push-ups or pull-ups which are better for you?

[from Facebook]

push-ups or pull-ups which are better for you? (i have an iron gym pull-up system)

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[John Peterson]

hey friends,

Those are two different exercises that yield different results but that can be very synergistic when properly used together. Between the two, Push-Ups will yield a far greater and more obvious muscular development than Pull-Ups if you were to use only one of them to the exclusion of the other. This is because Push-Ups infuse blood into most of the entire upper body musculature to a far greater extent than does Pull-Ups BUT the two used together amplify the results of either exercise used alone. So from my perspective it is not a case of either Push-Ups or Pull-Ups. But rather best results are achieved when combing both Push-Ups and Pull-Ups.

---John Peterson

[sillypup]

here's what I notice with pull ups vs. push ups. i get bigger muscles build up in the chest with pull ups but not as muscular than push ups yet i get more hard muscle with push ups but growth isn't as big. don't know why but it could be the tension is different. pull ups have more tension so more muscle growth is my rationalization. push ups is more numbers game so it seems to focus more on making the muscles have less fat and trim up tone/hard. maybe john could explain this phenomenon.

maybe i'll get more growth with push ups too if i increase the tension by working to failure more frequently so that tension increase.

[JoeJustice]

I know it's kind of a cop-out answers, but I say both! If you have an Iron Gym, do both, there's no reason not to. If you don't have a pull-up bar, you can still get a lot done with just push-ups, but since you do have one, do both!

-Joe

[Andy62]

I would definitely pick pushups. You can do them anywhere. They are more of a full body exercise and bring more muscles into play. They are also more oxygen intensive and they build mental toughness as is evidenced by their use in military training over the centuries.