How's your push up game?

I am out of shape, but I'm slowly turning that around. I started cutting back on some unhealthy foods and wanted to start doing some push ups for a bit of exercise, and I couldn't even do even do three on the floor. I started doing them off the counter top, then off the bathtub and when I felt I was strong enough, started doing them off the floor. Now, I can do on average 30 a set, with my highest being 37. Ultimately, I want to be able to do 100 per set, but... that's a LOOOOONG ways off.

I used to do 60 every second day. I can now barely do 20. I recently started working out again so hopefully those numbers change soon.

I tried after reading this collapsed just after 10, can probabily do more of I keep practising and loosing weight by healthy eating

Be careful on how you do pushups. Make sure you warm up (jog or walk till you break into a light sweat), do some light stretching (dynamic stretching FTW), make sure your form is perfect and that you are not overtraining. I used to be able to do 20 one hand pushups and 70-75 normal pushups in one go. Then I got tendonitis which drastically affected my training. I'm lucky to do 10 normal pushups now, forget one hand pushups. I can feel my elbows "clicking" if I over-strain and try do more. I do dive bomber pushups instead of regular pushups as they don't stress my elbows.

Take your time and build a large rep range over a long period of time. Don't try to do it quickly or you'll risk getting an injury which will set back your training.

Tendonitis is a bitch.

I mainly want to post to give a little tip. Just cause I made this mistake that some people reading this may also be making at first and it took quite a few years to grow a little wiser and take a different approach. If you want to get better at normal pushups I'd recommend changing it up regularly with variants and don't keep track of the count too much or it will get in the way of simply challenging yourself. (Like not more than once a month.)

Cause challenging your body is what makes you stronger, not the fact that you got to 40. And how much you can challenge yourself will vary from day to day. So if you focus on counting, you will invariably disappoint yourself a lot. But if your goal is to challenge yourself, you will find you get a good workout every time, and you'll get stronger. I say do many variations because it'll keep it fun and keeps your body guessing. You don't want to just get good at push ups do you? Your body can easily get used to doing one move and build itself accordingly, but you'd still suck a lot at doing anything else.

And on top of that, if you ditch the count you can focus on good form instead of wriggling yourself in all the wrong ways to get from 39 to 40. If you cheat your body is going to show it.

Some variations are normal push ups with a wide hand stance for the chest, or normal push ups but moving the elbows straight back (so they keep touching your sides on the way down) for triceps, on the knees (good if you are a beginner but also to resort to if you run out of energy doing normal ones), half-cobra push ups (legs on the floor, only lifting upper body but with elbows always touching your side, move up halfway (not the whole way, that's cheating, arms still bend quite a bit) with chest opening up, good for triceps), triangle/diamond push ups (normal push ups with both hands in the middle forming a triangle, further away from you to make it harder or closer to your chest to make it easier), circle push ups (normal pushups but along with moving up and down as normal you also move side to side to form a circle, really hard! Don't be ashamed to go on knees.), walking pushups (you get in plank for normal pushup and then place left hand where right hand is, move right hand to the right and do a pushup, then alternate sides), push ups to side plank (in between normal push ups you place one hand in the middle and go into side plank, alternating sides, good for shoulders), cobra push ups (imagine a low bar in front of your chin while in plank, pull elbows back and slowly graze the floor as you move forward under the bar and push up your upper body, then reset into plank and repeat. If you do these properly they can be very hard and very very sexy ;) )

There are many more variations like decline wall push ups, shoulder push ups, renegade push ups, etc. Look up video's cause they show you much better how to do them. And always use a mirror so you can keep an eye on your butt cause when you get tired it'll want to cheat on you by moving up or down too much. And in terms of difficulty they are quite flexible. Anyone can start doing any of these in some form. You can do most of them on your knees to make it easier, or very slow with a lot of focus on perfect form and changing the hand position a little to make it harder.

Sorry for the wall of text. I just like helping out when I can.

TLDR: If you're doing fine then skip all this text. I think I can do 50 with proper form and normal speed, not counting bad ones, on a good day after waking up. Maybe not. That would be a real challenge for me XD

Scratch that I just tried. 40 not 50 XD And I was feeling ready for it, too.

Currently I can only do about 25-30. I used to barely be able to do 10, it's a process. So far this year I've lost 20 pounds. I'm going to Europe for three weeks this fall and I want to be in good shape. It's a journey, and I'm in it for the long haul. :)

I can do around 20+ push-ups. I remember back when I could barely do 5 lol.

Start from 3, then 5, then 7, ect. Trust me, it will make a difference. At first it might seem impossible, but if you keep it up, even if its 3 for a while, you will master it, and do more, and more. Keep it up buddy. As far as my push up stance, last time i tried, i did about 12, and then if i kept it up, could do more daily. Unfortunately, i just ain't all into getting back in shape at the moment. Life has my time taken, but i should do more. Best of luck yo.

Yeah, I was afraid that was going to be an issue at first. My wrists weren't up to it at first and wasn't able to do many because I was afraid they weren't going to be able to support me, but I always did some anyway (not to push myself, just to keep active). Slowly, they grew stronger. Now, I can do my usual 30-35 and I don't hurt afterwards.

Congrats! I'm down 23 myself! I found that cutting out pop has really helped jump start my weight loss.

Do you mean 3 sets, then 5 sets, then 7 sets? Because if you're just talking about 3 push ups, then 5, then 7, I already got that beat. As I said, I'm at about 30-35 now. And yeah, I know how life is. But, 30 push ups takes literally a minute for me, so I just find a few times a day to get them in. You can do it too!

@KungfuKitten: Thanks for the tips. I felt like I was strong, and better conditioned, when I was doing a variety of push-ups. I'll try to incorporate some of these -- good stuff!

i don't waste my time with them

your pecs are only going to get stronger by lifting weights(bench press and flies really)

about 25 from the knee. i cant do them from the foot due to injury (thats my excuse and im sticking to it. :P). trying to get to 30 but seem to be limited to 25 for now.

18 in 30 seconds. I go for 3 rounds so a total of 54.

Don't know... Could do 50-55 in one go at one point, but now I haven't done a push up in years.

Non-existent.

lmao I cant even do 1 but maybe someday if I can get some strength in these t-rex arms

Well, I lift and all so no need for pushups. But back when I didn't use to go to gym, I could do 30-40 in one go.

I do my 35 per minute every day. That's it for me when it comes to push ups. I also do my daily 50 sit-ups per minute.

Once in a while, I'll get on a bar and do 4-6 pull ups only because it's on the way out of the gym.

I try to do 80 a day, 20 per set. Most I can probably get up to in a single set is 40 before I collapse from exhaustion...

It's a giant misconception people believe that working out means pushing your body to its limits, and in this case you think about how many push-ups you can do before you collapse. That's NOT a healthy or effective way to workout if you actually want to take it seriously.

For any workouts, you need to invest time in performing sets of reps. For example, if you're working your arms and doing push-ups, doing about 4 sets of 10 is just fine, and you can work your way up from there as your strength makes progression.

Rest for your body is just as important as your fitness and having a proper eating diet is immensely important, too. If you're not eating a sufficient amount of protein then your body is not going to effectively build muscle no matter how much you work out. If you're skinny and not eating the important foods then working out may potentially have a reverse-effect as the lack of body fat will cause your body to start burning that hard earned muscle.

Oh, don't worry. I got plenty of body fat to work off. :P

I want to say the most I've ever done at once is like 80... they were part of a physical test every year in middle/high school. Otherwise I rarely ever tried to see how many I can do without stopping. I'd sometimes do them in sets of 20-40 when working out. I've been lazy the last several months, so I dunno anymore. I could still probably hit at least 50 just fine, but I might hurt myself if I tried lol.

So you're looking to get in shape in general?
I would highly recommend interval training, then. Interval training is basically doing sets of different exercises in a rotational set.

That way you can squeeze in cardio exercises too!

For example, you can start out a set with doing jump rope or jumping jacks (excellent for cardio, by the way) for a minute straight, and once that rep is done you go to the next one, which could be doing push ups about a rep of 10. After that You can go straight into another exercise, maybe squats or whatever exercise you choose, and do another rep of 10.

Once you finish that cycle I'd recommend taking about a minute break, drink water, and once that minute is up go straight back into your jump rope position and repeat the cycle.

If you can manage about 8 sets of this cycle you'd be on an excellent track because not only are you going to be contributing to physical training but also you'll be burning lots of fat and boosting your cardio!

If you try this I can guarantee you'll feel a great burn possibly more effective than a lot of exercise routines.

i used to do 10 push-ups every hour on the hour.

now i'm just a lazy fat f*

lol

its the laziness that leads to being fat.

i haven't changed my eating habits all that much thru out the years, just being lazy and less active has gotten me a belly that i'm not so proud of. lol.

I can do like 50...60 if i really push damn hard. But tbh, its better to go slow. LIke take 2-3 seconds to go down...hoooooollllddd...then an explosive upward push. Rinse repeat. Do 10-15 and i tell you its better and harder (more fulfilling too) than you whacking 30-40 push ups as fast as you can. Better results too because you can maintain your form a lot easier if its done in better composure. FORM IS EVERYTHING, PEOPLE.

BTW after a while, sooner rather than later push up means nothing to you and you wonder why it used to be this insurmountable obstacle. If you want an amazing burn, very very few things beats burpees. How many burpees can you do is the reail question :D

I think I read in a men's health magazine (yah...I know, take it for what it's worth) that 100+ push ups in 3 minutes is a sign of good fitness. I can do that. Recently started doing plyometric push ups as part of my routine.

I'm going to try that!

EDIT: Just tried it out. Man, I could barely do 10 that way. I'm going to have to do them that way more often.

I'm disabled, but if pushed could probably do 3-5.

but are they full push-ups?

anybody can do 100+ half pushups

Mine are, can't vouch for anybody else's though.

lol, yeah i remember one of my friends back in high school said he can do over 50 pushups in 1 minute.

as soon as he did them, i waited till he was done of course. not even 1 done correctly. lol

I was at 40-45 a set about a year ago, but now I can do about 25. Every since I did the Spartan challenge Race, I've been having problems with my hip and lower back, so I've modified my workout until I get back to full strength.

Been getting ready for the memorial day murph (for the uninitiated, it's 1 mi run, 100 pull ups, 200 push ups, 300 squats, finish with another 1 mi run for time, RX is supposed to be done with 20 lbs weight vest), so I'd say my push up game is at all time high now.

None I sprained my wrist again.

oh my imma girl and used to go to gym before but i quit on going to gym getting so tired after ahaha.. cant even finish 30 min of treadmill :( i like to swim most of the time and my push ups sucks only 20 counts ahaha.

I can do 100 push ups in 3 minutes. But, I'll have to do one minute's worth in the morning, another minute's worth at noon, and the last minute's worth before going to bed. He He. There's no rule saying they have to be consecutive.

It's more about form than anything.