to the 100 mark before bedtime.

[Coulomb]

If you are doing 100 pushups per day, then you will get stronger. Worrying about the time in between sets or number of reps per sets is not so important. Your 8 reps per set sounds great. If you are are wondering about when to start doing more then maybe try for additional reps on the last two sets per day(nothing crazy...maybe 2 or 3 more reps). Doing this 5 x days per week sounds good.

You could also take this approach. 5 days per week you need to do 100 push ups per day. Makes no difference when or how many per set you do...you just need to do 100 per day. Wake up do 13 then later on do 10 , then 8 , 14, 5, 7, 10, etc....just get 100 in during the day. after many weeks you should be doing sets of 15-20, so it won't take so long to do 100 in a day, then after many more weeks you should be able to bust out 50 in a row. Don't think about it too much, just get your 100 in per day.