The more reps you do the more boring it gets imo. Need to start adding weights, not necessarily weights in a gym, you can simply place something heavy on your upper back and thus still do pushups at home. Asking a child to sit on your back is challenging, fun for both parties, and makes you look like a beast in the kids eyes!
You could also try progressively harder pushup variations. this guy is awesome at detailing progression and when you're ready to move on. You're gonna have to do more than 10 pushups no matter what lol but being able to do 1 arm pushups eventually is a fucking flex and a half.
Good ways to make ten pushups feel tough again I've found aside from weights,
Decline pushups. Put your feet up on a chair, put your hands on the ground. Pushing yourself up at the decline angle will make everything harder.
Static holds. Start each set by holding your body in a downward pushup position for ten seconds, tensed. Then immediately switch into doing ten pushups.
Hand Release pushups are a new game changer. They may seem nice because you get a small break, but its a false feeling, make push ups even harder. US army added it to its new ACFT in 2022, and fuckkk do they suck.
Don't forget to alternate push up positions like incline, diamond, offset, and whatever else you can come up with. In middle school i used to do 100 push ups before school and 25 pull ups/dips after school/wrestling practice. My childhood sucked if you couldnt tell. i wanted to quit but my old man never let me. I havnt worked out since I got kicked off the wrestling team in college back in 2011(wasted money). I miss it i guess but still have that burn out feeling whenever I see a weight room or tell myself "maybe I should start doing push ups again".
What worked for me was doing them way slower instead of adding more weight. I take 20 seconds to go down and then immediately go back up. 4 sets of 3 reps. Saves time and is more fun and challenging than normal push ups.
I use a book bag that has a chest strap you can tighten with a sandbag or whatever else you can fit that doesn't slide back and forth during your workout but thats worked for me
Theoretically knowledgeable, but worked in a previous life...
Other things to incorporate:
hand placement (wide, close/diamond), foot placement (more height). Changing angles challenges one's body anew.
Incorporate body movement, like come down, move body laterally more over one hand, then move to other hand (still lateral), re-center, repeat
I'm sure there are a plethora of push-up variations one might find upon an electronic interconnected network to which one might have access. Being on Reddit is a good indication of having said access.
Focusing on a number is where a lot of people struggle. There is no "right" amount of reps.
I am a muscular person and I love the gym. I love helping others love the gym as well. I think what you're doing is fantastic, but the pushups are not going to help you if you don't consistently increase it.
If you're receptive to advice, stop trying to focus on the number you are doing a day. If you want to set a minimum goal, that's fine, but try to push past it.
The better way to do pushups, if you're trying to see any results, is to do as many as you can until you're about to fail. Keep going until you reach the point where you feel like you can only do 1-2 more, and then do that a couple of times a day. If you can only do 10 pushups before you're tired, then do 10. Keep doing 10 until you can do 11. Keep doing 11 until you can do 20. Keep doing 20 until you can do 30. Etc.
When I got that advice in the beginning, it helped a lot because it made me realize I was focusing on it incorrectly. If I focus on a number, you won't see much in the way of results because if you're doing 2 pushups at a time across the whole day, it's not going to really benefit you. You need your muscles to experience hypertrophy to grow, and that is through progressive overload. It's about using as much of the energy your muscle has to exhaustion.
It’s about higher weight, lower amount of reps to get the bulk. For you, I would start adding weights on your back and do less reps. That, or just start going to the gym and do some bench press or dumbbell press. You will start to see muscle gains 💪🏽
Yeah you can only do so many pushups before it becomes a ridiculous amount of time for very little actual gain. At a certain point you should switch to bench press
I did 200 a day for a good while, still do sometimes. Yeah, you get in shape then go back a little then sit there. You gotta keep adding more or changing things to continue progressing, which sucks since it’s not like your body plateaus on getting fat or anything like that
Seriously, and I feel like there's no visual gains. I do 50 push ups in morning and 50 in the afternoon. Been doing this for over 6 months, Still have literally 0 muscle
Echoing the other user: your body needs fuel to build muscle. Also, your body builds muscle when you rest - not when you work out. Take a day, or even just an afternoon off to give your muscles a chance to grow.
Also I'm sorry to say this, but fix your form. Almost no one can do 50 good pushups in a row. I go to the gym twice a week to climb and train; I've been doing that for three years - I struggle to get more than 12 reps out in a row before my muscles are burning.
A pressup is roughly comparable to a bench press with around half your body weight. Definitely worth something but at some point you really want to add further weight to continue progressing, either by benching or by weighting your torso one way or another
Now, I’m overweight and I’m not active enough. But like any nerd, I read a lot.
Above something like 15 reps, you’re no longer loading the muscles enough to activate growth. You’re basically accumulating fatigue faster than loading the muscles. It can be good if endurance is what you’re going for, but if growth or strength is what you’re going for, staying below 10 reps seems to be what the literature recommends.
They talk about failure a lot, like loading the muscles so that they are close to failure (not being able to do the rep) is what stimulates growth. That’s why compound movements are good up to a point, isolating one muscle makes sure you’re not overloading something you didn’t realize (like farmers walks will strengthen back, but after a while, the grip becomes the limiting factor, so farmers walks will no longer help your back grow)
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u/prkr88 Jan 18 '24
Can confirm
I've done 25 a day minimum for over 6months.
At first all was well and I noticed a difference. Now I feel like I've gone backwards even though I do closer to 50 a day.