A couple of people I know were talking about this tonight and I’d appreciate your opinions. At first glance it would seem that these two exercises work about the same muscles. I am wondering though if there is a way to really compare the two. A relatively out of shape 240 pound man might be able to do 10 push-ups but most likely could not bench press a 240 lb. bar 10 times.
Is it just working more or different muscles in push ups? The fact that you are pivoting on your toes? Any way to correlate the two exercises? I’m guessing that the bench press is focusing more on specific upper body muscles.
I seem to remember a story some years ago about a football player (Hershel Walker maybe) who said he never lifted, only did push-ups and sit ups. I couldn’t understand how he built up unless he strapped on weights as he worked out since you need to max out the muscles to break down/build up the mass. Sorry if I’m missing something obvious but I’m pretty tired and this is nagging at me.
You’ve got leverage in push-ups. Your arms move the same distance as for bench-presses, but your center of mass is only raising about half as far, so pushups for a 240-lb man would be about equivalent to benching 120. Of course, if you do them sloppily, then you’re also using muscles other than your arms.
But if you were a man with a 240 pound man with a 100 pound head(good god the imagery!) instead of a 100 pound gut, thanks to leverage, you would in fact be “lifting”, or resisting, much more than 120 lbs. The higher up the center of mass is on your body, the more difficult the push-up will be. Scientifically proven!
Most large gyms have a redundancy of equipment that focus on the same muscle groups and provide sufficient variety to avoid burnout. BTW, this question was partially answered a few months back, but let me say that a bench that declines and inclines can provide an amazing workout.
A couple years back, I got into a pushup craze and for the hell of it, I decided to see how many I could knock out. I started with sets of 40 regulation pushups–not the crap you see guys doing in the gym next to a mirror–and within a couple months, I could easily do 400, 500, 600 pushups during a television program and not feel the least winded.
So could you, if you want too. Sounds impressive. It really isn’t. In fact, one evening I was so bored, I decided to push it to the wall and managed 880 before deciding to call it quits and go have a bowl of ice cream. (It was late and I was whipped from work.) From my experience, a 1,000 good pushups isn’t really anything to boast about and will develop your chest, delts, biceps, and triceps quite well. Some may scoff at this number, but most men could hit it with practice and dedication. To summarize: pushups get incredibly easy (and inefficient) after awhile and that’s when you need to consider more challenging stances.
Not so with weights. Trying to do, say, 25 reps of 225 pounds would turn most arms into glue. Weights are uniquely challenging. Kinda sounds like IMHO, when you think of it.
I posted a reply in the thread about standing on two scales and what they would read a while ago. You can figure out how much weight you’re pushing up by putting a bathroom scale under your hands and assuming the normal position. I forgot my earlier numbers, but I just tried it again and got the following: I weigh 190, and in a normal push-up position there is 130lbs reading on the scale - that’s what I’m benching. Depending on how you hold your body, I could put as little as 80lbs and up to 160lbs pressure on my hands. So the average percentage of your body weight you’re “benching” is around 70%. With push-ups you can alter the placement of your hands on the ground to work your chest or shoulders more (not adviseable with a heavy steel bar balanced over your chest), plus you can do them anywhere. On the other hand, you can use more of your other muscle groups and momentum to help you cheat when doing push-ups, particularly when you get into a fast-paced rythem (watch the guys that do real fast push-ups to break speed records for how many they can do in a minute on TV) A bench press forces you to isolate muscles more and keeps the speed and therefore momentum factor to a minimum.
I understand Chronos and kata’s logic, but decided to do a little experiment. Basically, I weighed myself, then measured the weight on my hands in a pushup position, both up and down positions. Here are the results:
Weight: 196 lbs (yikes, maybe I should be doing more pushups and less silly experiments)
Weight with arms down (starting position): 151 lbs
Weight with arms extended: 122 lbs
So, two observations:
Equating a pushup to getting a weight off your chest (i.e. the first bit of the exercise) is approximately equivalent to 3/4 of your weight (151/196)
A pushup is easier at the extreme, something that is certainly not true of bench-pressing, as anyone who’s done it will tell you.
I have far too much time on my hands this evening.
On scale w/ arms extended(top of push-up): 120lbs. = 67%(exactly 2/3 my weight)
On scale w/ arms bent(bottom of push-up): 110lbs. = 63%
Very interesting. I always thought that a push-up was half of your body weight. It is nice to know that I am getting a better workout than 90 measley pounds.
If they were “regulation” push-ups like the US Army requires, that’s impressive as hell. Considering that 71 pushups in 2 minutes gives a 17-21 year old male the maximum score (100 points), 400+ is superhuman. 800+ is godlike.
I’ve seen high speed low drag soldiers break the maximum and score unofficially higher than 100 on the push-up event, but I’ve never even heard of someone knocking out more than 200 pushups, much less 600. And to not even feel the least winded! Wow!
You should contact the US Army because I am certain they would want insight on how to train soldiers to achieve that level of physical fitness.
Just as a side note, at a time when I was in shape, I used the same method that Hershel Walker used. I heard in an interview that he never lifted weights, but was constantly exercising. One way he would train is that while watching TV, every time a commercial came on, he would do either pushups or situps until the commercials ended and the show continued. So about 2-3 minutes each cycle. Not a bad system to use.
Rufus
There are a few structural differences between pushups and benchpresses.
On a benchpress, the ideal technique is to lift from the nipples, not the shoulders (where your hands are when they’re close to your body), perform a J-hook motion until the weight is above your head, and eliminate all arch from your back. Benchpressing with your hands by your shoulders will allow you to lift more, but, as a consequence, makes you do less work. Also, I’ve heard that lifting from your shoulders wears the shoulder cuff.
I’ve only seen a handful of people do pushups with their hands in line with their nipples. It’s a bit more difficult, really works the triceps, and can even bring the lats (in the back) into play. I’d assume that pushups from the shoulder can wear the cuff as well.
You can cheat on a pushup by drooping your head and only going down far enough until your face touches the floor, instead of your chest.
You can droop your chest in order to cheat, but that puts undue strain on your back and also looks really damn silly.
To cheat at the benchpress, you arch your back for more leverage.
There’s an esoteric training method floating around for the benchpress in which they use a bar much thicker than a regular one. As a consequence, the muscles are targeted in a different manner than they would with your fist closed around a small bar.
This large bar technique is basically mimicking the technique of common, open handed pushups. Consequently, pushups are not without a value inherent to them. (Instead of using a thick bar, you can do benchpresses with the bar just resting on your open palm, snugly contained by your thumb and a sense of balance. It takes practise to do it safely (plus, you should have a spotter anyways) but it’s a hell of a workout.
Pushups can continue to be extremely beneficial if you’re creative. If you can rattle off more than one hundred (or even fifty) in a row, and you’re trying to build muscle, begin to shift your body’s weight, doing the pushups with one arm bearing more weight than the other (switch the order of the arms with every workout). Eventually you’ll work into one-armed pushups, and if you can rattle off one hundred pushups with each arm then you’re a strong motherfucker and can pretty much do the carnival circuit.
You can change what muscles pushups target by your hand placement. Shoulder width apart and they target all the appropriate muscles evenly. Hands wider than shoulder width and they target the chest and biceps, hands close together (thumbs and index fingers forming a triangle) and they target the shoulders and triceps.
For the personal response, I use both pushups and benchpresses in my workouts.
Now, for a hijack:
For the people who do amazing quantities of pushups and have obviously been doing pushups for a long time, have you ever encountered “plateaus”? It’s a weightlifting term for when your body has become accustomed to what you’re doing and no more muscle is being built. The answer is usually a radical change in training to shock your body into action.
The thing with push-ups is that they tend to build the lower part of the pecs. If you build this muscle too much, your pecs will look like they sag. Bench pressing works the central part of the pecs.
Pushups alone can give you quite a workout just by using a bit of variety. Hands together, spread wide, up by your shoulders, down by your nipples, feet on the floor, feet up on a chair, feet on a table and each hand on a chair (you get a lower dip). Also, instead of just up-down-up-down, go down, halfway up and hold, up, halfways down, hold, down, pause and hold three times on the way up, etc… Eventually though, you will reach a point where you will just be doing aerobics. Benching allows you to increase the weight, which will increase bulk and strenght a lot faster. Walker was a naturally big guy. You don’t get 34 inch thighs using a chairmaster. All his pushups and situps were to keep his body fat down. I seem to recall that during his peak, his body fat percentage was in the area of 6.
Astroglide, old boy, might I detect a smirk, a snicker, a tad of skeptcism?
First, let me say that the numbers are absolutely correct. Second, I may well have overstated how many men could achieve this, but I can assure you that it is not of heroic proportions. Much of this probably comes down to a genetic advantage, along with superb conditioning. I’m reminded of the late uber-climber, Alex Lowe, who would regularly do 400+ chinups during a workout. FYI, I’ve been lifting weights for almost 20 years (I’m 37). Another fact: outside the Special Forces, most military guys are not that impressive and, BTW, the military time their pushups. I always rest a few minutes between sets–not because I’m winded, but to give the muscles a chance to rest and reduce the onset of lactic acid buildup. Sets of 75-85 good, solid regulation pushups are not that difficult and once-skeptical friends used to watch me workout–over beers.
This points to the issue of muscular endurance v. muscular strength, an issue that touches on VO2 max, fast/slow-twitch muscles, etc.
I’ve always wondered: who is “stronger,” the musclehead who can bench 350 eight times but only do ten regulation pullups, or the iron man who can knock out, say, 200 pullups but bench only 225? Give it a chance, Astro, you could be doing 500 by Autumn.
No plateaus–yet. The biggest barrier has always been time and boredom. Sure, knocking out 700 pushups sounds fun as hell, but by the time you hit the 400 mark, your attention starts to drift and ennui sets in. What I have noticed is how many guys in the gym are actually quite weak. I’m talking about muscle heads who can’t do more than 10-15 pull-ups/chin-ups, yet somehow think they’re God’s gift to women. A 1000 is no big deal. Problem is, what do you do for an encore–10,000 in a day?
For variation, I spread my arms wide or place them together in a triagle or do pushups on my fingertips. I’ve tried doing them using two thumbs only, but it puts too much stress on them and is basically showboating.
Even when you’re good at the bench press, it’s amazing how much this does NOT translate into proficiency in mega-pushups. Doing hundreds of pushups requires more than brute strength. Your muscles have to be able to use oxygen very efficiently or the lactic acid will kill you. In a way, it’s a curious mix of brute strength and an endurance race. Hundreds of pushups sound difficult? I’m guessing most serious triatheletes could do similarly.
BTW, I just noticed our resident skeptic Astroglide describes himself in his profile as a “computer nerd.” What say we turn him into a stud muffin complete with rippling muscles?)
While I’m a little skeptical (and a lot impressed if it’s true) of the 880 without being winded, I wouldn’t be shocked to find out that it’s true.
Two friends of mine are wrestlers - high school champions, collegiate contenders for the championship, currently a wrestling coach and a strength coach. They are also identical twins, so very competetive with each other and themselves. These guys didn’t count pushups…they counted time. They would do pushups nonstop for 2 minutes (at a good pace), 5 minutes, 10 minutes, whatever. I almost believe those two could have gone nonstop for a 1/2 hour tv show.
But to claim that it’s easy to reach that level of conditioning…well, that’s where I’m most skeptical. My friends were fanatical about strength training and conditioning since they were in middle school, and didn’t get to that point until 2nd or 3rd year in college.
I have learned that your body will quickly adapt to most things. Thus you should change your routines often.
That is why I never just do the treadmill. One day it is that the next the stairclimber, the next I run etc…
Same with weights, never use one machine. Even if the different machine works the same muscle it won’t work it in EXACTLY the same way. Thus it will shock your muscles and help them.
I have greatly increased my lung capacity (I’m asthmatic) simply by using different machines.
Just to back-up the reports of enourmous numbers of pushups…
When in bootcamp, my Assitant Recruit Chief Petty Officer (the guy who gets yelled at when the RCPO isn’t around) started doing massive numbers of pushups the first night of bootcamp. He started with 400 a night, done in sets of 50, and 9 weeks later was doing 900 a night in sets of 100. One morning a recruit screwed-up the night log, which Scott had checked, but had missed the mistake. The Company Commander dropped Scott for 8-count body-builders, and went back into the Company Office without specifying how many. I suspect that he figured Scott would stop at some point, maybe twenty, maybe thirty, but where ever he stopped, the CC would then have an excuse to yell at Scott some more for stopping without permision. Didn’t happen that way. When he came out of the office, Scott was on number 96, and showed no sign of slowing down. That was the last time anyone tried disciplining him with physical exertion.
Scott was huge. Anyone, I suspect, sufficiently motivated could come close to matching that feat. It just takes time and motivation.
Oh, and I used to workout with a Marine Seargent that did her crunches in sets of 500. Usually four sets, sometimes more. I never managed more than 4 sets of 150.
I am not a liar. Let’s get that straight right now.
Nor do I find large numbers of pushups cardiovascularly fatiguing. Climbing Rainier or Logan, yes. Pushups, no. I’ve done these in sets of 70-100. After awhile, doing 200 pushups is a joke.
As for my assertion that many men could replicate this with time and effort, perhaps I unfairly judge others by the company I keep. I am not talking about coach potatoes or computer nerds. My friends are in top conditioning; a couple more than I.
I also would note that doing hundreds of pushups gets boring after awhile. Variety is needed and free weights provide this. To resolve your doubts, take up a pushup regimen today. By Thanksgiving, you will understand I am being 100% honest–and you will look and feel much better.