Wondering if 4 sets of 6 dumbbell floor presses, then 3 sets as many pushups as possible, and lastly 3 sets of as many incline pushups as possible would be enough to strengthen my chest for once a week, I’ll also be doing some tricep stuff after that. I’m wondering if pushups won’t strengthen my chest enough doing them like this once a week, compared to 6 more sets of bench pressing. I’m also unsure if, because of how many reps you do with pushups, if I’ll overtrain and strain/tear my pecs. Advice please? Is this good or not? Don’t have access to barbell bench for a little while.
If DBs are all you have, sure, do pushups and floor press, or lie on a bench for the DB Press, but no, you’re not going to overtrain or tear a pec from doing pushups, haha
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What exactly is your main end goal?
Want to train for fighting. Will 3 sets of db floor press, then 3 sets pushups, 3 sets incline pushups be enough weekly to equally progress in strength comparable to 3 sets barbell bench, 3 sets db bench, 3 sets incline barbell bench? I assume not, but how much less will pushups strengthen me over months than benching would? I could bench over 200 pounds before I took a year off and I’m just getting back.
Sadly i can only do db floor press, i can’t get into position with dbs on a bench cause bulging disc.
I mean, benching 200 is fairly light weight, so I don’t think you’ll have a problem doing pushups, and if you want to fight (which, if you can’t even lie on a bench because of your bulging disc, then you might want to have a game plan), there aren’t too many fighters worrying about what they bench anyways. This is all a bit confusing.
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yeah fine. -some old school boxing coaches would even argue bodyweight moves like pushups dips etc are all you need( done deep/very good form). Get or make some TRX type handles and these will be very helpful for you also…
Yeah I only trained a year with high reps but I had been training a few years back for a couple years but had constant issues with shoulders, I’ve been in the gym long enough to bench 350 but with all the issues, I literally made progress for about a year, and then time and time again, after literally the same amount of progress, I’d get some shoulder issue, or something else and then be out for months and come back to gain back to 220 bench (one RM I calculated), and then out again, drives me insane.
My shoulders were pretty strong for only a year of training high reps, I could do 60 pound db shoulder press for 10 reps with perfect form. I know benching isn’t important in fighting, but I’m just saying I have some decent noob strength. I weigh 235 at 5"10.5 and really need to lose weight, I’m good at dieting, just didnt care about losing weight for a while.
A few push ups is not going to be a problem. If anything for fighting I would think you could do push ups daily. Just try it and see how you go and adjust from there.
If I’m doing 4 sets of 6 dumbbell presses, then 3 sets as many pushups as possible, then 3 sets as many incline pushups as possible, I wouldn’t do pushups every day between that workout, that would be over training. Not sure if you meant to switch to only pushups daily without the db presses. I’d prefer to keep some kind of lifting right now, I’ll switch off to constant pushups when my shoulder is better, but for now its very light db presses and a few pushups on my knees to take pressure off my shoulder.
Try doing push-ups from parallettes. If you’re anything me, there will be some angle where you find a lot of pressure relief on the shoulders. If you don’t have parallettes, you could use 2 v-bar handles (the ones you typically use on seated cables rows) on their sides.
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I think I’ll be fine with regular pushups as long as I start out real slow and only do them on my knees as I weigh quite a bit. Not sure how much I want to weigh as a fighter, maybe 175-180 since I’m 5"10.7 feet tall or something weird like that.
You have a very different idea of what over training is compared to me.
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You will have a very hard time overtraining on push ups.
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That’s why I’m wondering if this workout plan is even enough for once a week. Does it compare to 9 sets of bench presses for sets of 6?? As in, 4 sets of 6 160 pounds barbell bench, 75 pound dbs 4 sets of 6, 135 pounds on incline for four sets of six?
So many variables at play here that you haven’t included. My thoughts are though that if you’re using 160lbs for your bench working sets, you probably should be focusing more on getting good at push ups anyway.
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What variables do you need I’ll name them. I’m thinking, if you only need 9 sets of bench presses once a week to gain sufficient strength and muscle, but fighters do pushups 4 or maybe even 5 days a week, then how could 4 sets of bench and 6 sets of pushups be enough for once a week? That’s why I think this won’t work.
Sounds like you should focus on shoulder health and mobility …tons of rotator cuff/rear delt work and working your back from all angles
The 3 big variables when it comes to programming are frequency, volume and intensity of those, intensity is the one you haven’t mentioned at all.
It also often helps to have a vague sense of training history, current training levels, what the rest of your life looks like.
My advice stands that you should really focus on getting good at bodyweight stuff because:
- You aren’t strong
- You’re pretty big
- Barbell work seems to keep hurting you
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It doesn’t sound like your structurally stable enough to train for fighting at the moment.
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