I'm a petite 17year old female. about 5'5 and 110-115 lbs. I'm enlisted in the military and i can do everything but push ups. I leave in less then a month for basic training and trying to do push ups is killing me. I just dont feel like i have the arm/chest strength no matter what I do to push myself back up
I was wonder if anyone can tell me which muscles i need to work on the most and how to do them in order to gain this strength or any other tips/help would be amazing. I just got a membership at local gym so i'll have everything i should need available to me there
push ups.. ways to build strenght for them?
Moderators: Boss Man, cassiegose
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steven14791
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- Location: Newcastle,UK
You need good upper body work.
You need strong Arms, but as you're pushing yourself up and down, you need good upper body, as the Back comes into play too, so then you need good equivalent Chest build, to maintain good posture.
The problem you're going to get is two things.
A: Female muscle development is a lot slower than mens, owing to less Test production for one.
B: 1 month is not long enough. Ideally owing to point A:, you'd need more time, but having said that 1 month isn't that bad you can't achieve anything.
You need to really do an Upper body workout 2x a week, and lower 2x a week.
You would be advised to increase cals in diet, to allow for the fact exercise increases Metabolic reactions, and burns more calories, so you want to feed the body well, and give yourself some muscle building surplus.
So ideally I would say eat 6 times a day, and intake about 25g Protein per meal, so you eat 150g a day, and 600 cals Protein a day, then you need around another 1,200-1,400 a day, mostly from Carbs with some Fats.
You need strong Arms, but as you're pushing yourself up and down, you need good upper body, as the Back comes into play too, so then you need good equivalent Chest build, to maintain good posture.
The problem you're going to get is two things.
A: Female muscle development is a lot slower than mens, owing to less Test production for one.
B: 1 month is not long enough. Ideally owing to point A:, you'd need more time, but having said that 1 month isn't that bad you can't achieve anything.
You need to really do an Upper body workout 2x a week, and lower 2x a week.
You would be advised to increase cals in diet, to allow for the fact exercise increases Metabolic reactions, and burns more calories, so you want to feed the body well, and give yourself some muscle building surplus.
So ideally I would say eat 6 times a day, and intake about 25g Protein per meal, so you eat 150g a day, and 600 cals Protein a day, then you need around another 1,200-1,400 a day, mostly from Carbs with some Fats.
Last edited by Boss Man on Tue Aug 07, 2007 4:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.
I feel for you, situation was the same -concerning push up. I'm your age. A little shorter than you, same weight.
And I've been working on push ups for about a month now, myself. I couldn't barely even do one rep (standard pushup).
I trained myself to learn to do the "girl's" pushup. I'm sorry, not good with the names, but you cross ur legs and lift 'em up, and learn to do it that way first.
It helped me a lot. I did different push up styles. Like lower body is up, while upper body was down...and i used to push myself up and down.
And while doing all those, I tried to work with the standard pushup. I worked way from doing 1, to 2, to 3...and now I can do 7 reps straight on. I'm still struggling with the 7th push up tho.
Just keep doing it 3 times a week, and sooner or later you'll be able to get on with it.
arms gotten better, slightly bigger, I noticed it focuses a lot on the triceps too. Do some tricep workouts.
That's suggestion, but I aint no expert.
And I've been working on push ups for about a month now, myself. I couldn't barely even do one rep (standard pushup).
I trained myself to learn to do the "girl's" pushup. I'm sorry, not good with the names, but you cross ur legs and lift 'em up, and learn to do it that way first.
It helped me a lot. I did different push up styles. Like lower body is up, while upper body was down...and i used to push myself up and down.
And while doing all those, I tried to work with the standard pushup. I worked way from doing 1, to 2, to 3...and now I can do 7 reps straight on. I'm still struggling with the 7th push up tho.
Just keep doing it 3 times a week, and sooner or later you'll be able to get on with it.
arms gotten better, slightly bigger, I noticed it focuses a lot on the triceps too. Do some tricep workouts.
That's suggestion, but I aint no expert.
don't do the girl push upd because your weakest link (core strength) will only get weaker while your strong links (tri's, chest) get stronger, increasing the gap between them
if you can only do 1, 2 or 3 reps than do 10 sets of the max you can do - 1
so if you can do 2 reps do 10 sets of 1 with 30secs rest and each week add 1 rep to first set while taking away the last set
sample
session 1 - 10 x 1, 30secs rest between sets
2 - 1 x 2, 8 x 1, 30secs
3 - 1 x 3, 7 x 1, 30secs rest etc until you doing 1 set of 10 straight
if this seems too hard than do 5 sets of 1 rep at the start of your workout than 5 x 1 to finish with...each week take a set from the last part and do it during the second part until your doing 10 x 1 in a row again
sample
session 1 - 5 x 1, 30secs rest / 5 x 1, 30secs
2 - 6 x 1, 30 / 4 x 1, 30
3 - 7 x 1, 30 / 3 x 1 etc until at 1 set of 10
give one of these a go
if you can only do 1, 2 or 3 reps than do 10 sets of the max you can do - 1
so if you can do 2 reps do 10 sets of 1 with 30secs rest and each week add 1 rep to first set while taking away the last set
sample
session 1 - 10 x 1, 30secs rest between sets
2 - 1 x 2, 8 x 1, 30secs
3 - 1 x 3, 7 x 1, 30secs rest etc until you doing 1 set of 10 straight
if this seems too hard than do 5 sets of 1 rep at the start of your workout than 5 x 1 to finish with...each week take a set from the last part and do it during the second part until your doing 10 x 1 in a row again
sample
session 1 - 5 x 1, 30secs rest / 5 x 1, 30secs
2 - 6 x 1, 30 / 4 x 1, 30
3 - 7 x 1, 30 / 3 x 1 etc until at 1 set of 10
give one of these a go