Pushups everyday?

[AdamC]

See the attachement for what I think this is the beginners planche variation.

[Supervenomsuperman]

@asd123

Tuck Planche Pushups

You could consider the planche pushup a super bench press or a full body press. In addition to working the triceps, chest and front delts, you also have a full contraction of the lats, middle back and lower back as well as the traps. The triceps and the forearms are also working hard stabilizing the elbow joint. Core strength is extremely taxed as the upper and lower abs, obliques, serratus and hip flexors all struggle to maintain the stretched (body) position.

Let’s play Devil’s Advocate shall we!

Two problems with this exercise as it relates to bench press, sprinting, and weighted chipups/pullups.

In regards to bench press, you will notice that in the bold print it states that the planch will fully contract the triceps/chest/delts at (I assume) the same time as the lats/middle-back/lower-back/traps. This will invariably hurt your bench press as well as your bent-over rows and military press b/c these exercises require their antagonists to relax not contract at the same time as the agonists!

In regards to sprinting, same reasoning applies here! You don’t want the quads and hamstrings to contract at the same time! Did anybody see how that hamstring tear came about?

In regards to weighted chinups and lat pullups. Your core is strengthened with these exercises; it also, serves a bigger role in these exercises bc they are not ground based! I bet somebody that does planch pushups could also through a football farther if they had a harness attached to them and were hanging from a tree; however, you take this same guys and see which one can throught the football farther when they are on the ground! :rolleyes:

Also, in the planch the individual muscle groups have recruited more overall muscle fibres (same idea as isometrics) then this does not come as a shock to why these athletes are stronger than people who don’t use isometrics (joint angle strength)! It’s funny how nobody tested the squat in this article or barbell curls or bench press!

This exercises however can be compared to isometrics where in the bench press you can have the chest and lats contract simulateneously. At this bottom position the weight is temporarily motionless and that is where isometric exercises come in! So in conclusion, this exercise might benefit the isometric postion and contribute to some overall strength gain (strengthening one point on the force-velocity curve will strengthen the entire organism); however, one must still work the ecc-con chain in order to have a better neuromuscular coordination pattern!

Now no more playing the Devil’s Advocate.

Paraphrasing Siff in “Supertraining” no muscle action is completely agonist/antagonist/isometric". For example, in sprinting the quads concentrically contract on the drive phase, isometrically contract on the landing phase, eccentrically contract on the landing phase before the amortization phase where the leg does a quarter-squat, and finally isometrically contract once again during the amortization phase! So in this regard one could consider the CNS such a complex system that it incoporate the planch exercise into sprinting! I don’t know what the answer is, although I don’t think doing planch exercises would hurt you if you did other exercises in your vertigal integration periodization scheme, just don’t do these exercises near the competition phase!

So should one include Planch exercises? As Homer Simpson would say, “I don’t know?”

[asd123]

Good post SVS!!! I think all you said is correct and if you saw me lift on the bench you would know that doing planches did not help my bench …but in any case I was just thinking what I might do without lifting for a year and in order to keep myself challenged everyday I would do exercises that are hard to do like the planche, handstand push-ups , pistols, all that junk, I think doing these types of exercises might build or maintain more power than regular push-ups or regular squats, but I do not know that for sure…
Adam C Maybe you could do a routine with bodyweight stuff like one day you do isometrics, next session you do explosive stuff (clap push ups, squat jumps) next session is weird stuff (one arm one leg) rotate the king of bodyweight movement, also if you have bands, do a session with band…not really sure just trying to think up some cool stuff…
PEACE

[Supervenomsuperman]

From another thread,

@Kaczmarski

So are you saying that an athlete must have a 1.5x’s bodyweight to have a 35 inch vert? Or are you saying that an athlete must squat period to get his vert to 35 inches? There are many athletes that have amazing verticles that do not squat. Sure they could probably squat 1.5 x’s bdwt if they tried, but they don’t. In a round about way this reminds me of something I read a while back where CP tested male gymnists bench press strength. In this “study” CP had some (i don’t know the number) elite level male gymnists, whom had never bench pressed before, bench press for a 1RM Max. If I recall correctly, these guys averaged 315lbs. on their max, and it was the first time they ever bench pressed! Going by what was stated above, are we then to infer that if we want to become elite level gynmists that we must first be able to bench press 315lbs.?

Also, from thread http://www.charliefrancis.com/community/showthread.php?t=7083

@numba56

Ok havent benched since june, only been doing frog stands a couple days a week on and off for the month of september. Previous pb for 225 for reps-3 reps. Did it 10 times today, no warm up, easy, had two reps left in me. That equated to a 315 bench press. haha ian is a mad scientists.

@numba56

not very far being as large as i am. i have lost 5 lbs however. i can hold a straight arm frog stand, very little pressure on my elbows, for around 30-45 seconds.

@numba56

depends on ur goals, but hey its workin fo me. use it as an assistance exercise if you are going to do weights also. I just do until its too hard to hold anymore, rest for a while, do it again, while i am sitting around watching tv. works great. and i think you can, however they need to be used in conjunction. i deadlifted over 400 the first time i ever did it, but i wasnt 135 lbs, i was closer to 200. So i think the two used together would yield great results. I mean honestly how many people do you know the first time they ever touch a weight deadlift triple their body weight and bench over double it?

@nArKeD

Have you been doing any upper body work with weights?

@numba56

nope i have not

@James_Smith

First off, Numba, congratulations on your PR.

However, a clarification is in order.

The efficacy of incorporating gymnastics movements will likely decrease as an athletes intramuscular coordination and limit strength levels increase.

Numba, if I recall, your bodymass is in the 230-240lbs range and you are under 6ft tall. Your current bench pressing strength (225x10) height, at 240 or so, indicates that your limit strength and intramuscular coordination are far from developed to any high level (I would say this even if you weighted 200lbs at your height, assuming that you are not obese). Therefore, it is no surprise that various relative strength drills (eg gymnastics movements) will increase your neural efficiency and max strength to some degree. Additionally, don’t put to much stock in 1RM calculators. These calculators and charts do not account for the numerous mechanical and physiological differences inherent to different athletes.

What you will find is that as your limit strength continues to increase, the efficacy of the gymnastic drills will decrease.

Even the article that Kelly presented the link for should be put into perspective. Although the results are impressive for the youths performing heavy weighted pullups and deadlifts at very low bodymasses. We must observe that the numbers, when compared to the truly strong, are very low.

For example, it is definitely very impressive for a 110lb youth to perform 8 weighted pullups with a 50lb weight. However, as an example, a few years ago at a bodyweight of 215, I could perform one weighted chin up with a 120lb weight. Now at a bodyweight of 242-245 at 6’1’’, and far from truly strong, I can still perform over 20 bodyweight pullups and roll out of bed any day of the week and peform about 25 reps with 225 in the bench press. I pulled an easy 600lbs off of pin 2 the other day. My point is that although I am NOT TRULY STRONG, I do possess a certain amount of relative strength, limit strength and intramuscular coordination, and the employment of gymnastic drills would likely do absolutely NOTHING to further my limit strength development.

CP has sited that Andre Benoit, an OL Luge athlete, could perform wide grip pullups with a 120lb dumbbell for a set of 3 reps on a 401 tempo. That is TRULY STRONG.

A first time deadlift of 400lbs, for a 135lb individual is definitely impressive, however, a 400lb DL is a novice pull for an elite male 135lb powerlifter.

Again, my point here is that one must assess the level of physical preparedness of either themselves, or the athletes whom they train, before they incorporate relative strength/gymnastics exerices in an effort to increase limit strength.

There’s nothing magical about any training means. The key is to utilize the optimal means relative the level of physical preparedness of the athlelete.

Again, congratulations on the PR’s, but be sure and maintain perspective on why you made the gains that you did.

The only thing I can add to this is that these exercises should be incoporated before an athlete under the age of 17 ever touches a barbell! Then when they do start strength training all of their previous multilateral development will be in place and the athlete can excel farther then had he not done this multilateral work! Perhaps this is why the Russians included gymnastics or rather gymnastic exercises for all their athletes so that all the developmental work was in place before commencing strength training! This is why the Eastern Bloc was so dominating the world of athletics at the time! This I imagine also led to fewer injuries.