Push-ups help

My whole life I have trained low reps and lots of rest so the high rep no rest has been hard for me and I have seen my strength go down since joining. I realize that this is necessary to stay healthy but I have seen little or slow progress in my pulling strength. On the positive I have learned a lot over the last years and I have been mostly injury free. 

The last few weeks I have started to grease the groove with a few sets of 6-8 regular pullups through out the day and week and since then I have seen good improvements in my rows.

This is probably not a good idea for a total beginner as it negates the low intensity ligament building and learning your body the right technique part of the program but as I said I have already been om the rows for years.

That was a lot about pulling for this short question about push-ups, what would be a good to kick start my push-ups. Inlines push-ups? Some kettlebell? Maybe weighted push-ups?

Hi Tomas,

Thanks for reaching out. Happy to hear that your pulling strength has improved.

How long have you been training your current schedule? You might want to increase your upper body workouts to twice a week or add a set of push ups to your warmups  

@Tomas Johansson

 

- What do you mean by kickstart. Are your pushups not progressing, or are you just looking to increase difficulty?

Thanks, I have been on my schedule since the new one was release with the follow along videos and all.

By kickstart I mean break through current plateu which I think could be done by adding extra higher intensity (lower rep) work outside the scheduled work the same way as was successfull in my pulling work.

@Tomas Johansson

 

Not a terrible idea. 

 

what does your current split look like?

Monday upper body + finger strength

Tuesday middle split stretch

Wednesday frontsplit, legs + finger strength

Thursday upper body

Friday handstand and bridge stretch

Saturday climbing.

Plus the extra pullups.

 

 

 

You could try adding in some pull ups and pushups at saturday. But the volume is starting to get up there and could impair recovery. You could give it a test run and see how you fair over the next three weeks. If lack of progress is still happening I would suggest Decreasing upper body volume to allow for proper recovery 

 

Hi Tomas,

You can try to spend some time in the bottom position of the push-ups. I used this when I was stucked for a while. Go down to the bottom of the push-up position (chest just off the floor, straight body). Hold this position for 30seconds then push up and do as many push-ups you can with good form!  

@Pauline Taube excellent Idea. Ive seen this used on multiple occasions. Accumulating time in the hardest portion of the movement can often help bust through these plateaus. 

Also greasing the grove can help too with increase neural efficiency of the movement without overly taxing CNS. 

 

@Tomas Johansson I would say pick your poison. Both should help but dont know if I would recommend doing both as that may start to get in the way of your GST recovery. 

For the Bottom pushup Iso metrics I would imagine programming this in at the end of your upper body sessions for 2-3 sets would be the way to go. 

For grease the groove your initial plan seems fine, or even doing it multiple times throughout the week but staying well bellow failure. Say you fail at 10 reps I would do sets of 5 multiple times a day throughout the week w/  a minimum 15 min rest in between sets. This is general Pavel guidelines for greasing the grove.   

I found I lost strenght when I started doing the gb programming strictly. Like you I came from a background of heavy lifting weighted chins, weighted dips both with full range of motion and no joint problems but dropped them in fear that I may be at risk even tho after years of training in sure I was fine lol. after a couple of months of not really moving forward i started implementing weighted chins, overhead press (both vertical movements as horizontal is covered from rowing and pppu's) and back squats to keep strength ticking over nicely while I run the gb programming and it's helped so much. rows and press ups become so much easier to do. just keep the weighted work low volume and you'll be fine.

Hope this helps.

@Michael Knight

Than you for sharing. 

How does your weekly split look? 

My guess on how to implement this would be a MWF split 

 

Mon: F3 ( SLS, SL, MN) 

Tue: Front Split 

Wed: F4 (RC, HBP, SPl, FL) 

Thur: Middle Split

Fri: Strength ( following a 2-3sets x5rps fashion)  

Sat: Climbing 

Sun: Bridge + H1

 

A full week but could allow for some good gains. Sat or Sun could be interchangeable to give some flexibility on the weekends. However I think De loads every 4th week might be a good idea following this as each day is relatively intense except for Tue and Wed want to prevent the CNS / Connective Tissue from frying up. 

 

Any thoughts that might be able to help @Tomas Johansson out? 

hey mate, your split looks good.

I train fullbody 3 times a week as I find if I miss a workout or if anything happens my body gets trained fully regardless.

right now I do it in an A, B style so....

Monday - A

Wed -B

Friday -A

Monday B

and so on.

workout A would be 

10mins Handstand work and ring support

3-5 ×5 reps for  squat, ring chins, overhead press

(on a side note Martin Berkham RPT training is a great progression scheme to add strength. I'm using 3-5x5 tho as it's less taxing as I train frequently I prefer recovery for GB specific program)

gb core and compression work 

weighted dislocates

 

 

workout B-

handstand work and ring support

GHR 3-5x5

split squats 3x10-12 (nice weighted stretch on hip flexor)

Gymnasticbodies upper (ground rows and pppu, spl leans)

but don't use the progression scheme as outlayed as I find the progress jumps too much sometimes. would be nice to have a detailed breakdown to overcome and breakthrough stalling on a progress step. 

gb core and compression.

j curls 3x5 hold last rep on each set for 30secs.

 

I also do emmet louis quick and dirty side split routine every 5 days plus cossack squats and bridge course.

plus I do isolation work for vmo etc as I have knee issues from a torn ACL. 

Hope this helps. it's not perfect I'm sure but I enjoy it and making steady progress for now.