Pushups And Bench Press Same Day

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Push Ups And Bench Press Same Day
Push Ups And Bench Press Same Day
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Push Ups Or Bench Press

Tables of push ups strength standards for men and women. Find out how strong you are compared to other lifters at your bodyweight. Bench Press 13,354,000 lifts Squat 7,651,000 lifts Deadlift 7,724,000 lifts Shoulder Press 1,915,000 lifts Barbell Curl 916,000 lifts Front Squat 645,000 lifts Bent Over Row 605,000 lifts Incline Bench Press. Pushups will actually only put about 40–50% of your body weight on your chest, shoulders, and triceps so it is less of a heavy weight exercise equivalent. BUT, it still requires the same amount of.

This new study will definitely surprise you. Check it out.

Compared to the bench press, the push-up is often seen as a less effective alternative. After all, bench pressing is hardcore and push-ups are only for prisoners or people without gym access right?

Wrong.

People have this strange misconception that the heaviest exercises get you the most jacked but, physiologically, load is fairly irrelevant when it comes to building muscle.

External load isn't what drives muscle growth, but rather internal force production, otherwise known as mechanical tension. Load or any form of resistance – whether it's band, cables, or your own bodyweight – are merely tools to apply mechanical tension.

Don't believe me? Check out this new study.

The Study

Kotarsky et al took 23 intermediate male lifters and divided them up into a bench press group and a push-up group. (1) Both groups did three workouts a week for a month. Each workout had three working sets of about 6-8 reps, so 9 weekly sets total of horizontal pushing for both groups.

Both groups also had an objective progression model. That just means that once a performance was reached, progression was auto-regulated based on the study design.

For the bench press group, they simply added load like you would at the gym. Prove you got stronger by hitting the maximum rep range and slap on some more plates.

For the push-up group, they progressed in push-up variation. The study design had nine variations starting with the wall push-ups your sister did in elementary school all the way to one-arm push-ups.

These progression models are crucial because without them subjects are just training willy nilly instead of actually building strength and creating adaptations. Ironically, plenty of researchers don't implement them and pretty much end up wasting everyone's time.

What They Found

After four weeks, the study measured chest muscle thickness, explosive medball throw performance, and bench 1RM. Both groups also did a push-up progression test.

From a statistical standpoint, both groups made similar progress on all measures except the push-up progression test where the push-up group did significantly better. Not too surprising there.

While the bench press group had a slightly bigger 'effect size' for bench press 1RM, I was surprised that the push-up group did so well considering the law of specificity. The push-up group didn't bench for a whole month and basically got just as strong at benching. Goes to show how versatile the push-up is.

As far as muscle size goes, push-ups were just as hypertrophic as benching. But let's look closer at the data.

When looking at the average raw effect sizes, the push-up group built over three times as much muscle as the bench press group did (4% vs. 1.2%). Considering this was just a four-week study in already intermediate lifters, total muscle growth is expectedly slow indicating that the results were simply underpowered.

Had the study continued longer with more participants, the gap would've got closer, but the push-up group likely would've made statistically better gains.

But enough about statistics. The big takeaway is push-up variations (even ones without weight) are, at worst equivalent to the bench press and, at best, superior.

How Can This Be?

Remember, load/weight isn't the end-all, be-all in exercise selection. The push-up uses less absolute load, but muscle activation is equivalent to the bench press (2).

After all, the push-up is a closed-chain version with more range of motion while allowing for the shoulder blades to move freely, all of which make an exercise enticingly favorable (3). Also, the push-up is less fatiguing, so in practice it allows you to do more volume.

Oh, and it's definitely worth mentioning that push-ups are much less injurious. I mean, how many people do you know that hurt themselves doing push-ups compared to barbell benching?

What This Means For You

Remember, for push-ups to be effective, they have to be challenging, but that's not an issue for most people.

Even the most hardcore of bros can't do 4 sets of 30 strict push-ups with a consistently controlled eccentric/negative. Start there, especially if you're a push-up skeptic.

However, if you're truly a beast, you can do one or more of the following to up your push-up game.

Increase range of motion: Elevate your feet or hands on blocks.
Make them unilateral: Do archer push-ups (see video below) or one-arm push-ups.
Add load: A bumper plate or some chains on your back will go a long way.
Add gymnastic rings or a TRX: The instability will make push-ups more challenging.

Archer Push-Up

Related: The Toughest Push-Up You'll Ever Do

Related: The Push-Up That Prevents Injuries

References

KJ; Kotarsky CJ; Christensen BK; Miller JS; Hackney. 'Effect of Progressive Calisthenic Push-up Training on Muscle Strength and Thickness.' Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, U.S. National Library of Medicine.
Calatayud J;Borreani S;Colado JC;Martin F;Tella V;Andersen LL; 'Bench Press and Push-Up at Comparable Levels of Muscle Activity Results in Similar Strength Gains.' Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, U.S. National Library of Medicine.
Pozzi, Federico, et al. 'Electromyography Activation of Shoulder and Trunk Muscles Is Greater during Closed Chain Compared to Open Chain Exercises.' Journal of Electromyography and Kinesiology, Elsevier, 12 May 2019.

05/08/20

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Do Them Right, Then Make Them Tougher

Nowadays, push-ups are either mocked, considered useless, or worse, forgotten about altogether. That's a huge mistake, and one that we need to address ASAP.

Why Do Push-Ups?

They're great for the shoulders. Push-ups not only improve timing between the scapulae, shoulders and elbows, but they also work to open up the upper back. One of the reasons we have so many shoulder problems today is because we don't put a strong enough emphasis on proper push-up technique.
They're great for the core. If you want to get stupid-strong, you need to bench press. But one of the downsides to the bench press is that it's performed on your back. In a push-up, you have to unify or tie together your upper and lower body. Your core is the tie that binds, and if it's weak, unstable, or imbalanced, it's going to affect your ability to do the push-up correctly.
They can be done anywhere. There's always enough space to get a quick and dirty push-up workout in.

How Do You Do Push-Ups?

I can't tell you how many 'experienced' lifters I've worked with who have absolutely no clue how to perform a proper push-up. Seriously. No clue. Here are some areas that need focus:

1 – The Upper Body

Too many people want to think in absolutes. Either they want the elbows flared out to 90 degrees, or they tuck them in hard by the sides. Neither option is great for your shoulders.

With the elbows flared excessively, a ton of stress is placed on the shoulder joint. It's also an incredibly disadvantageous position biomechanically, so not only will it feel like crap, but you'll perform like crap, too.

On the flip side, tucking the elbows in hard to your sides isn't a great idea, either. While most do this with the intent of sparing the shoulders, what ends up happening is that this excessive tucking causes the humerus to glide forward in the glenoid fossa. In normal people talk, you start to get an 'owie' in the front of your shoulder.

Instead, find a balance. Make a 45-degree angle with your elbows, or simply 'make an arrow.' This cue works like a charm for shoulder health and performance.

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2 – The Lower Body

This part is easy. Just keep the lower body tight. Sure, you can squeeze the glutes and flex the quads, but you don't need to go full-blown high-threshold when you're doing a standard push-up. Instead, find a normal amount of tension for the task at hand. Save all those high-tension strategies for when you're doing those single-arm, blindfolded push-ups on a medicine ball.

3 – The Core

This is arguably the most important part of the body when performing a push-up. After all, tying together the upper and lower body is the reason we perform push-ups versus bench presses. Find and hold a neutral spine position throughout. If you laid a PVC pipe or broomstick on your back, you should have three points of contact:

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The back of the head
The upper back
The buttocks

If you want extra credit, make sure that you only have a slight (1 inch) space in between your lumbar spine and the stick. This will make sure your abs are optimally engaged.

Now getting into this position may be relatively easy, but the hard part is staying there when you actually do the movement. What you tend to see is a lowering of the body, followed by deepening lordosis, a caving of the upper back, and a head that droops towards the floor. Instead, lock the spine in throughout and you'll not only get a great upper body workout, but a great core workout as well.

4 – Natural Movement

Most people make push-ups unnatural and unathletic. If you're thinking about 'pulling' your shoulder blades together when you lower yourself down, stop!

When most people think about pulling the shoulder blades together, they inevitably slam them together at the beginning of the movement and run out of motion at the scapulae. At this point, they continue to lower down, and all of that movement (and stress) moves to the shoulders.

To remedy this, think about making the movement athletic again. Don't think about pulling the shoulder blades together. Simply think about moving the scaps, shoulders, and elbows at the same time.

But if you're really patterned to first pull the shoulder blades together, you may need to think about the opposite: bending the elbows first. It sounds counterintuitive, but thinking about bending the elbows first will typically clean up the movement in a matter of reps.

5 – Reaching

The second critical element of a great push-up is to focus on reaching at the start and the finish. Many athletes are locked into a poor position through their upper back and thorax:

The thorax is pushed forward, which doesn't give the scapulae a place to rest.
The scaps are looking for stability, so muscles such as the rhomboids become overactive and 'pin' the shoulder blades back and down.

Push-ups are a great tool to help remedy this, but only when done correctly. You may have seen that bro on Instagram cranking out sets of 50, 75, or 100 push-ups, but you'll note that he never actually finishes a rep. Sorry, but that's making things worse.

Instead, think about finishing each rep. Keep the chest out while simultaneously reaching long through the arms, or thinking about pushing the body away from the floor.

When done correctly, it should feel like you're stretching the area in between your shoulder blades at the start and finish of each rep.

How Do I Make Push-Ups Harder?

It's funny when someone says, 'Push-ups are easy! Can't we find a way to make them harder?' Then when you actually watch them do some push-ups, their hips are dragging the floor, their shoulders are all over the place, and their neck is protruding like an 80-year-old with osteoporosis.

Push-ups aren't the sexiest exercise, but first learn to do them correctly before seeking new challenges. Once you do that, there are three routes you can typically take to make them harder:

1 – Strength-Focused Progressions

Use these if you want to go full-blown meathead and just get super strong. These include anything that increases the external resistance:

Bands
Chains
Weighted vests
Plates loaded on your back

2 – Stability-Focused Progressions

These are great options if you want to bulletproof your body and make sure things are in balance. It's not uncommon to see super strong guys who have shoulder or lower-back problems, so doing stability-focused progressions can clean up those weak areas and fix them up for the long haul.

Stability-focused progressions would include any exercise where there are elements of instability involved: unstable surface push-ups (TRX, Blast Straps, Jungle Gym, gymnastic rings, etc.) and push-ups with the hands on medicine balls.

3 – Rotation-Focused Progressions

Strong and explosive athletes have a tendency to get locked in the sagittal plane (driven into extension). If this becomes excessive, they lose access to their frontal and transverse planes, which can cause injuries up and down the kinetic chain.