Seems to be catching on this. Will have a crack.
Seems to be catching on this. Will have a crack.
Did the test. 60 push ups and 58 sit ups. Presumably I'm supposed to be able to do more sit ups than push ups? Wouldn't surprise me if I had a weak core as will explain why i'm forever carrying niggles. Mind you I did the sit ups pretty much straight after the push ups which might have had an impact...
So far: 10,13,17,21,25,26,-(forgot to do any!),30. So the number I can do has tripled in a week - if only leg strength improved so quickly; I guess it would if I was truly starting from zero.
Originally Posted by Mike T
So far: 10,13,17,21,25,26,-(forgot to do any!),30; and it continues: 30,33,29,33,35. They are hard work - presumably I cannot do any more as my muscles have become too acidic to go on. In a gym of course I would be doing bench presses and would have increased the weight to keep the number of lifts to under 10.
I probably don't have the physiology quite correct here but the thing is Mike its all well and good developing or aspiring to develop a huge upper body physic by doing all of these pressups, but think of all the O2 that is needed to keep it fired up. As an ex Climber with over developed upper half and a puny set of legs (arms like legs) I'd much rather now when running have my blood supply go mainly to my legs than be diverted to my arms!
Hi Simon
This all started when I was reading some coaching material and it mentioned doing push ups in lots of 10, and it occurred to me that I might have trouble with this. Sure enough 10 was my absolute maximum, so I thought I would do a simple experiment and see what happened, with the above results.
I am not trying to change my upper body appearance/size, but it would be nice to be able to do what I ask others to do when coaching, and occasionally when scrambling some upper body strength is called for. As for blood being diverted away from my legs, it is my understanding that the shoulder and arm muscles have a relatively trivial blood flow through them when running, and that the actual volume of flow is unlikely to be altered much by increasing the number of push ups I can do, all other things being equal.
As to your legs being puny it does not seemed to have held you back in any way!
.... and continuing on - after the 29,33,35 above it went: 35,38,0,0,0,39,37,37,40. The 0's were a weekend away when I did not feel up to doing them.
It may be that leg strength could be improved considerably by a similar regimen - but it would be hard to measure without using weights.
Free standing hindu squats, Mike - same regime as the 100 press ups type of programme. I used to do up to 500 in my very, very fit days. Can get up to about 200 now (not right now) before getting distracted
I doubt my knees would cope with many of those!
Very good for the knees and they build great power. In fact I should start doing them again but 2 days before Langdale a bit too late to start methinks.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote