How long until I start increasing the difficulty of my exercises?

diogomello12

Hello guys,
After some months of trying to keep strict to my exercises and getting little to no results (for personal reasons), I decided to come up with a more fitting, flexible and disciplined abs + arms exercises that fit my routine and my needs better.

The plan consists of my final goal (what I want to achieve/the amount of reps/push ups/pull ups I want to be able to do that I cannot now). Since at this point I am way far away from my main objective, how much do you guys increase the difficulty of your exercises?

For instance, let's say I want to be able to do 40 pushups in one set, which I cannot. So I was wondering if I could increase the difficulty per week, in percentages, let's say 10% peer week.

I never train the same body parts 2 days in a row. I'm expecting to train 5 days per week, alternating between abs and arms each day.

The exercises of course don't consist of only one repetition (for example only push ups), I have a group of different exercises that I want to be able to do per day, but since I cannot at this point, I'm thinking of starting at 10% of it, for example: main goal: 100, we start at 10, and increasing let's say 10% weekly until I get to my my goal.

Is this a good idea?

Thank you very much.

SnifterPug

My gut feeling is that for something bodyweight like pushups you would do as many as you can to failure, and build up that way.

For weights the advice I have read is to pick a weight you can lift for between 8 and 12 reps. If you can't do 8 but can do 5, then fine. Work up to 12. When you can do 12 increase the weight.

If you simply set a 10% increase each week you are potentially leaving progress on the table - you may be aiming for, say, 12 pushups when in reality you could do 14. It's not an exact science of course, and some days you will be able to do more than others.

Just my opinion - others more experienced may have better advice. Good luck, anyway.

lorrpb

Set your baseline as whatever you can do now. That might be 10% of your goal on one exercise and 50% on another. Trying to add 10% per week is fine to try, but might need to be modified as you progress.

For example, if you can do 10 reps now, increasing 10% means adding one rep. When you get up to 90 reps, increasing 10% means adding 9 reps the next week. That may or may not be realistic.

This begs the question of “why” you picked these goals. What are actually hoping to achieve? Strength, body building, endurance, appearance, sport??

Azdak

Just doing the same exercise over and over and trying to increase the number of reps, you are going to plateau more quickly and not progress as much.

For pushups, that means increasing endurance by doing multiple sets, or by doing higher reps at a lower resistance. How do you lower the resistance of a body weight exercise? By doing them at an upward angle. Depending on current levels, that might mean using a chair, or a step, or a bench, etc.

You also want to increase strength by increasing the load with fewer reps. This can be done using bands, putting a weight on your back (or a dog, or a small child), or by doing decline pushups if you have the ability.

Then there is always the method of increasing body weight exercise performance by shrinking the size of your body.