So I read somewhere ( or least I think I did, don’t kill me) that Dave Tate said you shouldn’t touch a barbell to bench until you can do 100 push ups. I probably can’t do 30 good consecutive push ups and my 1rm max on the bench is about 135. My shoulder press is shitastic too I could probably do 90 for 1 rep.
My Navy PRT is coming up too so I need to start training push ups anyway. Do you guys think this is worth giving a try, forgoing the BP for a while and doing push ups?
Instead of doing push ups instead of bench, you can just use push ups and its variations as a supportive excercise.
Example:
Bench day:
Bench: what ever set and rep scheme you are on.
Push ups: 3-5 sets x max reps.
A lat excercise.
A upperback excercise.
Some arm pumping in the end as a finnish.
I was able to do 100 consecutive pushups before I touched a bench press of any kind but I could barely do 95 for 8 reps
I also weighed 150 lbs so I think you should just bench press
But if your going into PT focus on the push ups more by far
First priority should be passing that test
Once you can just switch back to the bench Press First and pick one day out of the week to maintain the push ups
I can’t remember the progression schedule but I worked up to 300 pushups a day, every other day. Not all in one set, but I could do 100 in one set if I wanted. It’s a very different type of training than bench press will ever give you.
I’d probably start with a set of 20; do that twice a day, and add 5 pushups to each set until you hit 100+.
You can do diffrent types of pushups to make them harder especially elevating feet.
To do a pushup slowly with a slow eccentric and a controlled ascent is difficult. There won’t be many people doing a hundred or even 50 of them.
Do them extremely striclty and you will get some carry over because you are putting your lats and chest under a lot of tension for a long time. That doesn’t mean you can’t do the fast types of pushups too.
Maybe train for handstands /handstand pushup against a door atthe same time . But be careful I fell on my elbow doing those and I still have an issue with my elbow today. It took about 6 months to heal then.
Your PRT test comes first of course, but will push ups help your bench? No. If you had a solid bench push ups would be nothing.
A program I did well with for max rep push ups:
200 push ups/day - 10 days
Even Days - As few sets as possible (don’t go to true failure).
Odd Days - Smaller sets split up however you like.
Change hand placement, width etc for some variety. Program by Stew Smith. Won’t improve your bench, will very likely improve your PT score. I would allow at least a 3 day break between finishing this and doing your PRT.
I would suggest that you do an equal number of stretch band pull-aparts and some YTWL shoulder circuits, mobility and self massage stuff to offset all that pushing. I got pretty sore by the end, but you might not.
At my bodyweight of 200, I don’t think I could do 100 strict pushups and I can bench 340. So… Just some more info for ya.
I’d like to throw in 3 sets of push ups til near failure twice a week but I’m worried the extra volume will affect my ability to recover from workout to workout. I’m going to start trying it out to see how it works, I’d prefer not to cheat on this 
[quote]radagasdcar wrote:
I’d like to throw in 3 sets of push ups til near failure twice a week but I’m worried the extra volume will affect my ability to recover from workout to workout. I’m going to start trying it out to see how it works, I’d prefer not to cheat on this :p[/quote]
I seriously doubt it will affect your ability to recover at all.
Pushups are more about strength endurance, and a ‘to failure’ set doesn’t really affect genuine strength levels (or even strength endurance levels) when you’ve recovered from it.
Don’t go to failure, keep one rep in the tank. Do a push up specific routine such as Pavel’s ladders or the NASA push up program until your prt and after that get on with some heavy benching like 5x5 .
So I think I’ll start doing push ups twice a week using the Pavel ladder method and go from there. Thanks guys.