Pushups

[FootballNut]

Hi, I got a question. I was going to ask in the teen section, seeing as I'm a tender 14 years old, but then I realized I was only going to get an uninformed response, or a dumb one. I also figured that I'd get a good one from here

I want to become bigger,stronger,fast, and all that jazz, mainly for sports. Sadly, I only have access to a really crappy weight set, the kind you'd see at your local Sprawlmart. It only goes up to 100 lbs, and thats only because I ducktape little hand weights on to the bar. I discovered right away that benching, squating, and Military Pressing were easy to do with this much weight.( I'm a big 8th grader, 6'1, 190lbs) My parents won't let me buy a decent weight set, being that in one year I'll be in the HS which has possibly the best weight room in the fine state of minnesota.(at least thats what were told, lol) THere's also no gym in are town, other then the HS one and a country club "Health Club".

So, my question is what exercise's can I do that won't cause my slow twich fiber to go up, e.g doing 35 pushups for lots of sets, but will still make me stronger.( I really can't do anything that will make me less "quick". I'm already "slow", so losing any quick twich fiber would really suck)

Right now I'm trying to do weighted pushups, but since I don't have a weight belt, or whatever you'd use, I have too duck tape the Sprawlmart weights on my back. And I just ran out of duck tape.

If it helps, I have a high calorie diet, ranging around 5,000-6,000 a day, with most of my protein coming from milk, of which I drink over a gallon a day. I'm guessing I have 15% Bodyfat, mainly do to basketball.(Dear heavenly father, why do we have to be a fastbreak team?)

So, in conclusion, please help.

[FootballNut]

Please reply

[jmaths117@comcast.net_old]

I think you should:
A. Look into your school's gym if they have one
B. Look into another gym
C. Look on this forum (search button) for all the information you need.

If you want strength and power, stay in the 1-6 rep range. You can get very strong from doing all manner of bodyweight exercises. When pushups get too easy for you, do them with one hand!!!! Try handstand pushups. If you have a bar, you can do chinups, pullups or widegrip pullups. To strengthen your legs, hold your heaviest weight in your hand and do hindu squats, and jumps. Or pack weights into your backpack.
Its all about making the best of what you've got. Just eat right, and work your muscles to the max, and you will get better.

[FootballNut]

I think you should:
A. Look into your school's gym if they have one
B. Look into another gym
C. Look on this forum (search button) for all the information you need.

If you want strength and power, stay in the 1-6 rep range. You can get very strong from doing all manner of bodyweight exercises. When pushups get too easy for you, do them with one hand!!!! Try handstand pushups. If you have a bar, you can do chinups, pullups or widegrip pullups. To strengthen your legs, hold your heaviest weight in your hand and do hindu squats, and jumps. Or pack weights into your backpack.
Its all about making the best of what you've got. Just eat right, and work your muscles to the max, and you will get better.

A. our JH gym is ran by wrestlers. You can't use it if you don;t wrestle. I play basketball
B. The only other 2 gyms are HS gym which I, as an eighth grade student, am not let into during the school months.
C. DAMN THE SEARCH BUTTON. I'm a product of Americas greed and loss of all things moral, I have a right to be a lazy *******.

Man, I do try to find ways. Like I said in my first post, I ducktape Sprawlmart weights on my back. the first time I tried it, I could breath while doing the sets cause I tied the duck tape too tight round my abdonimals. I still do them though. When I go Pheasent hunting, I try to walk throught the thickest cover.And I know that as 8th grader, what I do now will have little impact on the rest of my athletic life, but darn it, I want to be the Best. The biggest. The strongest. And I'm willing to work my ass off to do it.

I Also have no chinup bar .

[tbush]

piling weights in the backpack and doing pushups seemed like a good idea to me, especially if you can't do one handed pushups yet.

[jmaths117@comcast.net_old]

A. our JH gym is ran by wrestlers. You can't use it if you don;t wrestle. I play basketball
B. The only other 2 gyms are HS gym which I, as an eighth grade student, am not let into during the school months.
C. DAMN THE SEARCH BUTTON. I'm a product of Americas greed and loss of all things moral, I have a right to be a lazy *******.

Man, I do try to find ways. Like I said in my first post, I ducktape Sprawlmart weights on my back. the first time I tried it, I could breath while doing the sets cause I tied the duck tape too tight round my abdonimals. I still do them though. When I go Pheasent hunting, I try to walk throught the thickest cover.And I know that as 8th grader, what I do now will have little impact on the rest of my athletic life, but darn it, I want to be the Best. The biggest. The strongest. And I'm willing to work my ass off to do it.

I Also have no chinup bar .

Well, I can tell you that what you do now sets the stage for your strength later in life. I can tell you that if I started lifting weights at your age I would easily be 50% stronger than I am now.

[FootballNut]

Well, I can tell you that what you do now sets the stage for your strength later in life. I can tell you that if I started lifting weights at your age I would easily be 50% stronger than I am now.

And how strong are ye now?

[SlammaJamma]

Weighted dips and pullups, and maybe overhead squats? That's all I can think of that would be challenging with 100 lbs.

[SuicideGripMe]

This is the best thing to do. Go out and buy an olympic set and bench. Anything over 15 reps becomes an endurance excercise and doesent do good for strength or size.

[Nyaz]

You're a young guy and can still do a lot with your bodyweight and a few weight plates only:

1) Go for the one-arm pushup - it's almost as good as benching (actually it's better for developing overall strength, but not in the bench press strictly - if you want to bench more you should bench more, and the same applies to squats). To master the one-arm pushup, try doing pushups by shifting more and more weight to one arm progressively until you can rep out one-armers. Work both sides equally and never go to failure. When you can do one-armers try doing them on one hand and one foot only, or elevate your feet on a chair. As someone already said, stay in the 1-6 rep range.

2) Try the "pistol", or one-legged squat for leg development. It's really hard to pull of at first; try holding onto something (a door frame for example) for support, or squat to a bench or a box (shorter range of movement) using one leg only.

3) No chin-up bar? No problem. Use a sturdy door (not door frame, which is what someone else I was explaining this to understood), grab the top of the door and chin, making sure you go all the way down on every rep. You'll have to be creative where you place your lower legs as you're so f***ing tall

4) Do neck bridges for neck and posterior chain power and flexibility (google this for description, or my post'll run 2 pages long)

5) Do clapping pushups (where you launch yourself in the air from the pushup position and clap before landing back on your hands again) for explosive power; you'll develop quite a bit of muscle too, as you won't be able to do very many at first; explosive plyometric jumps work the same way for the legs

6) Do isometric contractions (where you hold the weight in a set position, usually just before the extreme points of the motion, eg. an inch above your chest for bench press) and contract hard. You can do this to get to the one-arm pushups more quickly - just hold yourself in some position of the movement for 7-10 seconds.

[lifterg]

Get a workout partner (there must be other 8th graders in the same position).

Search "manual resistance". It is not as good as weights but probably better than what you are doing. Basically you act as each other's resistance. Your partner, a towel and some normal stuff (like chairs) and you're good to go.

With a little creativity, if you have room, you can usually scounge enough weights to get by.

[Teknique`]

piling weights in the backpack and doing pushups seemed like a good idea to me, especially if you can't do one handed pushups yet.

Great advice. Just as good as the bench press, and your core will get a good workout at the same time.

[dap272]

Push ups r great.Herschal Walker maybe the greatest running back of all time never touched a weight.All he did was body weight stuff.Just do as many as you can per set till u hit say a 100.Try to get to where u can do 500 a day.I would really work on my arm strength with the weights.Do lots of curls and extensions for your arms.Your arm strength is a real asset in any sport especialy basketball.Your bench won't help much if anything it will ruin your shot.