Push ups and multi-tasking

[stingray]

I have been practicing push ups in this fashion for the past few weeks. I gleaned this idea from Mr. Skup's book mentioned in a previous thread. Rather than grease the groove throughout the day. I take my beginning goal for that days push ups (300 right now) and split it into many smaller sets spread through out the hour. I have been doing 18 mini sets. I haven't been timing between, but just doing another set when I feel recovered. The sets are far below failure. In time when it gets too easy I will decrease sets and increase the reps of my original push up goal. One advantage to doing them this way is that I am able to complete many other short tasks during this hour. I get a great pump by the end and I get lots of little tasks completed. Just thought I would share, because I found this helpful.

[Greg Newton]

Hey Sting,

I am also guessing that you've more energy throughout the day as well, since you are not exhausting yourself?

[gs300tx]

So If I understand this correctly, do as many sets of push ups in an hour without going to failure? Then either increase the reps or sets of push ups over time?

[stingray]

I take my target number for the hour. Right now that is 300. I started by doing 20 sets of 15. It was pretty easy, so the next week I did 18 sets of 17. It was still below failure. I will then do 16 sets of 19. Each week or so, as I feel it, I will do two less sets and increase the reps to hit my goal of 300 (or slightly more.) Once I hit 10 sets of 30 and that feels pretty comfortable. I will increase my total to 400 and jump the sets back up to 20 sets of 20. I carry around a notecard that I keep tally marks on. I don't time myself exactly but I know how many sets I need to accomplish each 15 min. This helps me stay on track. The last set of so, feels a bit more like work. I do this first thing in the morning. It gets me energized for my day. I also do some sort of workout later in the afternoon, but even if I don't, hey I've done more push ups than most people.

[gs300tx]

I am really torn between the HIT program or the Ted Skup style high volume push ups. I know the guy can do 1000 a day so obvioulsy high volume push ups work. When I first joined this forum that is exactly what I used to do. The main reason why stopped doing it was because i wanted my individual set numbers to go up. I wanted to acheive high levels , bragging rights i guess. I guess I will the low rep high volume a shot again. Its that age old question, High rep low volume or Low rep High volume.

[Greg Newton]

Hi gs300tx,

Why not combine both approaches. Take a harder pushup variety such as with the Tee's and do them throughout the day without pushing them to failure. Then at the end of the day or at the beginning of the day, do a high volume set with Tiger Stretch Pushups, which lends itself to high repetitions, since it is a total body exercise. My experience with the Tiger Stretch Pushups is that as their numbers go up, so do the numbers in other pushup variations. In converse, doing the Tee's has strengthemed my ability to do Tigers.