maxing out at 30-35 pushups... real pushups. whats the deal??

Do them more often. max out on pushups a few times a day. Once right when you wake up, before and after running, after showering, before leaving the house, before/after watching TV, basically whenever you have a free minute or so. I did this a few years ago and I found it really helped me get better at push ups. Same thing for pull ups, I max on them multiple times a day, whenever I enter my room where the bar is.

Suggestion 1:

4-6-8 pushups in each of these positions - continuously

1. normal - hands at about nipple height, at bottom position forearm is vertical

2. narrow - elbows touching the ribs on the way down

3. fists - like normal but on your fists

4. diamond eyes - this may be the hardest one, fingers and thumbs of each hand touching and making a diamond, at bottom position your eyes are looking through this diamond

5. decline - do them off a bench or box hands on the bench or box

6. incline - again off the bench of box except feet are on the box

report back if you try and find it helpful :)

Do more pushups.

Go until you reach about 90%, then stop and rest in an altered front leaning rest position by either arching or sagging your back. Crank out some more then again stop and rest in an altered front leaning rest position. Continue for 2 minutes. Rest 2 minutes. Repeat 5 times.

Try doing numbered sets: 10 sets of 20, etc.

Try just staying in the front leaning rest position for a few minutes.

Try altered hand positions:

-hands close, arms graze your ribs with each rep: more triceps

-hands wide, position up toward shoulder level: more chest/shoulders

I find that if I place my hands about midway out and down level with just below the nipple line (upper arms angled down about 45 degrees) I am able to do more pushups. You'll notice if you bench this way you'll be stronger on the bench as well. So during the pushup you're not so much coming down to your chest so much as you are coming down to your sternum. Also angle your palms out a bit as well.

Alan

When you hit a plateau switch to reps e.g. 12-14-13-10 with 30-60 secs recovery between sets.

There's a great free Android app I use called "Push Ups" by RITTR labs.

I started 3 months ago with 3 x 9 and 60 secs recovery.

Currently I'm at 10 x 12-18 (155 total) with 75 secs recovery.

My goal is to do 125 continuous push-ups.

I'm 51 by the way.

I like doing 20 15 10 5. Easy way to get in 50 reps.

Try to push as hard as you can and break your limit. But for me I was stuck at 60 pushups for a LONG TIME. But I kept being consistent and eventually got to 100 pushups in a row.

Trust me pushups are pretty much mental. Even when your hands are frittering it still is.

Work on 3 x 25 with a 60 second rest.

Right-angle full-extension pushups are smarter than chest-to-floor. They're closer to how your body actually works, besides which, they're more or less equivalent for everyone, whereas floor contact pushups depend on your body morphology.

It's also smarter to do them at a faster pace, as opposed to every 3 seconds or something like you're on the bench press.

Breaking through a pushup plateau is just a matter of patience and consistency. Eventually the muscle and bone development will happen, it just takes time. Sooner or later you'll find a set of pushups is more like a track interval, limited by your aerobic capacity and lactate clearance rather than strength.

Set a reasonable goal like 50, when you reach that, aim for 60. When you reach 70, you'll be at the point where it gets more like sprinting than weightlifting.

Ask Paul Ryan if you can work out with him.

Too many overly-complicated training ideas. The poster who stated to do max sets throughout the day on a daily basis, really broke it down simply for you. You don't need fancy or complicated rep schemes or timed intervals. I'll admit that spicing it up with pyramids, ladders, whatever you want to call them has a lot of benefit as well as helping build a lot of volume, but just do a lot of them, and do them 5-6 days per week. Think you'll overtrain? Not if built up property, in fact you will probably actually get less sore over time. It is the same reasoning some Russian powerlifting systems call for multiple bench press sessions per week. The same thing with the Westside Barbell Club guys. In addition to their scheduled Max Effort and Dynamic Effort days you will find many extra workouts throughout the week in the form of high-rep dumbell presses, weighted pushups, suspended ring pushups,or just pushups. Aside from their Max Effort day, the majority of their training is done aroung 60% intensity. Just like running, even they recognize that intensity backed up in the form of more easy volume raises work capacity, facilitates recovery, etc.....just like...running. If near daily training can be done with a program that also incorporates very heavy weights, it can be done with just bodyweight pushups and pullups. Decades of military trainees can tell you that it works too. And, you don't even have to go to complete all-out failure every set. Just rotate your grip or hand-spacing and build up the volume. Just ease into it and add 1 set to the days in which you normally didn't do any pushups or pullups. Then add in a second. Again, just like running, gradually build the volume. Search for Pavel's "Grease the Groove" article for a start, it will explain some of the reasoning as well.

get on the juice. it's scientifically proven, you WILL get stronger and add reps to your pushup max.

sure thing wrote:

Suggestion 1:

4-6-8 pushups in each of these positions - continuously

1. normal - hands at about nipple height, at bottom position forearm is vertical

2. narrow - elbows touching the ribs on the way down

3. fists - like normal but on your fists

4. diamond eyes - this may be the hardest one, fingers and thumbs of each hand touching and making a diamond, at bottom position your eyes are looking through this diamond

5. decline - do them off a bench or box hands on the bench or box

6. incline - again off the bench of box except feet are on the box

report back if you try and find it helpful :)

Good suggestions here. I especially like adding in diamond type pushups to help strengthen the triceps.

One other that I learned in a class that seems to help a lot are 'offset' push ups. I made up that name as I'm not sure what they are called. We would use the steps from the step aerobic classes and do pushups with one hand on the step and one on the floor. This way one hand is about 4 inches higher than the other. With each pushup you alternate your hands by pivoting your body so the other hand is on the step. You can almost any box or whatever that is about 4 inches tall and sturdy.

I've seen guys do this same type push up with a medicine ball also. Those are harder but can also be worked into your routine. Try them with one ball and work your way up to 2 balls (both hands on a ball).

When I was in the Army, I got sick and tired of reps..reps..reps.. of pushups. What I ended up doing was this. I noticed that the smokers would take a break at the top of each hour during the workday. I figured that if they were allowed that, then I could take a break and do something. So, on Monday/Wednesday/Friday when the smokers would take their 10-minute breaks, I would go down to the weight room and put on 30% of my max of the bench press. I would do 4 sets of 25 with 1-minute rest between. The most pushups I did on the APFT was 97 when I was 39 yrs old.

Try doing some handstand pushups. Once you master these, regular pushups will be a breeze. I'm up to now regularly performing 55-60 of these in one session. You can start off by putting your feet on top of a a waist high wall then progress to a vertical wall. I haven't done any free standing ones yet because I'm not particularly good at balancing myself in a hand stand. That's my next goal.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAkh_b0hmPo&feature=player_embedded

Wiki... "Handstand pushups increase the load on the triceps brachii muscles significantly over regular pushups, with the arms having to hold almost 100% of the body's weight rather than an average of 60% during normal pushups. Load is also shifted from the Pectoralis major muscle to the Anterior deltoids and Lateral deltoids due to the shoulders exerting in adduction while externally rotated, rather than transverse flexion. The upper fibres of the trapezius are also involved in elevating the shoulders"

Crossfit will you push through your plateau. And will prepare you for everything else, too. You know, the unexpected stuff.

- Slow pushups, 10sec->30sec

- Shift most weight to 1 hand

- Shift most weight to 1 leg

- 2-hands 1-leg (other leg in the air)

- 1-hand 1-leg diagonal (L-hand R-leg, R-hand L-leg)

Don't do them every day. Allow regeneration.

Improved from 25 to 108 in 2 minutes. Took a few months.

i agree with the poster who said to follow Pavel

Try other chest exercises as well such as flies, assisted dips, incline presses etc.