Help me increase my push ups

[jimbobsimmonds]

Can you see the theme I am following here

Anyhow, got my fitness assessment with the TA in 3 weeks time. Now with regards to entering training I am doing fine but would rather enter training at the fitness level they want me to leave training; so hopefully life will be easy when I am there...

Basically I need to be able to do 44 push ups in 2 minutes. Which means realistically I want to be able to do 44 push-ups in one go. At the moment I can do 30...

What can I do to get this up? My current routing is gum 4 times a week, chest/tris/shoulder thursday and sunday with back, biceps, core, legs tuesday and Saturday. Ride to work 4 days a week and run a couple of miles 2 or 3 times a week....

[didelydoo]

Best thing is probably do more push ups, you'll get better fairly quick.

[Stevenj214]

Do you actually do any pushups as part of your training?

www.hundredpushups.com

[shouldbworking]

What he said.

In the run up to your assessment I would suggest forgoing the (actually useful) all over workout and focus on the box ticking exercise of the fitness assessment. 3 weeks is a relatively short period of time, but heres what I would suggest

First, find out the max push ups + sit ups you can do in one go (so 30 in this case) - not just 'gosh I'm tired' territory but properly unable to.

2 nights a week (any more will probably not leave your muscles sufficient time to recover) do

1/2 max (ie first week is 15)
60 - 90 seconds rest
1/2 max + 5
60 - 90 seconds rest
1/2 max

repeat for the sit ups.

repeat for wide arm push ups.

each week try to add 5 to the counts ie next week the set would be
20, 25, 20

[jimbobsimmonds]

How about the above suggestion before bed on the tuesday and sunday....

Had to work today so did no exercise. Will see how many i can do...

[shouldbworking]

jimbobsimmonds said:

How about the above suggestion before bed on the tuesday and sunday....

Had to work today so did no exercise. Will see how many i can do...

Use your judgement - whilst it looks not too bad on paper, its actually very hard work. When I was training for this (I attempted RAF entry as an officer pre sdsr cuts) I was doing 4 hours of karate, 2 hiit sessions, 2 sessions of aerobic exercise and the above routine for bicep push ups, tricep push ups, sit ups, squats, crunches and burpees once a week - that one was definately the hardest out of all of them as it was 'to failure to complete the exercise' every time.

It also made sure I mopped the floor at least once a week used to be a virtual lake of sweat by the time I'd finished

[Working class]

Your biggest enemy when doing press ups is your own body weight. Get this down for success. Paddy Doyle told me that.

[jimbobsimmonds]

Working class said:

Your biggest enemy when doing press ups is your own body weight. Get this down for success. Paddy Doyle told me that.

Definitely working on that side of matters but last time I lost a lot in rapid succession a hell of a lot of strength went out the window with it... SO fearful of that happening again... I think I will continue with the chest workout on a Thursday but leave it alone on the Sunday and do pushups maybe ever other day....