[quote]LoRez wrote:
[quote]Jarvan wrote:
We are all ignorant of something. It’s when we decide to stay ignorant is when it becomes an unfavorable connotation. And to claim that hypertrophy is not possible beyond 30 push ups, with your limited experience, is choosing to stay in the shadow.
If you haven’t yet strived for 50 or 100 push ups in a set, you have no place to say that there’s a point of ‘diminishing returns’. Wouldn’t you agree?
[/quote]
I would, and do agree.
I, personally, have found minimal benefit between doing sets of 30 and sets of 40 or 50. There was a benefit in going from sets of 10 to sets of 20. There was a bit more benefit increasing that number. 30 is about where things had clearly dropped off.
This was the point of diminishing returns for me. Others I’ve talked to have had similar experiences. Nobody I’ve talked to has had contrary experiences.
If I hadn’t had the personal experience, I wouldn’t be speaking from a point of personal experience.
What increase in size have you, personally, found by going from 30 a set to 50 a set? What proof, anecdotal or otherwise, do you have to demonstrate that?
There are already several, in this thread, who have mentioned (or have done, but haven’t explicitly mentioned) doing high volumes of pushups on a regular basis, but none of those people are saying they achieved significant size gains from it.
I realize this isn’t purely an either or situation, but at some point the benefits of any exercise taper off. In my experience, that number, for pushups, seems to be around 30.
Where do you see it?
Obviously there are one armed pushups, diamond pushups, uneven pushups, planche pushups, other ways to increase the resistance, as well as using them as finishing work in the context of other lifting… but that’s not what I’m talking about.[/quote]
Well, take a look at my candid picture my girlfriend took of me yesterday. You can’t deny these kinds of results.
But yea, why wouldn’t you include those push up variations? Aren’t they still push ups? And to be frank, you are still fresh in the game and 50 GOOD push ups in a row is no easy task. Are you sure you can do that? Or are you speaking hypothetically? Because I have a ton of clients and friends that can bench respectable numbers and they can’t perform 50 reps.
As for anecdotal evidence, I know I’ll catch flak for this, but just take a look at the barstar athletes’ physiques. Calisthenics is beautiful because it’s simply movements our inherent biomechanics are derived from. And my philosophy is that 2.4 million years of evolution didn’t fuck up. If you can climb and pick up shit efficiently, you will work all of your muscles… and it’s also a reason why I personally believe sprinting adds muscle and jacks up test, but I digress.
With that said, our bodies don’t necessarily want to be grotesquely enormous. It’s too big of an upkeep and being deprived of food from a possible famine (primal, hypothetically speaking) would mean death. I think anyone would agree Jay Cutler wouldn’t fair too well in the midst of nature. But with yeeeears of reassurance of consistent, potent, high quality food (and shakes and supps), the body being a slave to our demands… will grow to ones liking.
But also because of the aforementioned, calisthenics does pose a limitation when it comes to growth AND strength. But the majority of us aren’t nearly at the point where calisthenics would give a ‘diminishing return’ as you said.
If you are a push up master, go for one arm push ups. But of course, why would we only divulge in calisthenics when we can use iron? The answer is simple for me. A solid foundation. Regardless of your goals, you need a firm fundamental foundation of how your body works.
BIG ASS TANGENT
For example, I despise (heavy) incline presses. Being a fitness professional for over 10 years has built this disdain for incline pressing like none other. Not only do I see it as futile, but the risk outweighs the benefits. I’m sure most of us has a life outside the forum. So next time you speak to a lifter with a shoulder problem, ask how it happened. If it wasn’t from a broken clavicle from football, it’s most likely from incline pressing (sometimes OHP or flat benching).
Bret Contreras put out an article a few years back noting the amount of stimulation certain exercises had on specific muscles. I read it and of course my favorite dips had the greatest overall chest stimulation. But then I quickly searched the incline press and it showed very poor upper chest stimulation. The incline press actually showed more mid chest stim than the regular flat bench!
What I’m getting at is that you can stimulate the upper pecs by simply modifying the dips.
Nerding out***
Your chest, outside of being the main agonist for a transverse press, is also a pronator. Fact is our muscles are at its greatest contraction when it is stretched. So simply supinating your arm will expose/stretch your pecs, namely the upper portion. Perform your dips on an angled bar, with your hands slightly supined, and you’ll be attacking the upper pecs efficiently… Granted, you have the mobility to go far beyond parallel.
END TANGENT
But yea, push ups and fundamentals.
Because we see the biggest men on the planet use heavy iron we are undoubtedly compelled to do the same. And by all means, the iron has taught and still teaching me valuable lessons. However, it doesn’t mean that I will shun my push ups in place of bench pressing.
For beginners I think it would be more wise to conquer the push ups/dips before thinking about going super heavy on benching, even if it’s for size. Whereas the majority solely focuses on size, I try to incorporate ‘building armor’ prior to… in order to reduce injury and offer a better proclivity for the trainee to add muscle on top.
To conclude this fiasco, I want to stress that 500 shitty push ups won’t do jack shit for size, strength or anything. If you’re not getting results from push ups, it’s because they are absolute shit, or you aren’t trained enough to create enough tension via MMC.
You can get an actual picture of myself from last year in my profile. I don’t personally train for size, but my tits aren’t that bad
