pushups for chest muscles?

[Debujanai]

I'm overweight (230 lbs, 31% BF) and I obviously don't have a lot of muscle mass. It's also hard for me to do chest exercises like a bench press or dumbell press because I don't have a bench! I was thinking that until I get one, do pushups work the pecs, etc enough to count as a good chest workout? Or is it more of a cardio fitness exercise? A total beginner here, sorry if this is an obvious question to some of you. Thanks!

[Tiger King]

Yeah, pushups work primarily the pectorials. Most people think it works your arms somehow and while they are incorporated its mostly the chest that gets the workout.

Though, pushups is a plyometrics exercise..Don't expect to sprout a large, developed chest doing pushups. I suppose if you went nuts on them you'd get close to that, but pushups are used for like... martial artists or boxers and stuff like that, because its explosive.

If you want to get a muscled chest and without doing pushups like a Navy Seal, weights are the way to go.

You may not have one, but I would find it hard to believe that there isn't a gym nearby

[Jonesy]

For just starting off, pushups are great. You can develop your chest to an extent as pushups do not have to be done in a plyometric manner. But I wouldn't do pushups on a daily basis as your body will still need time to recover. And by changing up the style of pushup, you can focus on not only your chest, but also your triceps and front delts. Seeing that you are somewhat new to working out, I could probably set you up with a chest/tricep workout, using pushup style excercises, that would be better for you then what you could get in the gym. You've got a good amount of body weight to work with. Shoot a PM to me if you'd like to know more.

[NME]

Pushups promote muscular endurance (in this case, in your chest muscles and to a lesser extent, your triceps and shoulders). They do not, however, promote hypertrophy (i.e. an increase in muscle mass).

I do not personally do pushups anymore (although in high school I held the record for most pushups in a two minute period--pardon the tooting of my horn ), but I know John does/did 50 pushups every morning to "get his blood flowing." This seems like a reasonable idea, and while I can certainly see someone not wanting to do pushups the same day they are working chest, but as pushups do not work the chest in the manner as say...benchpress or weighted dips would, you can feel comfortable doing them prior to your chest (or any other) work out, provided there's enough time in between your pushups and your workout for your muscles to recover (and that amount of time varies from person to person; probably not more than an hour for most people).

[Mahdimael]

You could call them pushups, or you just refer to it as "Bench pressing the Earth", like I do

[Jonesy]

Originally Posted by Famous

Pushups promote muscular endurance (in this case, in your chest muscles and to a lesser extent, your triceps and shoulders). They do not, however, promote hypertrophy (i.e. an increase in muscle mass).

So are you telling me it is impossible to increase muscle strength and mass by doing pushups????

[NME]

Originally Posted by Jonesy

So are you telling me it is impossible to increase muscle strength and mass by doing pushups????

Not entirely impossible, but certainly inefficient and largely ineffective.

[Maximus]

Originally Posted by Mahdimael

You could call them pushups, or you just refer to it as "Bench pressing the Earth", like I do

ahaha..you're right! Man I must be really strong then

[Jonesy]

Originally Posted by Famous

Not entirely impossible, but certainly inefficient and largely ineffective.

For the experienced lifter sure. Although I guarantee I could put you through a pushup workout that would have you crying like my little sister in no time!

You have to take into account this persons situation. He is totally new to weight/resistance training. He weighs 230lbs and is about 31%bf. He doesn't have a whole lot of lean muscle mass. I'd honestly be suprised if the guy can do 10 push-ups with proper form. (Not tryin to bust your chops guy, everyone has to start somewhere.) How different is benching 150lbs for 10 reps then doing push-ups for 10 reps? Plus, do you realize how many different ways you can do push-ups?? If you've had any type of military training you do.

Yes, I agree. If you are able to rep out 50 or 60 push-ups at a time, and you're trying to build mass, I could think of better ways to achieve this. But for a person starting off, this is great. Espically if he doesn't have access to proper equipment or a gym. About once a month I'll replace one of my chest/tricep workouts with a push-up routine for a change of pace. Last month I rep'd out 106 and normal style push-ups just to see how many I could do. But I can change up the style of push-up and can barely squeeze out 10-12. I've been throwing this into my routine for over a year. I was benching 375 before I decided to start trimming my bodyfat. Unfortunately, due to this change in workout and a shoulder injury, my bench has dropped to 330lbs.

Once again, I'm not trying to flame anyone here, I'm only trying to show everyone that there is more than one way to train.

[NME]

Originally Posted by Jonesy

Once again, I'm not trying to flame anyone here, I'm only trying to show everyone that there is more than one way to train.

I understand and I can appreciate that. I still maintain that, even as a beginner, pushups are not the most efficient or effective way to develop your chest. I certainly understand the benefits of doing pushups in a case where you have no weights available and you need to work your chest (or in order to get the blood flowing regardless of whether or not your intention is to train your chest).

Yes, I do realize how many different types of pushups there are. Back in high school, my gym teacher was a former navy seal. He would put us through the seal fitness program which included, among many other things, a regimen of several types of pushups including your "Standard" (arms shoulder width apart) pushup, wide pushups, and tricep pushups. Then of course you've got one arm pushups, knuckle pushups, clap pushups, thumb pushups...the list goes on and on.

Although I guarantee I could put you through a pushup workout that would have you crying like my little sister in no time!

Even if that were the case (and let's face it, that claim was spurious), that doesn't mean that the resulting pain would indicate muscular growth. This is a common misconception; pain/soreness equates to gains. In all liklihood, the pain felt from doing as many pushups as I imagine your workout would involve would be a build up of lactic acid, which hardly indicates muscular development.

I'm glad that you find push ups effective in your regimen, but the fact is that they are not ideal for developing one's chest, no matter what stage they are at in their fitness development.

[Jonesy]

Originally Posted by Famous

I understand and I can appreciate that. I still maintain that, even as a beginner, pushups are not the most efficient or effective way to develop your chest.

I don't believe that I stated anywhere that push-ups were the most efficient or effective way to develop your chest. But I do believe they can be very effective for this beginner, who I have no doubt, can not press his own bodyweight. I strongly feel that this person can get off to a great start with resistence excersies that utilize his own bodyweight. Especially considering this is all he has to work with at this time. Of course, he will reach a point where, if he wishes to further his development, will need to incorperate weights.

Originally Posted by Famous

Even if that were the case (and let's face it, that claim was spurious), that doesn't mean that the resulting pain would indicate muscular growth. This is a common misconception; pain/soreness equates to gains.

First, I don't understand how you can say that my claim was "spurious". And second, I don't think I said a thing about pain/soreness equating to gains. That is no doubt a very, very common misconception. But once again it is a claim that I have not made.

Originally Posted by Famous

I'm glad that you find push ups effective in your regimen, but the fact is that they are not ideal for developing one's chest, no matter what stage they are at in their fitness development.

Do you have medical/scientific claims to back this up?? Resistance is resistance, would you agree? One again I ask: How different is benching 150lbs for 10 reps then doing push-ups for 10 reps? If this person is getting enough resistance from his own body weight to only get out 8-10 reps, then how can that not be benificial??

[Jingo]

Guys settle down, no need for who's right who's wrong games. You're both right, but for different sitations. This thread is for someone who is just starting out with limited equipment, it's on that basis that advice is needed in this instance, tho it's always good to give extra info of cause

I have to agree that, in this instance, push ups will be very benefitial to you. Given that the alternative is, do nothing, they are most definatly something you should incorperate into your routine, if nothing else they will definatly build up some endurance into your muscles so that when and if you are able to purchase a bench, you will be able to move straight to a reasonable set of reps, rather than have to build up those muscles from near nothing.

I personally am in the same situation as you, i've decided to go to home route this time, not for cash reasons, purely preference, but i don't have room for a bench atm so i'm doing the best i can with out. Press ups are definatly part of my routine and staying so for the forseeable future. However as it's been pointed out, long term they will not give you an adequate work out to build the kind of mass most people are looking for, but for a beginer they are definatly worth doing given the lack of alternatives.

[John Stone]

Originally Posted by Jingo

Guys settle down, no need for who's right who's wrong games.

Good debate is what this place is all about. Jonesy and Famous are keeping their discussion on track and intelligently arguing their particular points of view on the topic at hand. I have no problem with this thread, and will always encourage healthy debate as long as there are no personal attacks and the tone remains civil.

[Glamdring]

Hah! Screw you guys! Push-Ups are only good if done with a sack of potatoes on your back!

Okay, now is that supposed to have an e or not? I can't ever remember... too much blood rush from working out I think.

Seriously though, I used to do push-ups all the time. I did manage to gain some newbie mass, but nothing like I gained from doing bench press. Not to mention the fact that any exercise is better than no exercise. A guy at 31% BF who does push-ups, crunches, pull-ups, and eats a clean weight-loss oriented diet will possibly go the way of Herschel Walker on us.

It's a natural workout that can be successful with the proper creativity. The potato sack claim wasn't too far off the mark on how to make it actually work.

[zamboni]

I'm all for pushups, and I also agree that it's definately not the most effective way to go.

Put simply, pushups = good
Bench press = better

Keep in mind, that strength/mass gains appear most quickly for people who are just starting to train. To that end, for a beginner, literally any exercise will give you significant gains.

That's generally why ab rollers and ab slides tend to sell so well, and likewise, why they are often sold a few months later.

*edit

Ab roller = good (actually, in my opinion, they're utter crap, but still)
Crunches = better


My 2 cents

[zamboni]

And one more thing.

Most of the exercises that the armed forces do aren't meant for putting on serious muscle mass, its all conditioning. What they're training for is to balance the right amount of muscle, with a whole lot of endurance.

Let's face it, if you're carrying around 50 lbs more muscle then the next guy, and that same 50 lbs is getting you winded after a 4 miles run, you're not going to last long in a firefight.

Training for bodybuilding is about aesthetics, and to a lesser degree, arguably, health. Training for the armed forces is simply about survival, and increasing your chances of survivability. If you can't keep up, you're more likely to be a liability if anything.

[Jonesy]

Here's a piece from an article I found:

The bench press is traditionally known as a chest exercise. Some people can achieve tremendous results from the bench press - their chest blowing up like a balloon - others get no results (in chest development), whatsoever. For some people the delts and triceps do all the work - and this may be a good exercise for them to use in developing these groups. From personal experience I found the bench press of little use for chest development when I first started training. After a couple years of bench presses with little results I switched to push-up for about a year, doing 5 sets of 20 every other day. The push-ups seemed to do the trick - I finally had a chest! After the year of push-ups I went back to bench press and found I was able to handle twice the weight I had previously been able to handle. After 2 years of bench presses I had been able to bench my weight - now, after a year of push-ups, I could press my body weight 12 times. At this point bench presses became a much more effective exercise for my chest and over the next six months or so my chest probably doubled in size. This would indicate that different exercises may be more or less effective depending on the amount of current muscle development.

.....for the entire article you can click here....

http://nbaf.com/nbaf/se6pgf.htm


Once again, I'm not by any means, saying that push-ups are the best route for chest develpoment. But for people to say they have absolutely no value as far as muscular development goes is absurd. For this guy, being a beginner, and having nothing else available, I think they'll be great. I definately didn't get my bench press up as high as I did by doing push-ups! If that was the case, that's all I would do!

I posted on this thread to encourage Debujanai to get started how ever he can, not to debate the worth of a push-up. It's a great way to get started, especially if it's all you've got!

Originally Posted by zamboni

Most of the exercises that the armed forces do aren't meant for putting on serious muscle mass, its all conditioning. What they're training for is to balance the right amount of muscle, with a whole lot of endurance.

And yes, I agree with you. Exercises performed by the Armed Forces are focused on strength and endurance, not adding muscle mass. I don't believe I said they were a great mass builder!

[Ranger17]

Sounds like you guys need a good 'ol Ranger-Push up competition to settle you down.
they may not be the most effective, but I know many in the spec-ops realm that live and die by old school push up/sit up/two mile run workouts...and I would wager on them in the endurance/strength debate.
as for size, you can get some size from push ups.....however you guys have forgotten what he asked.....
Would it be ok to do push-ups until he gets a bench.
Answer-YES, doing push ups is better than doing nothing, he is attempting to make the best of his situation. Cheers to you! You can do all types of pushups to work different groups...
up and you can find all kinds of stuff you can do w/o high priced equipment!!!
Keep up the good work!
J

[Ranger17]

Originally Posted by Jonesy

If you've had any type of military training you do.

Jonesy, missed that the first time through...didn't know you were a military man
J

[Jonesy]

All I say is watch "The Best Ranger Competition", it's always the skinny guys that win!!