Will 50 pushups a day make a noticeable difference?

[omadaze]

@chumleypm can you show that research. this tells me otherwise. there have multiple latest research on the repetition continuum.

 

[chumleypm]

@omadaze Here you go, lad. And here, a friendly reddit user wrote an entire post on what triggers hypertrophy in way better detail than I ever could.

 

[omadaze]

@chumleypm i dont think we are looking at hypertrophy here. but the research paper is very interesting. i think this quote accurately summarizes the strength part:

When considered in total, the literature does seem to support the existence of a “strength zone” for increasing 1RM, consistent with the concept of a repetition continuum. The apparent dose–response relationship provides further evidence for the causality of the adaptation. Some researchers have proposed that the periodic “practice” of lifting with heavy loads is sufficient to maximize strength adaptations [16,25], but this hypothesis remains speculative. Further research is necessary to determine how frequently one needs to lift in the leftward portion of the repetition continuum to elicit maximal 1RM increases.

at our current understanding, it is better to use lower reps/higher intensity type of strength training to increase 1rm max.

so this 100 pushups/day to get better at bench presses is nonsense.

 

[landon13]

@dawn16 I do 5 sets of 10, yeah. I guess I should be adding more to each set, little by little.
Is it still good to do something like 12 in set one, 11 in set two, then 10 in sets three to five?

 

[pawel]

@landon13 How close to failure do you come on your first set of 10, and how long do you rest in between sets?

 

[landon13]

@pawel I'm probably 75% to failure on the first set, and rest 2-3 min between sets

 

[pawel]

@landon13 Right -- I think I'd suggest going closer to failure on every set, regardless of how many reps it takes you to get there. The goal should be to hit a certain number of sets that come close to failure, not a certain number of total reps.

Right now you're only getting close to failure on your last two sets, but if you push it hard on every set, you'll get that much more stimulus. Don't worry about the reps per set or the total number reps--just worry about getting a certain number of hard sets in and the rep count will go up on its own over time.

You might need to increase rest periods and/or drop the number of weekly sets to do this, btw. But you can build the number of sets up over time also.

 

[landon13]

@pawel Thank you, very good advice.

 

[chumleypm]

@landon13 My experience as well. Been doing 30/day for few months now. It still gets difficult toward the end of the set. Doing 3 sets of 12 has made it easier though. But I still feel tension when I do 30 in one go.

 

[gottothinkpositive]

@chumleypm Because there's no progressive overload. If you want 30 pushups to feel easy you have to do more than 30 pushups.

 

[chumleypm]

@gottothinkpositive Yes, that is correct. But it just confirms that what the top level comment said is not true.

 

[gregoth]

@landon13 It depends on your goal. More power or more endurance. Make them harder or add reps.

 

[sarangapani]

@landon13 Same here. I’ve been doing 3 sets of 20 push-ups (full ROM all the way to the floor, nice and slow) several times per week for months and it hardly gets easier. On a good day I might be able to do 23 or even 25 reps but it feels kind of risky for the triceps.

 

[koj]

@lucyt25 Why 50?

 

[lucyt25]

@koj well it seems like a good number, but there is no logic behind it, as i don't have experience.

 

[hopehamlyn]

@lucyt25 Instead of a static number I'd do 2 - 3 sets of pushups. And just do them till 1-2 reps before failure.

 

[iamg]

@hopehamlyn for beginners i recommend actual failure instead of an abstract concept like reps away from failure

I dont think op knows what failure feels like, due the discrepancy of doing 10 pushups versus atruggling to lift 35 bench

 

[hawke213x]

@iamg

reps away from failure

It is not a hard concept. It is easy to feel that you won't be able to do another one. Also, recent research has shown that taking each rep to failure is unnecessary.

 

[iamg]

@hawke213x "research shows" does not mean anything unless you replicate the conditions if that research

This thread is reponding to an absolute beginner. he will build muscle even in suboptimal settings. If someone is asking " will fixed number of x build muscle?" its safe to assume he is not familiar with the concept of RPE. It is safe to assume he does not know his limits when he is talking about 10 sets of puhsup while struggling to lift a similar weight at all on the bench

research also slows that beginners consistently underestimate failure and do a lot more reps that they thought they could when tested in an experimental setting

you cant learn reps away from failure when you dont even recognize what failure feels like

 

[fredbird67]

@hawke213x From my experience pushing failure has always resulted in the most growth and how I've broken through plateaus.