In partnership with
Increasing Your Numbers
1. Max out. If you want to increase the number of reps you can do for any exercise, it's a good idea to figure out how many reps you can do at once, period. So, drop and do as many push-ups as you can. When you drop down and can't push yourself back all the way up, that's your max.
2. Do progressive sets of push-ups each day. If you're using your own body weight for resistance, it's still good to break up a workout into sets, allowing yourself brief rests between them to recover. This allows the muscles the opportunity to grow more effectively than blasting through a single high-rep set, which is more stressful on your muscles and joints. There are a few different ways of arranging a push-up workout into sets:
You can increase the number of reps per set that you do, adding reps slowly. Start doing three sets, with a third of your max number of reps in each set, before slowly adding reps to each set, bringing up your total number for the day.
You can increase the number of sets that you do of your max. Do the maximum number of push-ups that you can do each day in a single set, then let yourself recover for several minutes, then do another set later. Slowly add the number of sets that you can do at once, then start slowly adding reps to your max.
3. Try breaking your max into three sets. If you maxed out at 15 push-ups, do three sets of five push-ups, with a short ten-second break in between each set. Do that for a few days, then add an extra push-up or two to each set the next time you try. Stay there for a few days, then do the same thing again.
Eventually, you'll be up to 15 x 3 sets, and you can start progressively adding a rep or two to each set. Alternatively, you could switch to doing fewer sets of more reps per set.
4. Try doing three sets of your max each day. If you'd prefer, start doing your max set, but with longer breaks in between. Using this method, you'll add reps more slowly, but your total per workout will increase very quickly, and you'll get stronger.
Alternate 3 x Max push-up workouts with more sets of fewer reps. If you start at 15 reps, try doing three sets of 15 and see how it goes. If it's too tough, try doing 5 sets of 10 and see how you feel.
And before we continue, let’s take a commercial break.
1440 Daily Digest is a free daily email and media product by the US company 1440, created for people who want to learn quickly and objectively about the most important events and trends in the world.
Every headline satisfies an opinion. Except ours.
Remember when the news was about what happened, not how to feel about it? 1440's Daily Digest is bringing that back. Every morning, they sift through 100+ sources to deliver a concise, unbiased briefing — no pundits, no paywalls, no politics. Just the facts, all in five minutes. For free.
… back to the articleу 👇🏻
5. Progressively add more push-ups to each set. However you choose to organize your workouts, start tinkering with your numbers to alternate between progressively larger sets and more sets. Switch back and forth between the two to keep your workouts as dynamic as possible.
Move at your own pace. Whether you want to increase your sets or increase your reps, there's no single way to start doing more push-ups. Either way, you've got to be consistent and do a number of push-ups that feel comfortable for you.
To be on the safe side, you shouldn't be adding more than a rep every 2-3 days. You need to allow your muscles to get stronger and not overwhelm yourself.
6. Try timed push-ups. There are two basic ways in which you can make a task harder for yourself: increasing the amount of work you have to do or decreasing the timeframe in which to do the work. If you've got a good fundamental push-up motion down, see how many you can do within a set period of time, like a single minute, and write down the data along with the date, into some form of journal or notepad to track your progress.
It's important to make sure that you maintain proper push-up form if you're going to try timed workouts with your push-ups.
7. Try to max out once a month. However, you choose to add reps, pause periodically, and see how many you can do in a single set, without stopping. You should notice results pretty quickly; however, you're choosing to structure your sets.
Even if you started at a particular goal, like being able to do 50 push-ups, say, it's important to keep your workouts shaking up, doing different types of sets and different workouts on a regular basis. It's easy to plateau if you get repetitive.
8. Be consistent. If you do push-ups only every now and then, you'll notice a drastic drop in the number that you're able to do. If you do 50 push-ups one day, then stop working out for a week to celebrate, you won't be able to do that many the next time. All exercise rewards consistency.
It's much more efficient to do fewer push-ups more regularly than to try to do a whole bunch all at once, but irregularly. If you want to do more push-ups, you need to do push-ups at least 5 days a week.
See you in the next article.
Artemus Vazhui