If you have been a part of The Bald Brothers community for sometime, then you’ll know that we always have some sort of a push up challenge which we take part in.
I recently just finished the 30 day push up challenge, and below I breakdown how I felt after it all.
Push ups.
The best bodyweight exercise going around for men to work out their upper body?
We think so!
Ever since I started using bodyweight workouts as my main source of high intensity training, push ups have been at the core of those workouts. And I always make sure that I do a decent amount everyday, no matter what.
If you have been following our content at The Bald Brothers, you will have realized that we have various workout challenges and bodyweight workouts that we endorse.
I decided to start off 2021 with our 30 day push up challenge, as I spent the time in quarantine and wanted to use my time to build strength.
In this article I am going to get into the difficulty of the push up challenge and what benefits I felt after 30 days.
As with most things related to bodyweight training, time and consistency are key.
Quick results don’t happen!
The 30 Day Push Up Challenge
See also:
- The Best Bodyweight Exercises For Small Spaces
- The Best Morning Workouts For Men
- The 30 Day Ab Challenge: Push Yourself For A Month
The past year or so I have started doing push ups almost everyday.
At the moment I currently do about 100 to 150 push ups on most days, together with whatever workout I plan for that specific day.
And to be honest, I feel really good, strong and I haven’t been in better shape.
So if you feel that you need to up your push up game a bit, or if you are already pretty good at them and would like a challenge, then download this free 30 day push up challenge where you’ll complete 3000 push ups in a month!
The Benefits Of Push Ups
Let’s get back to basics and delve into the benefits of doing push ups and incorporating them into your bodyweight workout routines.
Here are five obvious, yet very important benefits of push ups that we often forget:
#1. Increase Strength
Sounds obvious to many people except those that actually do the push ups.
Most men don’t realize how much they can improve their upper body strength by doing push ups very frequently.
Push ups give you a more natural and functional strength base, and I can feel the difference when doing heavy pushing and lifting!
#2. Build Core Strength & Stability
Correct push up form will require you to activate your core, which in turn will increase core strength.
#3. Can Be Done From Any Location
The best benefit of all.
You don’t need a gym to do push ups, which means you have no excuses to miss doing them!
Literally, you can just drop down anywhere and pump out a few push ups (remember your form as per the video below!).
You can smash out push ups in the bedroom, bathroom, kitchen or even your office floor which will only take you a few seconds/minutes to complete.
#4. Saves Time & Money
If you decide to make bodyweight fitness your primary way of keeping fit, then you’ll save a lot of money by not joining a gym or buying a lot of equipment.
On top of that, you save time by not having to travel back and forth to the gym, pay for parking and getting stuck in the rush hour traffic!
#5. Helps Daily Life
As I mentioned earlier, push ups are a good functional exercise to do which can help you in everyday life.
Think about how often you push things around the house, open doors, shut things and carry things around etc.
You’ll definitely feel a difference in strength in your everyday life from doing frequent push ups.
How To Actually Do A Push Up
Below is a video demonstrating how to do the perfect push up.
Be ruthless on getting your form and technique correct from the start.
How I Felt Doing The Push Up Challenge For 30 Days
Let’s get to the main part of the push up challenge – the challenge itself!
The challenge is really simple.
Do 3000 push ups in a month broken down into a certain number of push ups a day.
As the days go on, we increase the number of daily reps.
As I was already doing 100 to 150 push ups on most days, I decided to up the ante and do 200 push ups a day for 30 days.
If you have just started incorporating push ups into your workout routine, then I recommend you stick to the 30 day push up challenge guidelines.
My goal before the challenge started was to do 200 push ups a day for 30 days.
I also incorporated 30 to 40 pull ups everyday in between push up sets (more on this in a different article later on!).
This works out to 6000 push ups and over 1000 pull ups in a month.
I thought this was a good way to start 2021 by building muscle mass and strength while doing a functional exercise.
Sounds simple enough, right!?
Well I must admit it got easier after ten days, and once my muscles were used to it, I was really starting to enjoy it.
Some personal benefits I noticed and felt after doing the push up challenge:
#1. Increase In Energy Levels
I usually do my exercises in the morning before I start my working day.
Doing 200 push ups a day got my heart rate high, and gave me the necessary energy boost for the day.
#2. Lost Belly Fat
As mentioned above, push ups activate and workout your core muscles.
I found more myself to be more lean, and lost a lot of fat in my stomach after increasing my push up and pull ups.
#3. Increase In Explosive Power
Push ups strengthen your short twitch fibre muscles and with a fast pull and push movement being done consistently over 30 days, I found myself having more explosive power.
#4. Strengthening Of Back & Lateral Muscles
Push ups not only helped strengthen my core, but also helped strengthen my back and lateral muscles.
The benefits of this are that my posture is now better, and I suffer from less lower back pain because my core has strengthened.
Will I Keep Doing Daily Push Ups?
No doubt!
Going from 100 to 200 push ups a day was tough initially, but my body got used to it and I really started to enjoy it.
My body took some time to get used to it but after ten days it felt comfortable and good.
I felt stronger and could feel my general functional strength increase tenfolds.
I have set myself a sustainable goal of 1000 push ups and 300 pull ups a week, so that I can also incorporate other workouts into my schedule.
Together with my weekly high intensity interval training, yoga and running workout routine, I feel that this is a solid weekly workout shift.
Conclusion
All I can say is that If you wanna build upper body strength, you have to incorporate the push up into your fitness routine.
Get the technique correct, be consistent in your workouts and you will find yourself building that upper body strength.
As I said above, don’t expect push ups or any other exercise to change your body and shape in a month.
It just doesn’t happen like that!
The key is that you need to put in the work and be very consistent, and this applies to all workouts and exercises you do!
After years of doing push ups, I just don’t get sick of them.
Of course it is a good idea to take a break from them every now and then, and thereafter you can start off again!
Cheers,
Will