Hey, I like to do pushups every day. Is that bad for me?

Lets say I normally do 40-50 pushups in the morning & night. Everyday, I like to increase it by 1-2 pushups extra. Is that bad? Should I do pushups every other day? I go to the gym as well, and I'm beginning HIIT tomorrow.

Let me know, thanks!

Im 18 male, 6 feet, 179lb.

It might not be bad. It might even help recovery depending on how hard 40 pushups is for you.

Personally I have found that doing some form of exercise inbetween regular lifting sessions helps keep muscles warm, increases bloodflow and generally seems to help reduce injuries.

However, I couldn't do that many pushups every day without getting a repetitive type injury, so I usually mix things up, sometimes I do little more than stretching. Of course I'm nearly double your age!

But I try to rarely take a full day off from doing anything. Even if I've had a couple of days of hard workouts and/or cardio and feel tired, I try to do 2 stretching sessions that might include very low intensity bodyweight exercises.

It might not be bad. It might even help recovery depending on how hard 40 pushups is for you.

Personally I have found that doing some form of exercise inbetween regular lifting sessions helps keep muscles warm, increases bloodflow and generally seems to help reduce injuries.

However, I couldn't do that many pushups every day without getting a repetitive type injury, so I usually mix things up, sometimes I do little more than stretching. Of course I'm nearly double your age!

But I try to rarely take a full day off from doing anything. Even if I've had a couple of days of hard workouts and/or cardio and feel tired, I try to do 2 stretching sessions that might include very low intensity bodyweight exercises.


Thanks!

I know when you lift, you're muscle fibers are breaking down, etc... Does the same happen when I do pushups?

Hey, I like to do pushups every day. Is that bad for me?

Lets say I normally do 40-50 pushups in the morning & night. Everyday, I like to increase it by 1-2 pushups extra. Is that bad? Should I do pushups every other day? I go to the gym as well, and I'm beginning HIIT tomorrow.

Let me know, thanks!

Im 18 male, 6 feet, 179lb.

It's not bad. But you might consider changing it up since you can do 40. Try elevating your feet a little. Or adding dumbell lifts to the pushups. Or do the pushups with hands on a medicine ball. Also work on planche (pushup "up" position) on one hand, one hand on medicine ball, etc.

There's lots of variations.

I know when you lift, you're muscle fibers are breaking down, etc... Does the same happen when I do pushups?

I would say (based on personal experience only) that it retards growth but enhances strength. My pecs definetly didn't grow much if at all when I was throwing down sets of pushups every day, including chest day in the weight room, but it got me a hell of a lot stronger in a short period of time.

M@

IMO if you do pushups every day, increasing by 1 or 2 daily and also go to the gym on a regular basis and do triceps and arm work, you will get away with that for awhile but at some point you are going to discover that it has become too much, especially when you start cranking up the gym weights.

Then you're going to have to start adding "recovery" days somewhere.

Keep in mind that doing a lot of push-ups will only serve one purpose -- to make you better at doing a lot of push-ups. It's endurance based.

If you want strength or hypertrophy, you'd be better off doing an exercise progression (progressively harder push-up variations -- the peak would be planche push-ups) or a normal weight progression (usually bench press, lifting more each week).

If you can only do 10-15 push ups, then it's a strength exercise. If you are doing 40-50 push ups, it's an endurance exercise. People in boot camp do push ups every day. It's to build endurance mostly.

I guess another way to look at it is people who have physical jobs and also lift weights. They can move heavy boxes everyday at work and still hit the gym 3 x a week and make gains. They've gotten to the point where their body has adapted to be able to do a certain amount of physical work on a daily basis.

I think you need to look at your goals. Where do you want to progress more? In the gym with weights or doing push ups? If you keep trying to increase your push ups, maybe you should have a rest day. But if you just maintain doing 40-50 everyday, without looking to push that further, then I suppose you could do them every day.

I see, doesn't John do 50 pushups, both day and night? I think I may have remembered reading him say that, or someone else, not too sure. If you're reading this John, do you take a rest day becuase of that?

I see, doesn't John do 50 pushups, both day and night? I think I may have remembered reading him say that, or someone else, not too sure. If you're reading this John, do you take a rest day becuase of that?

50 pushups is really not enough to make you need a rest day. And it will get you a bench press which is a bit more than your bodyweight, and that's about it.

If you change the pushups by elevating the feet, or adding other variations, you can continue to progress. The people that said 50 pushups won't make you really big and strong are right - if they are straight pushups. If you do 50 one arm handstand pushups it's a different story. There is still a limit to how much you will grow from that, but it's quite a bit higher limit.

Just a personal observation...
When I was in the Army, we (of course) did TONS of pushups (& sit-ups). I wouldnt be surprised to find out that we did 300+ in a day during Basic Training.
Now, I'm twice as old as I was then and my Tri's are bigger now after 2mo of weight training then they were when I was 18y/o and in super good shape. What I don't have is the "functional" strength I had then, and thats what I think gets lost when people think about push-ups, etc. I can't currently do more than 10 push-ups or so now, and I used to do 50+ at a time.
It's like squats are considered a Quads exrecise, but it strengthens everything from your feet to the back of your neck.
I suppose part of what I'm referring to is "core" strength, maybe not.

I'm twice as old as I was then and my Tri's are bigger now after 2mo of weight training then they were when I was 18y/o and in super good shape. What I don't have is the "functional" strength I had then, and thats what I think gets lost when people think about push-ups, etc. I can't currently do more than 10 push-ups or so now, and I used to do 50+ at a time.
It's like squats are considered a Quads exrecise, but it strengthens everything from your feet to the back of your neck.
I suppose part of what I'm referring to is "core" strength, maybe not.

You're right, but in two different ways.

Long pushup sets do help core strength, because holding your bdy straight uses the core muscles.

But the functional strength is a little bit different thing. The core strength you get from holding a planche (pushup lockout position) is static. Functional strength also includes a lot of things that are motions as opposed to positions, and require balance as opposed to rigidity. So the extra functional strength you had back then probably came from the variety of motions that you went through and not only the pushups.

Hey! I've never been right twice in a row about anything. :tucool:
I think in the Army you might get your ass beat if you called it the "planche" position. They just called it the "Front Leaning Rest (http://everything2.net/index.pl?node_id=1232454)."
Dont ask, dont tell as far as they're concerned.

Seriously though, I imagine a lot of it is just that my power:weight ratio has declined considerably, and that my back has to hold up an extra 30lbs or so.

I think in the Army you might get your ass beat if you called it the "planche" position.

That's one reason I never tried the Army....