How many push-ups is needed to really gain muscle?
Hey, Im 15 and I wanted to gain some upper body muscle. I do push-ups on and off occasionally, but how many should I do in a day to really gain some muscle, and how many should I do at a time? I don’t have any weights at home, so for now this is what I was planning on doing. Any advice would be helpful. Thanks.
November 14th, 2010 at 5:54 am
You might want to try the 100 pushups workout it seems like a good starting place: http://hundredpushups.com/index.html
I would not expect to gain much muscle from only pushups especially as you get into higher repetitions where it is more about conditioning/endurance than muscle building. But if you increase your weight by using a backpack filled with books while doing pushups and keep the rep range under 12 you could see some good muscle gain.
You can also think of other creative ways to use items around the house as weights. Use the backpack filled with books and lift one of the straps with one hand in a curling motion like a bicep curl + you can perform tricep curls too. Go to a playground and do pullups. Have fun with it, but be safe.
Getting bigger and gaining muscle is all about eating more calories than you are burning. Find out your maintenance calories (# calories that you eat to not gain or lose weight) and eat more calories. There are 3500 calories in a pound. If you eat 500 calories over maintenance you’ll gain 1lb per week. Make sure to get around 1g of protein per pound of bodyweight
I’ve seen people bulk at 15-20x their body weight. But work your way upwards in calories until you are satisfied with progress. If you think you are putting on too much fat slowly cut down calories or (if you are brave) add in some cardio sessions.