Thinking

By: L Jones 

The two essential ingredients to increasing your push ups and situps are time and intensity. Many push up/sit up improvement physical training (PT) programs are flawed in that they do not incorporate these two ingredients properly.

Typical Push ups/Sit ups Improvement PT Plan:

Warm-Up

Stretch

3 sets of 25 push ups

3 sets of 25 sit ups

3 sets of dips

3 sets of crunches

Run

Cool down

After Action Review (AAR)

There is nothing wrong with this program, except that it does not properly incorporate those essential ingredients we discussed earlier. Intensity in this PT program is an implied task. It’s up to the person doing the exercise to apply the proper intensity. The time, on the other hand, is non-existent.

Here’s how you tweak this program to make it an effective improvement tool and not just a maintenance routine. As in the above and any other exercise routine, intensity is implied, but instead of relying on the individual to generate high intensity levels on their own, try applying some motivation. Military drill sergeants are good at this, but that’s not an option for everyone. A good fill in is competition. Get a work out partner, someone who is near or exceeding your fitness level.

Insert Time: Instead of doing three sets of twenty five push ups/sit ups, do one minute of push ups/sit-ups; then do forty five seconds and then thirty seconds.

The first time you try this, you will probably do a good amount of push ups and sit ups on the minute and just a few on the forty five and thirty second sets; that’s ok. It’s to be expected.  You may also begin to, what I call, mentally fatigue. Mental fatigue is when you get to twenty five push ups and can’t do anymore. Your mind has been trained to get to a specific number instead of to your body’s potential. You have to fight to break through this mental, but just so you know, it can be broken.

Come check me out tomorrow for my personal work out plan that I use  to increase my push ups and sit ups.