to exhaustion

derbygraham
derbygraham Posts: 47 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
Forgive me for this convoluted question. Perhaps I can word it differently if it doesn't make sense.

Imagine starting the day with a round of press-ups with the intention to do as many press-ups during the day, as possible. I am looking at what limits us and how to get over it.

For example, For my first round of pressups I am limited by pure exhaustion. My arms will just not push past a certain number. However if I wait a few minutes, I can do another round. Perhaps not as many as the first round but still I can do some.

What has happened between the first round and the second round ?

If I was to carry on this way, "a round of exercise followed by a rest of a few minutes". How many rounds could I do until the next barrier is hit ? What is this barrier ? Could it be muscle damage ? Perhaps pure mental fatigue ?

Looking forward to hearing your views, experiences, ideas.






Replies

  • wi1234567890
    wi1234567890 Posts: 57 Member
    I’ve heard Pavel Tsatsouline talk about “greasing the groove” in which you’ll end your set as soon as you start to feel fatigue but way before exhaustion. You’ll spread out the sets throughout the day. It is low intensity, you accumulate very little fatigue, but you get better at that particular exercise and at some point you are able to add more reps.
    What exactly are your goals by spreading the press ups throughout your day but doing them to exhaustion? Give it a try and see what happens. Nothing wrong with experimenting.
  • derbygraham
    derbygraham Posts: 47 Member
    wi1234567890 wrote: »
    I’ve heard Pavel Tsatsouline talk about “greasing the groove” in which you’ll end your set as soon as you start to feel fatigue but way before exhaustion. You’ll spread out the sets throughout the day. It is low intensity, you accumulate very little fatigue, but you get better at that particular exercise and at some point you are able to add more reps.
    What exactly are your goals by spreading the press ups throughout your day but doing them to exhaustion? Give it a try and see what happens. Nothing wrong with experimenting.

    Thanks WL. I was worried about the replies I would receive but your reply restored my faith.
    My goal is to do 10 pulls up. At the moment I cannot do a single one. I spent everyday in June doing 100 sitsups and 100 press-ups. I spread them out over the day and I basically do a rep that is a number I reach when I hit a barrier. (For press ups I could only achieve 5 per rep last month. Now I can do 35 in one rep :) )

  • SnifterPug
    SnifterPug Posts: 746 Member
    https://medium.com/house-of-hypertrophy/should-you-train-to-failure-to-build-muscle-5eeaac9a4a08

    You might find this article about training to failure of interest. I'm currently in a hypertrophy phase of training so I am doing high volume exercises with short rest periods and am training to (or very close to) failure on push ups and pull ups. When I fail mid-set I will regress the movement or add assistance to complete reps (e.g. proper form on the way down of the push up but drop to knees on the way up, or adding an extra band for assisted pull ups). The important thing is to be able to do what you are doing with tolerably good form. The exercises may not be as pretty as they could be but you don't want to be losing form completely.
  • derbygraham
    derbygraham Posts: 47 Member
    SnifterPug wrote: »
    https://medium.com/house-of-hypertrophy/should-you-train-to-failure-to-build-muscle-5eeaac9a4a08

    You might find this article about training to failure of interest. I'm currently in a hypertrophy phase of training so I am doing high volume exercises with short rest periods and am training to (or very close to) failure on push ups and pull ups. When I fail mid-set I will regress the movement or add assistance to complete reps (e.g. proper form on the way down of the push up but drop to knees on the way up, or adding an extra band for assisted pull ups). The important thing is to be able to do what you are doing with tolerably good form. The exercises may not be as pretty as they could be but you don't want to be losing form completely.

    That is a great article. Thanks for sharing.

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