Gettin ready to test for ROTC in the fall and I’d like to kick some ass to better my chances of a scholarship and just to show them from square 1 that I mean business.
I don’t want to completely ditch my bodybuilding for the sake of improving on the body weight exercises they test for, so I’m tryin to raise my push up max while still lifting like a bodybuilder.
I’ve tried things like weight vest push ups, dips, close grip push ups, and medicine ball push ups but they don’t seem to be helping. I think my problem has more to do with muscular endurance than strength, cause I can bench around 240-250 but push ups start gettin tough around rep 25.
anyways advice would be appreciated, esp from any active duty servicemen who face similar challenges
Yep, you won’t raise strength via greater 1repmax on the bench in a meaningful time frame for you to affect your pushup performance positively.
You want to intelligently raise pushup volume. Don’t go to failure, (I’d say do sets ranging from 40% to 70% of your capability) do pushup workouts every other day/ like 3 times per week. Start with about 6 sets and slowly crank up the reps through the weeks, adding occasionally a set, too. If you’ll arrive at 12+ sets, you might try to do them into seperate sessions throughout the day.
It’s hard to couple this with “real” [upper body] weight training.
Also: find out where your weakest portion of the rep range lies and focus the majority of your attention there. It’s usually the very bottom or the middle portion.
[quote]Schwarzfahrer wrote:
Yep, you won’t raise strength via greater 1repmax on the bench in a meaningful time frame for you to affect your pushup performance positively.
You want to intelligently raise pushup volume. Don’t go to failure, (I’d say do sets ranging from 40% to 70% of your capability) do pushup workouts every other day/ like 3 times per week. Start with about 6 sets and slowly crank up the reps through the weeks, adding occasionally a set, too. If you’ll arrive at 12+ sets, you might try to do them into seperate sessions throughout the day.
It’s hard to couple this with “real” [upper body] weight training.
Also: find out where your weakest portion of the rep range lies and focus the majority of your attention there. It’s usually the very bottom or the middle portion.
[/quote]
for the weakest portion bit… i considered doing partial push ups onto a platform so that it functions in the same way as benching with a board; have you tried anything similar to this?
The fastest method to increase the number of pushups you can do is Grease the Groove, google it if you want. In a nutshell, do about 40-60% of your max pushup reps 3-4 times a day. Works like a charm in chin ups and pull ups.
What worked best for me upping my pushup max was to just do them every day. If you can do 25, do 15 every day. Add 5 or even 10 every week. This will start getting tough after a few weeks, so you might want to just stay at a certain rep number for 2 or 3 weeks. After about 3 month of this “routine”, I was up to 60 pushups every day, sometimes 2 sets of 60, and could do 80-100 very easily.
Endurance is not like weight training for size or strength. You can run every day as long as you aren’t sprinting full out, and you can do pushups every day and make good progress if you don’t go to failure every time.
If you have difficulties with pushups at rep 25 with a 250 bench then you definitely have some major issues with muscle endurance.
I’ve always found that when I can do 3-4x20 on dips I can max my test regardless of if I’m even doing push-ups on my own. There’s good tips in here that will help you, Grease the Groove especially.
If you have any ROTC questions feel free to PM me, just got done with LDAC this summer.
[quote]PB Andy wrote:
Iron, no one hung them self this time around I hope?[/quote]
Fortunately no but we did have to carry our ACE cards 24/7 and we had a couple suicide prevention classes. Overkill maybe but that kid was in a bad situation- I’m surprised his PMS even sent him.
Back in the police academy, pushups are mandated every couple of hours (depending on how many time you do something wrong). Pushups are more stamina than pure strength. One recruit who could do more pushups than me could only max bench at 185lbs, while I was maxing at 265lbs. Similiar to what you stated.
With that being said, add some cardio into your routine. Mix that with adding more sets. Good luck.
Use a grease the groove approach. Something simple is to bang out a set while watching TV every commercial break/top of the inning/change of possession (football) every night. Or every 1/2 hour take a study break and grab a set. In a couple hours with sets of 25, you can easily hit 200+ reps. When you start off, find a # of reps per set (10 or 15) that are comfortable to do, then add 5 reps per week until you hit 25 reps.
If you have another tested exercise (i.e. sit-ups) you can do that in addition during the same break or ever other break or alternate exercises everyday.
By doing many sets of 25 throughout the day 5 days a week for weeks on end, police recruits tend to bang out 75-120 reps during their 2 minute test. This is regardless of their initial physical conditioning. Yes, pre academy athletes were at the top of the range and pre academy slugs tend to be at the bottom.
Something from Pavel Tsatsouline sounds like in order.
My philosophy is to cowboy up and just do it. Wherever you give out when using your test technique is where you should hit the hardest.
Do you have a hard time with repetition dips and pull ups as well? How about divebombers? What is your bodyfat percentage? How much do you weigh? How do you perform on your running test? How often do you have to PT with your ROTC group?
i’ve been thinking about the APFT a lot lately (mainly because i’ve been struggling with my run), but the key to the APFT is pace. if you wanna max the pushups, you need to develop the endurance to do that many pushups (75-80), along with the speed to do them fast enough.
i think a lot of people train their pushups too slow in their workouts (and don’t use enough range of motion), and come test time, burn out when they actually do them fast and explosively.
i’d suggest doing timed sets…start at 15 sec, slowly build up in time. you could also do another workout based around a more normal pace, and higher repetitions during the week.
Quick Q, this is kinda common sense but theory and reality aren’t always the same.
If gaining muscle/weight while maintaining the same bf% one should be able to do more push ups if gained in the right spots (i.e. shoulders, tri’s, and chest) in proportion to the rest of the body right?
reason is ive been doing some heavy lifting lately, gained some weight the past couple months but my pushups seem to be getting harder…hmmmmmmmmmm… more cardio? no just more pushups eh?
This is what worked best for me. Max out 3x daily adding one rep PER DAY. If you fail to ad a rep on a particular day rest yourself on the floor for 1o seconds and then complete a quarter of your max set.
[quote]cycobushmaster wrote:
i’ve been thinking about the APFT a lot lately (mainly because i’ve been struggling with my run), but the key to the APFT is pace. if you wanna max the pushups, you need to develop the endurance to do that many pushups (75-80), along with the speed to do them fast enough.
i think a lot of people train their pushups too slow in their workouts (and don’t use enough range of motion), and come test time, burn out when they actually do them fast and explosively.
i’d suggest doing timed sets…start at 15 sec, slowly build up in time. you could also do another workout based around a more normal pace, and higher repetitions during the week.
and back off the bodybuilder routine.
my .02[/quote]
You should use both approaches Grease the groove and training specifically for the 2 min test. If you want to score a 300 then it helps too train for that. Train your push ups before you hit your chest or shoulders then do your BB workout. Break up the 2 mins into an average of 25 pushups every 30 secs and train to that standard. Tabatta works great too.