[Greg Newton]

You can't go wrong with pushups. When I was running a weight room for a high school a decade back, I'll never forget running into a teenager who'd just got back from Navy boot camp. A well built athlete previously, he literally looked light years different with a shredded muscular body that looked like it could go up on a bodybuilding stage.

"Cory, what have you been doing? You look fantastic."

He smiled and related how he'd been doing pushups; lots and lots of pushups. Wide grips, narrow grips, diamonds, side to sides, and feet elevated he was doing over 500 pushups daily.

I asked him if this was part of his boot camp, and he said in part, but mostly he did it on his on his own. He would get bored with all the hurry up and wait, and he would do pushups to kill time.

At the time, I attributed his results entirely to genetics, and I dismissed what he told me. However, subsequently I've come to realize that with the right mindset, in other words focusing on the tension rather than just the repetitons, this is more than possible for most people.

Now the denouement is different from what you would expect. I run into Cory periodically these days. Cory isn't as well built as he was when he first came back from camp ten years ago. With work and family he doesn't have the time to train. He still works out, but instead of the pushups, he goes to a gym a couple of times a week and works the machines.

He doesn't get it anymore than I did at the time I saw him after boot camp. Something as simple as pushups put him in the best shape of his life. He looked like a smaller version of Carl Weathers. Today he is on the marshmellow side. Yet, the variety in a gym with high tech machines had gotten him working out there instead of what had actually produced results; something he could actually be doing at home.

Greg Newton

[jeffreyga]

Thanks for this post Greg. I've been away from the forum & training for a little while & truly missed both. I started doing pushups again 3 weeks ago, doing only 15 my first couple of days & up to 100 now (easily). Shoulder & elbow pain drove me away from pushups & pullups but coming back to it I am more determined to build the volume without over doing it like I did before. I can't believe how quickly I feel so strong again in just a few weeks.

[Greg Newton]

Hey Mike,

Just take it easy. I highly recommend you start every workout with Tiger Stretch Pushups to warm the shoulders up. You don't have to do that many. Also, cut back your reps on pushups, pullups and chins, by emphasizing the negative position with slow, controlled descent. It makes a difference; especially with pullups and chins.

Good luck.

Greg

[John Peterson]

Hey Greg,

People will be awed when they see our Living Strength Push-Up System and realize how they can easily achieve the same volume but at much different levels of intensity each day. As you and I have discussed on many occasions with Rod, the biggest problem people have is that for some crazy reason they think that have to train at the same level of intensity each and every day they train. It's crazy to do that to yourself.


For Example: 7 X 52=364 reps can actually feel a lot tougher than 12 X 32 = 384. In fact, for most people it is. Yet in some ways it's not nearly as beneficial. Why? Because you're infusing highly oxygenated blood into your muscle tissue only 7 times instead of 12. It's the additional sets at less than maximum effort that bring healing nutrients into the tissues and as a result you become stronger faster than if you just took a complete day off providing the sets of 32 are not bringing you close to the edge of muscular fatigue and nerve force exhaustion.

---John Peterson

[Jun]

Originally Posted by Greg Newton

Hey Mike,

Just take it easy. I highly recommend you start every workout with Tiger Stretch Pushups to warm the shoulders up. You don't have to do that many. Also, cut back your reps on pushups, pullups and chins, by emphasizing the negative position with slow, controlled descent. It makes a difference; especially with pullups and chins.

Good luck.

Greg

Super idea ! The idea of warming up with Tiger Stretch Pushups is A-1. I tried that today. Perfectly fine !

Thank you for starting this thread Greg. I rarely skip daily pushups. They have seen me through some difficult times. The night before my wife's surgery the hospital let me sleep in her room. That was nice of them. I missed my pushups though: they would have helped me with keeping perspective, relaxing and being optimistic.

PS: I am definitely one of many waiting for John's upcoming pushup book.

[Greg Newton]

Hey Jun,

John is the one who gave me the idea of using Tiger Stretch Pushups as a warmup. They do a lot to keep one's shoulders healthy.

Greg

[dynogoalie30]

Greg, great post, I have a friend who I played baseball with in high school, who moved up to Sacramento, after our senior year, me and friend went up to see him the next summer, and our friend Pat had looked like he was on a weight training program with his upper body, had developed a upperbody that was huge and cut up, great pecs, abs, and big arms, now when we were in high school, Pat was skinny as a rail, my friend and I asked him what he did to develop his upper body, he said that all he did was between 200-300 push-ups a day, and sit-ups. we were only 18 at the time, and his parents house had and a swimming pool in the backyard, and he said which was interesting, that he did the breast stroke for laps in his parents pool, he said that he felt that the breat stroke really worked his upper body better than any of the other swimming strokes, he had skinny legs in high school and even when we saw him in Sac, I use to tease him, saying his legs were built like tiiki lamps, and at that time they still were, so I asked him why he does not do legs, he said he planned on starting legs work with bodyweight squats soon, so when we went to visit him the following year, he said Dino, then you wont be able to make fun of my tiki lamp legs.But the bottom line to all this is like you said Greg, you cant beat push-ups, If anyone else has a push-up story here, it would be great to hear about it.

[proton]

It's interesting, yesterday I came across a photo of Salman Khan, an Indian film actor. Impressed with his physique I decided to research his fitness regime and it turns out part of his routine is 1000 push-ups a day according to Manish Advilkar, his fitness trainer for over 6 years.

[Jun]

Dynogoalie30,
A number come to mind.
I know a guy who works for the airlines as a res agent. After not seeing him for a year I noticed he had dramatically changed his physique. It definitely cost him for new uniform shirts. I asked him what the heck he had done to get into such remarkable shape. "Pushups did that" he replied. He told me he was tired of feeling out of shape and was jealous of the guys that looked athletic and fit all the time. "Pushups fixed that" he said. He told me, in front of his wife, by the way, that he felt a lot better and more confident as well. I asked him how many pushups he did a day and he quickly replied "50". Although I was surprised as I found this to be a rather small amount, I replied "Great!". In less than a year this guy had acquired impressive shoulders, chest, back and arms. .....with 50 pushups a day... and nothing else.
PS: Slabs of functional muscle have been added to his shoulders and upper back... this guy is like a new man.

[John Peterson]

Hey Jun,

Years and years ago a martial arts instructor of my acquaintance was in a severe car accident. He suffered a broken neck and was immobilized for almost six months. He used the program from Henry Wittenburg's book, "Isometrics" . The original isotonic circuit required just 40 feet elevated push-ups (elevated to a standard chair of just 18") and I have to say that I was amazed by his transformation. Eventually Jim worked up to two of the Iso-tonic circuits and performed 50 instead of 40 feet elevated Push-Ups in each set and he only one performed one of the Isometric Circuits. But he certainly had fabulous results from performing a combination of Isometric contractions and power calisthenics. And get this, it took him less than one half hour each day.

So the bottom line is that sometimes fabulous results can be achieved with 100 or fewer Push-Ups each day. And the truth is, some people would do well to get as much as they possibly can out of the lower numbers before they start adding repetitions.


---John Peterson