Bigger off Pushups and Bodyweight

Hi, ive been doing bodyweight excercises for a while now, usually 4 sets of like 50’s of pushups body squats and more sets of situps and other ab excercises. I feel ive gotten bigger and stronger from this along with whey protein and a good diet. Could this be true? i feel the higher reps have really defined my muscles more, making me stronger. Not huge mass, but more lean muscle mass that can help me as a Point Gaurd/SG in basketball. Give me your insight, Thanks. and tips if so. I usually switch up the muscles each day, 6 days a week.

It depends. Any type of activity will lead some degree of hypertrophy, more from some than others.

Typically speaking, high reps will train more of the slow-twitch muscle fibers and will lead to little increase in size.
And high reps has nothing to do with being defined, that is more of a function of low bodyfat levels, which comes from nutrition and training.

Start working one-arms.

[quote]mattydimes wrote:
Hi, ive been doing bodyweight excercises for a while now, usually 4 sets of like 50’s of pushups body squats and more sets of situps and other ab excercises. I feel ive gotten bigger and stronger from this along with whey protein and a good diet. Could this be true? i feel the higher reps have really defined my muscles more, making me stronger. Not huge mass, but more lean muscle mass that can help me as a Point Gaurd/SG in basketball. Give me your insight, Thanks. and tips if so. I usually switch up the muscles each day, 6 days a week. [/quote]

You feel that you’ve gotten bigger and stronger, but bigger and stronger than what? did you measure in any way? how many pounds did you gain?

People slate push ups but for centurys prisoners, the military and boxers have been packing on slabs of muscle with nothing but push ups, tried and tested, i rarely lift weights if ever any more, i like doing lots of push ups, fast and explosive. Push ups, rope climbing, heaves ( pull ups ) hurdling, sprinting and walking on your hands all rate amoung my favourites. You dont need weights to get big and strong.

A little bloke at work complained that he couldnt get big, when i asked him about going to the gym he said he never had time or the money so for a few months every time we had a cigarette break we would do push ups by the fire doors, his upper body has grown dramatically especially the outside of his arms, chest and back, we would do ladder sets, id do one, then id rest while he did one, then i`d do 2, rest while he did 2 etc then when we got to say 10 we would reverse it, it worked. I got into bodyweight training after reading an article by MMA Pride heavyweight champion fedor emelianenko who in an article stated he used bodyweight calisthenics and grappling only for his strength training.

[quote]uberswank wrote:
Start working one-arms. [/quote]

I agree.

[quote]pienmash wrote:
People slate push ups but for centurys prisoners, the military and boxers have been packing on slabs of muscle with nothing but push ups, tried and tested, i rarely lift weights if ever any more, i like doing lots of push ups, fast and explosive. Push ups, rope climbing, heaves ( pull ups ) hurdling, sprinting and walking on your hands all rate amoung my favourites. You dont need weights to get big and strong.

A little bloke at work complained that he couldnt get big, when i asked him about going to the gym he said he never had time or the money so for a few months every time we had a cigarette break we would do push ups by the fire doors, his upper body has grown dramatically especially the outside of his arms, chest and back, we would do ladder sets, id do one, then id rest while he did one, then i`d do 2, rest while he did 2 etc then when we got to say 10 we would reverse it, it worked. I got into bodyweight training after reading an article by MMA Pride heavyweight champion fedor emelianenko who in an article stated he used bodyweight calisthenics and grappling only for his strength training.[/quote]

i agree…when i was in high school we had a small weight room that was dominated by big football players so a coach told me to start doin 100 pushups a couple days a week…when that got easy i bumped it up to 200…then 300 and so on…in a few months i went from doin sets of 20 to 45 and went from benching 145 to 185…it was probably due to it being the first training i did of any kind so strength increased significantly but it still worked

Herschel Walker got pretty damn big and strong with this workout: pushups, situps and sprints. I read this in a Sports Illustrated article when I was 14. Granted, he was doing more than bodyweight for his pushups (gf sitting on his shoulders type stuff). But he says he never lifted weights before he got to UGA and they tested BP. He repped out higher at 225 than anyone else on the team.

I believe it’s possible to get big - to a point, with just bodyweight exercises.

DB

Of course you can gain mass by eating enough and doing bodyweight exercises.

You will likely gain more muscle mass if you also lift some weights.

Matters not if it,s bodyweight movements, weight lifting movements,
or odd object movements!

Just remember one thing: It’s all about Progressive Resistance!

Ever since enlisting in the Marine Corps, I’ve been doing bodyweight exercises exclusively for three years and it’s helped tremendously, not only with my endurance, but also in flexibility AND strength. I’ve been in for just over two years now. My body has also grown noticably stronger and leaner.

I feel that bodyweight exercises are ideal for military types because of the line of work that we’re in.

Here’s an article about some exercises that I use:
http://www.T-Nation.com/readTopic.do?id=459922
These are basically the foundation of my training, along with pull-ups and dips.

I dont understand, Mr.Pushups should be all over this. Maybe he’s busy banging 32 hot babes to answer cus he’s so ripped.

the biggest fan of bodyweight exercises is fedor emelianenko, PRIDE MMA heavyweight champ, check out this highlight video, the mans an android wrecking machine, keep an eyes out for the knuckle push ups and super fast pull ups

[quote]ZEB wrote:
Matters not if it,s bodyweight movements, weight lifting movements,
or odd object movements!

Just remember one thing: It’s all about Progressive Resistance!

[/quote]

I’d take that a step further and say it’s about caloric intake and progressive overload (as in, any way you can overload the muscle, not just via resistance, but also density [ex: EDT], more repetitions per set, performing each rep more explosively, etc.)

Anyways, you gotta start somewhere, and some bodyweight exercises can be extremely difficult (iron crosses come to mind, provided you have rings).