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To facilitate continuous muscle growth you need to continuously increase the resistance over time, and you need to do so within about 8-12 repetitions per set t

by tjogin 15y ago

To facilitate continuous muscle growth you need to continuously increase the resistance over time, and you need to do so within about 8-12 repetitions per set to stimulate hypertrophy. In simple terms, you need to push your max all the time; as you get stronger and develop more muscle, you need to keep increasing the resistance to reach the next level. This is very well established in scientific studies. Simple logic dictates that this is is impossible with pushups. You cannot change the resistance without changing what muscles you activate, and an averagely built male can do more than 8-12 pushups per set from the very get go. The only way forward is to increase the amount of pushups you do in one go, and that throws hypertrophy out the window. This is why pushups is a rather useless exercise, beside the fact that it's difficult to do correctly and causes injuries (doing them on your palms can fuck up your rotator cuff, and doing them on your knuckles can fuck up your hands and wrists). But even without scientific proof, I think most people have this experience with pushups (whether they've thought about it consciously or not): the people who do them are rarely very big, they're the thin traditional martial-arts type, at best.

dredmorbius 15y ago
Training modalities differ from just the 8-12 reps range. Check out the Wikipedia Strength Training article for a good overview. You can get varying responses with reps ranging from 1 to 30 or more (with appropriate scaling of resistance). The disadvantage of push-ups from a training perspective is that it's hard to progress with them (increase resistance), though this can be done by changing body angle, changing hand position, adding weight, or changing to a more challenging variant (say planche push-ups). The point that I and others have been making is that a naive and uninformed approach toward exercise and fitness may provide few if any benefits, could exacerbate an existing imbalance, and really shouldn't be touted as a genius inspiration. Much as, say, a naive and uninformed approach toward technology often has corresponding / similar / analogous negative outcomes. Push-ups are fine, in the right balance with other movements. They're not a complete exercise routine of themselves. As for getting big on push-ups, there are always exceptions. Hershel Walker comes to mind as a calisthenics devotee.
- tjogin 15y ago
  Pushups is a terrible exercise, for sure, since it doesn't build muscle and is prone to injury. The only reason it doesn't screw up your rotator cuff very quickly is because the resistance is so low; had it been better at building muscle (i.e. more resistance, on level with bench presses) your rotator cuff would tear much sooner. Injury wise, pushups' saving grace is that it is such a bad exercise. Doing 30 repetitions in a set is a surefire way to stagnate in your muscular development. This has been proven time and time again in scientific studies. But whatever, let's just agree to disagree here. I'll continue to side with the scientific studies done in hypertrophy, and you continue believing in pushups.
  - dredmorbius 15y ago
    The key question wasn't whether or not push-ups will develop significant muscle mass. It's whether or not they're going to compound a very likely existing syndrome (upper cross syndrome / kyphosis) in a team of programmers / tech geeks. Push-ups are sufficiently effective that they'll at best make the problem worse. Any untrained individual doing any resistance movement consistently will make gains in strength and muscle size (Google Mark Rippetoe's "The Novice Effect" or discussions of training complexity vs. training age). Sure, you'll plateau after a few months, but you're still going to be ahead of a very large share of the sedentary population. And you're doing nothing to address the intrinsic imbalance between anterior and dorsal and muscular development and overall tension.

by tjogin 15y ago

dredmorbius 15y ago

Training modalities differ from just the 8-12 reps range. Check out the Wikipedia Strength Training article for a good overview. You can get varying responses with reps ranging from 1 to 30 or more (with appropriate scaling of resistance). The disadvantage of push-ups from a training perspective is that it's hard to progress with them (increase resistance), though this can be done by changing body angle, changing hand position, adding weight, or changing to a more challenging variant (say planche push-ups). The point that I and others have been making is that a naive and uninformed approach toward exercise and fitness may provide few if any benefits, could exacerbate an existing imbalance, and really shouldn't be touted as a genius inspiration. Much as, say, a naive and uninformed approach toward technology often has corresponding / similar / analogous negative outcomes. Push-ups are fine, in the right balance with other movements. They're not a complete exercise routine of themselves. As for getting big on push-ups, there are always exceptions. Hershel Walker comes to mind as a calisthenics devotee.

tjogin 15y ago
Pushups is a terrible exercise, for sure, since it doesn't build muscle and is prone to injury. The only reason it doesn't screw up your rotator cuff very quickly is because the resistance is so low; had it been better at building muscle (i.e. more resistance, on level with bench presses) your rotator cuff would tear much sooner. Injury wise, pushups' saving grace is that it is such a bad exercise. Doing 30 repetitions in a set is a surefire way to stagnate in your muscular development. This has been proven time and time again in scientific studies. But whatever, let's just agree to disagree here. I'll continue to side with the scientific studies done in hypertrophy, and you continue believing in pushups.
- dredmorbius 15y ago
  The key question wasn't whether or not push-ups will develop significant muscle mass. It's whether or not they're going to compound a very likely existing syndrome (upper cross syndrome / kyphosis) in a team of programmers / tech geeks. Push-ups are sufficiently effective that they'll at best make the problem worse. Any untrained individual doing any resistance movement consistently will make gains in strength and muscle size (Google Mark Rippetoe's "The Novice Effect" or discussions of training complexity vs. training age). Sure, you'll plateau after a few months, but you're still going to be ahead of a very large share of the sedentary population. And you're doing nothing to address the intrinsic imbalance between anterior and dorsal and muscular development and overall tension.