Weighted Pushups

[Brian23]

Believe it or not, I understand what you're trying to say, but what you say cannot actually happen. Explain how the lats lower the bar from overhead when their concentric function is humeral adduction.

My point from the beginning was how I utilize coaching cues to get the lifter to feel the muscles and movements involved in a lift.

[brianrichard]

Believe it or not, I understand what you're trying to say, but what you say cannot actually happen. Explain how the lats lower the bar from overhead when their concentric function is humeral adduction.

in other words, your lats do not concentrically contract to lower the bar, your delts/traps eccentrically contract while the bar is lowered by gravity/lack of force generated to hold it up?

This is the same as some people thinking the biceps are worked in the negative movement of a push-up, correct?

[Mark Rippetoe]

And their eccentric function on a press is?

The lat, and every other muscle, functions eccentrically by lengthening under tension. So, does the lat have an eccentric function in a press? No, it doesn't. Neither do the biceps.

[Axel41]

First post by a new member.

I recently finished Practical Programming, and expect Starting Strength (book and dvd) in the mail today. I want to thank you for Practical Programming: it is rare to find a book that presents such valuable information so clearly in any discipline. Well done. I am looking forward to Starting Strength. I only wish I had access to this information a few decades ago.

Before I get to my anecdote about weighted push ups, let me give you a little background (feel free to skip it, if my post is too wordy!):

[background on]
I started lifting at age 12, and by 14 I was training diligently (if not very knowledgably) and continued to train dilligently until age 28. My motivation varied between physique (early on) and strength (later). I confess that I was more focused on upper body development than lower --- not to say I didn't do squats for many years, but there were certainly times I phoned in my squat work outs.

Then for over a decade I was an off-and-on lifter. Sometimes lifting intensely for a couple months, sometimes once a week, sometimes not at all for several months. After a full year off, I returned to lifting more seriously last year, and in the past few months I have recommitted myself to strength training. I am now 41 years old.

I am naturally small boned, but seem to have good genetics for strength. For example, I am ~10-15lbs off benching double bodyweight now, raw and drug free. I add this info as it is relevant to the push up anecdote. Part of the reason my bench:bodyweight ratio is soo good is that my lower body is not nearly as muscular as it should be: I am working with the zeal of the recent convert (having just read practical programming) to correct this imbalance.
[background off]

I recently returned from an 8 day family vacation. I had no gym access, but did not want to skip resistance training entirely for the week, and so brought along some resistance bands with the vague idea of doing some light dynamic training. For upper body I did the following (all as fast as I could in control):

Warm ups: 10 push ups, 10 push ups with one resistance band behind back and held under each hand, 10 push ups with two resistance bands held in this way, 5 push ups with two resistance bands plus my 7 yr old daughter on my back (face down trying to distribute her weight evenly with center of mass about middle of back).

Work sets: 2 resistance bands plus my 11 yr old son on my back. My goal was 5 sets of 5. I failed on the 3rd rep of the 3rd set. I would estimate my rest between sets was on the order of 2-3 minutes.

Note: I had recently tested my 5RM bench at 265lbs at a bodyweight of 160lbs.

The next morning (and the day after as well) my lats were quite more sore. The only other exercise I had done in the previous three days was tricep push downs with the resistance bands. I have had previous experience with sore lats after push ups, but have never had more than very light soreness in my lats lats after benching (I do try to keep my lats tight while benching). I'm sure there could be many explanations for this soreness, but the most plausible to me is that push ups work the lats more than bench press. I'm not sure if this is because the lats are used for stability in the push up or if due to differences in the press angle (push ups are closer to a decline bench press than a flat bench press). I spent a few minutes on google scholar seeing if there had been any EMG testing of the push up that would suggest the lats were hit hard, but all I could find was articles looking at the role of stablizing muscles that indicated the lats played a stability role:


http://pec.umz.ac.ir/Files/CD_1/Jnl....08.pdf#page=28

and

http://journals.lww.com/acsm-msse/Ab...during.24.aspx


Clearly my weighted push up method is not at all conducive to progressive resistance training (I would need more children in smaller weight increments!), and I don't see myself replacing the bench press with the weighted push up as a primary exercise (nor would I advocate this as a *novice* exercise). However, I would definitely be interested in experimenting with weighted push ups for occassional variation in my routine. The still ring + weighted vest illustrated above seems promising to me --- reminds me of weighted dips, which I love.

Wow, I had not set out to write such a long post --- sorry!

[animus]

Here's my input from personal experience.

I almost never do push-ups, but I took a yoga class for college and they had us record the number of push-ups we could do at the beginning, I was 170 pounds, and I managed 40 push-ups in a minute.
This was around February of 2011, and was when I had just started SS.
4 months later I had jumped up to about 195 pounds, I'd had put around 80 pounds (~125-205lb) on my 5x3 bench, and when the time came around for us to do push-ups again,
(keep in mind, I hadn't done push-ups since the initial test in February.), I was able to crank out 45 in a minute, and these were elbows-tucked-in-chest-to-the-ground-to-lock-out push-ups.
Not only that, but they felt so easy it seemed like I was bouncing with explosion out of the push-ups.

After that I became a firm believer in the principle of increases in strength having a direct positive effect on endurance.