Health How often to do press ups/push ups

[killerman]

Been working out for a year now and got a question. How often should you do press ups/push ups? A trainer once told me you can do them every day as it's good for your core but the thing is press ups/push ups work your arms, chest and abs so would it be unwise to do them the day after you've worked, say, your chest as you need to take rest days? Or does it not matter. Would love to work on my core everyday but only if it's not going to interfere in me getting the rest i need. If it's not a good idea, what days should i be doing press ups/push ups on? Days when I work my legs? Or abs?

 

[Drck]

As always, it depends what you want to achieve...

Recreational push ups or press ups, you can do every day.

If you want some results, see if you can develop some plan for yourself, usually you'd want to exercise the whole body and not just triceps. There are many styles and thousands plans online, it's pointless to keep repeating them. The best is to exercise opposite muscles in on day, for example:

Day 1 - Arms:
10 Push ups
5 Pull ups
.... Repeat 5 series. Exercising in series is much better than doing on exercise to exhaustion.

Day 2 - Legs:
10 Squats (quadriceps)
10 Leg curls
.... Repeat 5 series

Day 3 - Arms again
Day 4 - Legs again

.... This way your muscles get plenty of rest. There are of course many exercises and many variations you can add to it....

Similarly, you can do weights say 3x per week (Mo-We-Fr) and cardio 2x per week (Tu-Th).

If you want more serious results, focus on main exercises such as deadlift, overhead press or bench press, squats, rows, perhaps add some pull ups. Generally speaking, the heavier weight the more rest in between. For example, deadlift - you might get much better results when you lift heavy weights 1-2 per week vs intermediate weight 5-6 X per week... Squats and bench, you should be probably doing 3-4 times per week for optimal results, with at least one day of rest in between...

Check out program called 5x5, IMO it's pretty good, simple and efficient. If you put lots of hard work in it you will get amazing results in strength as well as muscle size...

 

[killerman]

Yeah well, i'm purely aiming to put on muscle mass. Dont do much cardio, about 10 mins warming up and that's it, that's because when i first came in i was 5.5% body fat so i'm a pretty hardcore ectomorph. However i've made some good gains this last year and now really want to push things in my 2nd year of lifting. my program goes like this:

Day 1 - back, biceps and abs
Day 2 - chest and triceps
Day 3 - legs and abs
Day 4 - back and biceps
Day 5 - chest, triceps and abs
Day 6 - legs
Day 7 - rest

aiming for a really defined six pack aswell so that's why i do abs every 2 days and im asking about push ups. my main issue is that push ups work not just the triceps and biceps but core and chest aswell. that means that unless i work legs next day, there's one muscle groups that's being exercised 2 days in a row , which means i wont be getting adequate rest for those muscles. judging from my program, what day would it be best to do push ups on? remember im aim is to get ripped and shredded, i dont have to worry about burning fat as i dont have any.