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.

By: L Jones 

Words to live by in the Army are “train as you would fight”. This saying is a powerful lesson in life when in pursuit of achieving your goals. You wouldn’t train for a marathon by swimming three times a week. It might help with your endurance, but it’s not preparing you for a marathon.

Practice test question: To do more push ups, I should  ________?

a. talk about doing more push ups  b. start swimming  c. start to lift weights  d. do push ups

Strangely enough, all of these answers will help you, but your best option in this case would be d. do push ups. Ok, I just said that all of these anwers could help and here is how answer a. helps. We are going to discuss push ups a bit. Not the actual exercise, but different types of routines with different results.

The Pyramid

The pyramid is a great routine to help with muscle development, strength and mental toughness. It will not help you do more push ups though. Why? The pyramid is geared towards doing a set number of push ups, no more maybe less. You start at one rep, work your way up to fifteen of twenty reps and then back to one. The problem is you get breaks in the middle. You get to relax your muscles when you’ve completed the designated amount of reps.

Ladder

The same effect as the pyramid. With the ladder you either work your way down from a set numebr, say twenty push ups down to one or you work your way up. This is a great routine for muscle development and honestly, you will probably be able to do more push ups, but not much more than the max amount that you’ve done in the routine. Why? You are not training as you would fight. If you need to do 73 push ups on the pt test, doing a ladder routine which only requires you to do a max of twenty or twenty five push ups just doesn’t cut it.

Bench Press Routine

I tried this one year and got really strong at bench pressing, but when it came time for me to take the pt test, I did poorly. I passed, but I barely passed. At the time, I weighed around 168 and could lift 225lbs around 6 to 8 reps. My chest was pumped, I felt powerful; so why did I do so poorly?

When I worked out with the bench press, I normally would do three sets of ten to twelve reps. How many push ups did I need to max the pt test? I needed more than ten to twelve. Are you starting to see what I am saying?

Push ups require endurance, rhythm, strength, technique, mental toughness, stamina. To do more push ups, you need to do more push ups, but here is where you make your money.

The key to doing more push ups is to replicate the conditions in training to match those in t he fight. In the Army, that fight is the Army Physical Fitness Test or APFT. The APFT gives you two minutes to do as many correct push ups as you can. The key term in that sentence was “two minutes”. Time is money maker. When you train to do more push ups, you train to time, not to reps. It’s that simple.

On my next blog, I will post my rountine, my journal, and results by date. On the previous post, you saw the results. This one will show you how I got there. Make sure you check it out.

By: L Jones

I thought I was in better shape than I was. This became apparent when I took my semi-annual Army physical fitness test (APFT) on 18 March 2009. On the push-up portion of the test, I performed 55 push-ups in two minutes. This may sound good to some, but the physical fitnes test is graded on a 100 point number scale. Each of the three events of the APFT award a maximum of 100 points for a maximum total of 300 points for the test. In the push-up category for my age, I need to perform 73 push-ups in two minutes to max the test.

Well, if you look at the document that I’ve attached, which is an actual copy of my APFT scores, you can see that today I maxed my push ups and my sit-ups. My run still needs some tweaking, but ultimately the program that I followed was a success.

TIP 1: Be honest with yourself. When I finished taking the APFT on March 18, I could not do another push-up. I took that for what it was and had to figure out how to do more push ups.

TIP 2: To get better at a particular exercise, you have to do that exercise. My work-outs were centered around getting better at my push-ups, sit-ups and run. My next blog, I will explain my routine and also attach my own personal journal.

TIP 3: Get a partner. Never under estimate the power of competition. A partner can help to motivate you, inspire you, push you etc. The way my routine is set up, it gives me and my partner an opportunity to compete against each other. The trick is to find a partner who is equal to or above your current level.

TIP 4: Get your mind right. Nuf said.