Pressups only workout...
 

Is it possible to gain some good extra muscle by doing 3 reps of 20 pressups daily, along side a protein rich diet? I read that pressups work almost all the muscles in your torso, so I thought maybe pressups are a whole upper body workout all in one. Or are weights a necessity? I'm not really interested in my lower body strength.

Cheers!

Maybe if you raise your feet on a higher surface to make the exercise harder. To gain muscle, the weight has to be enough so that you can't do that many reps. You don't even want to be able to do 3 full sets of 10, really.

I'd also throw in some pulling exercises, too.

Pressups will build muscle, but only for a short time. You'll have to lift weights to build more muscle.

Are these push ups? Yeah, these will really build your strength and give you definite tone and some mass if your body decides you need it. Be sure to vary your push ups though. By changing the push up youll change what parts of your chest and arms you work out. Different varriations are 'Diamonds' (where your hands are close to each other) and 'Dive Bombs' (your hands are quite far apart) and there are a few others too. I think pushups are a really good workout for general strength. You can get a good session without weights by just using your own body weight- just look at gymnists. You might want to think about tricep dips (like a push up but on your back) and doing push up routine between two chairs (hard to explain without diagram), and chin-ups. Weights would be really good imo if you are just looking for bulk.

Yeah, I've got no weights and also have to rely on pressups, assuming they're the same as pushups. I've been doing them for a while, and have seen little improvement, but that is probably just my diet. Although I have also seemed to gain some neccessary weight, which is pretty good.

the benefits from a workout consisting of just pushups will be increased muscle tone and endurance... but limited returns on muscle mass.

Push ups do allow muscle gains, but there are a number of other things in a push up that you need to do for muscle gain. For maximum strain on the muscle, you really need to flex that muscle throughout the movement. ie. focusing really hard on sqeezing your pecs especially during extension. The ease in muscle gain varies between people and it will be much easier if you have a naturally high testosterone levels. But yeah just as the others have posted, you need to vary your push up types and angles. incline for lower pecs, normal for general and decline for upper pecs. Just from looking at people who go to the gym, they tend to lose what they've gained a lot faster than if you use your own body weight. Hope that helps.

variation in push ups wil give you maxima benifits if that is your only option. Feet up, incline, decline, wide, narrow, diamond, etc. invest in a good medicine ball

its called a compound exercise...when you use multiple muscle groups to perform the lift.

now you will not gain any significant muscle. at first you will notice a change in your body since you are now burning more calories then before and you are using your muscles more then previously. you will reach a plateau very quick.

who would be bigger? the guy that can do 300 pushups or the guy that can bench 300lbs 1 time? there is no way around gaining muscle mass....low reps high weight. of course your diet must be in order.

Try doing a variety of pushups. Example: wide pushups (hands are 8-10 wider on each side), close grip (hands are almost touching under your chest), close and back positions (hands are along your body, but further back close to your waist becareful of wrist pain!!). You can elevate your feet, you can also buy a pair of push up bars (about $10 for a pair) that will greatly increase the range of motion. If you can't get push up bars, use a few books on each side. If you have a soccer ball, do a push up with the ball under one palm then switch sides. So many variations, so little time. Try changing them up to keep it fun. It is good if you do a set of regular, then wide, then close, then the soccer ball trick then elevate your feet.

To get maximum results you should work your entire body. One of the biggest mistakes people make is trying to "spot train". Your body can get out of alignment and cause certain muscles to pull in directions they are not meant to pull, because the opposing muscle are too weak to pull back.

Good luck, dont forget your lower body.

It can't hurt.

If you do it right...
 

There are so many different variations on the push-up, that if you do it smart you can actually see great gains. Simply doing 100-200 regular push-ups isn't going to do much though.

It depends on your base level and what you are trying to accomplish. If you are just trying to get some exercise into your routine and just use it to move around now and again, you'll be fine. Adding a little variety into the mix like inclining your feet, and changing hand position will keep working different parts of your arms. Another good variation is the "hindu push-up". Do a Google search until you find a photo (should be easy to find). That variation really kicks your butt the first few weeks. Doing this will give you small gains in mass, and great gains in endurance. The fewer the reps you can do, the more mass you'll gain - the more reps, the more endurance.

Once you get used that that routine, you'll eventually hit a wall if you are training for mass. Well, then you start adding harder variations. One handed push-ups, inclined one handed push-ups, hand stand push-ups, etc. As long as you can only do 3-5 reps per set, you're building mass.

Once you can do one handed hand stand push-ups though, you'd better buy some weights :rolleyes:

Obviously, the benifits will be weighed against what you want. If you want to be a world-class weightlifter, you need to lift weights. Modified push-ups and other calithenics are used by professional fighters who need both strenghth and endurance. In my opinion, the difference in ability is only slight, and a fighters training tends to be a little more healthy. Not to mention cheaper.

Thanks guys,I'm really grateful ful for all the advice. Even though i didn't start this thread,I've always wanted specific info like this.
I'll deinately work this into my routine!!!

completely forgot about this thread... cheers for the info!

thank you , very nice info ! im currently onlu able to do 3 sets of 10 pushups , im trying to do 40 in a single set , because according to mens health magazine , 40 is the minimum reps for strong upper body.