Are pushups enough to build arm strength?

[~^~RedFlame~^~]

Originally Posted by Joni O

Okay, so $64,000 question .... (If I were lean) would push-ups make my arms look like yours, Red?

If yes, how many years might it take :-)

LOL, how nice of you! Of course, genetics gets in there too, but I have to say here, I did not get my arms from push-ups. But I always notice more striations across my upper chest and front delts when I do more push-ups. I do them, but I do them on my knees, and often add the bench under my hands to make it even easier so that I can get a LOT of reps. Truth be told, my upper body is a result of AWT, a lot of light weight high rep work. Rarely more than 10/12 lbs. Rather than bang out 3-5 good pushups, I get on the knees, use the bench and crank them out to fatigue, without counting. I switch hand positions from wide to narrow and add the chatarungas for triceps. Between the high rep work and yoga with it's planks and down dogs my arms stay nicely defined.

ETA: with that high rep work, I am usually doing compound moves, rarely will you find me just repping out on one muscle.

[hch]

Originally Posted by donnadc

http://hundredpushups.com/

- How much does the ability to do a hundred push-ups in a row benefit your "strength," however you want to define it (and please spell out your definition)?

In particular, does it improve your ability to lift more, whether in terms of an exercise, a sport, or ordinary life?

- If you were to plot push-up numbers and this "strength" on a graph, what sort of lines and curves would be most common or most "average"? (For example, you may think that you will be twice as strong at "I can do 100 pushups" as at "I can do 50," and I'd doubt it, but what would you actually be likely to see?

How much variation would you expect to see across a large number of people doing a program like this?

- Is there a similar program to do some equivalently high number of pullups or chinups , or for that matter other exercises for other parts of the body?

[hch]

Originally Posted by donnadc

http://hundredpushups.com/

I took a look at this site to see if it was what I've seen earlier--I first saw a "hundred pushups" page years ago, the one with the three kinds of pushups ("diamond pushups" was one, and "regular pushups" was another) and sometimes large jumps in the number of pushups from week to week.

This site isn't it (it has different tracks and one type of pushup), but it has similarities, like prescribing a certain number of sets and reps per day, working close to daily.

Does anyone have an idea of just how many types of "100 pushups" things out there, especially if there are any that don't do "X reps, X sets almost every day" but go differently?

And if you know of someone who's tried different kinds, what has the person found most effective for safetly building pushup ability?

[hch]

Originally Posted by hch

- Is there a similar program to do some equivalently high number of pullups or chinups , or for that matter other exercises for other parts of the body?

Well, I should've looked a bit longer. These are similar sites:

http://www.twohundredsitups.com/

http://www.twohundredsquats.com/

Of course, these aren't the only possible programs in the world. I just might've been able to catch them sooner. (Nothing yet there on pullups or chinups, apparently, though.)

Since they're a little off-topic here and deserve their own threads anyway, I'll start a new thread soon about this type of thing.

[naturallove]

Originally Posted by hch

I took a look at this site to see if it was what I've seen earlier--I first saw a "hundred pushups" page years ago, the one with the three kinds of pushups ("diamond pushups" was one, and "regular pushups" was another) and sometimes large jumps in the number of pushups from week to week.

This site isn't it (it has different tracks and one type of pushup), but it has similarities, like prescribing a certain number of sets and reps per day, working close to daily.

Does anyone have an idea of just how many types of "100 pushups" things out there, especially if there are any that don't do "X reps, X sets almost every day" but go differently?

And if you know of someone who's tried different kinds, what has the person found most effective for safetly building pushup ability?

Henry-I don't know about 100 pushups being the be all to end all for strength (LOL) but my ex-boyfriend was in the military for quite a few years. I always kind of thought that the constant pushups they had to do (e.g. punishment for someone in the group messing up, etc.) was just hazing. As it turns out, the reason they did so many pushups (according to my ex) was to be able to get down and get back up at anytime and in any circumstance. For example, you might imagine how that would apply in a combat situation! Maybe the endurance that you get from having to do so many pushups helps so that you don't even have to think about it when the situation calls for it! Just a thought.

[donnadc]

Maybe it's just a bragging thing. "Hey I can do 100 pushups, how many can you do?"

I hang out at a mostly guy's forum that some of them claim to do 1000+ pushups per day.

[donnadc]

Oh look, http://www.1000pushups.com/2008/05/b...h-pushups.html

[~^~RedFlame~^~]

I don't know about exact #'s and what that relates to strength-wise, but I can tell you without fear of contradiction that doing pushups a lot will give you better functional strength than standing in front of a mirror repping out your biceps. Plus, you would have to do many different sets of many different exercises to hit everything that gets hit with pushups. This exercise (as much as I hate it) really is an all over exercise and is great for the core as well. Few exercises beat the push up and pull up for good upper body strength and functionality.

[lfcjasp]

Red, I'm with you...hate, hate, HATE push-ups...and I've read that that means I really need to be doing them more Push-ups were the main upper body exercise Kelly does in Body Training...not really too much else UB, but man did I feel them the following day!!!

[~^~RedFlame~^~]

Originally Posted by lfcjasp

Red, I'm with you...hate, hate, HATE push-ups...and I've read that that means I really need to be doing them more Push-ups were the main upper body exercise Kelly does in Body Training...not really too much else UB, but man did I feel them the following day!!!

I gave up the 'dread factor' in pushups when I started doing that REAL modified version that rips my arms and chest better anyway! By doing that (on knees with hands elevated on my bench) I can do a lot of them, and really pay attention to my flat back and slow movement to really get in the muscles. But I DO long for the day when I can at least do 20 big boy pushups. I do think it is important to have certain kinds of body strength. It's probably weird, but I think of movies like Poseidon Advanture and other "save your life" types of flicks, and they show people having to hang by their arms and get across open spaces using hand over hand, or running for a long time to escape an attacker or something, and these scenes really make me think about SURVIVAL. To heck with physique, but if I had to get myself out of a jam, I want the right kind of body strength to perhaps save my life! If I had to do pullups to hoist my body weight up into a trap door exit for example, could I?