Having been doing things like pushups, sit ups and crunches first thing in the morning of late (I find it's an excellent way of getting my brain into gear and waking myself up), it's had me looking at ways of improving my push up numbers.

Now, when I started a while back, I could do maybe five, and that was with not too strict form. I'm a big lad (currently 220 or so), so push ups are naturally quite hard work. At a push, I can now do 20 or so with strict form (elbows into sides, Royal Marines style), but I want to do more.

Looking into this, someone suggested just having a set interval and doing ten or so every time. On Wednesday I was doing this every half hour or so at work, and added to the ones I did in the morning before I left the house, I totalled 225 reps. The idea of this is that your body gets used to the movement, and as with all things, gets better at it. Although the exercise is no doubt beneficial, I'm sceptical of it raising my numbers (in terms of consecutive push ups) very much.

The next day, I discovered this: http://hundredpushups.com/index.html. This seems nice and progressive, and shouldn't take too much time. I'm considering giving it a go - anyone else up for it?

If I start, I'm going to probably leave it a few weeks before I begin- I've got a motorcycle get together with some mates in a fortnight, and camping and beer are not conducive to motivation! It will doubtless be a weekend of multiple health sins, but will benfun nevertheless!

Once I get into the Autumn, then I'm starting a new fitness program anyway (I have my reasons for waiting until then, I won't bore you with them here...) so this will be a nice little compliment to what I'm already doing.

I can do about 30 - 40 push ups consecutively right now. I've never been able to do more than 50. I took a look at that hundredpushups website and the program for 6 weeks looks easy enough to follow. I just wonder if by following it, if in fact I will be able to achieve 100 consecutive push ups. I'm up for giving it a try though!

I checked out that website... looks intriging... I will give it a go...

I also saw a link to 25 pull-ups on there too, but they haven't finished the website yet. I think I will try that too! I have never been able to manage more than 5 or so at a time. I think that is my weakest area.

Thanks for the link LG!

I'm going to start this challenge today!!! I'm actually going to go do my pushups for today after I write this post!

I made a dummy run last week before I went away this weekend. Absolutely kaput after the weekend's tomfoolery (just got back from Wales a couple of hours ago), so won't start the program properly this week, but will be doing push ups as usual.

I started with week 3 on Monday since I was able to do more than 25 consecutive pushups. Today is day two of week 3 and I'm not looking forward to it! Monday was hard! But I will do it! My arms are still sore!

I think the biggest surprise that I am feeling right now is how sore my abs are! I didn't realize pushups uses your ab muscles so much! As I was doing day 2 today, I could really feel the soreness of my abs on every rep that I took. This is a good indicator showing me that this workout challenge is doing good things for me!

Well I started week two of this workout yesterday. The workouts are getting harder, but I do feel like I am getting stronger. I am really enjoying the challenge of this workout!

Hi All,
I have check the link and I have no doubt that with good plan and proper diet you can increase your physical work.
Just 1 question I want to ask, will doing 100 push ups healthy?
I have read that excess of exercises is also harmful for your body.
I would like to know before I will go for 100 pushups.

You shouldn't go from doing 0 pushups to doing 100 pushups without working your way up first. If you follow this program and work your way up to 100 pushups, there is no reason why this would not be healthy. Good luck!

Did you ever complete this, Tammy? After I had that niggle in my shoulder I had to lay off the pushups for a while, but despite the odd twinge, it seems pretty much sorted now, and I've just completed week one of the program - definitely finding it a lot harder than I did before.

On the plus side, after treating myself to a shiny new iPhone, I downloaded the 100 pushups app, which not only shows me what number of reps to do, but also has the various timers built in, plus a reminder function that can be set to give me a nudge to remember to do it!

I did come close to completing this, but then I went to Hawaii and never continued when I got back. It was a good workout though and really felt stronger! Push ups were definitely easier to do then compared to now!!

That's cool that they have an app for this workout! Reminders to do it is awesome! I would have needed that!

Pushups are a very common exercise to do for upper body strength. It is a simple exercise to do because it requires no equipment. Most people never get to the point of maximizing their pushups because that would take quite a bit of fitness. Here are a few answers to some questions you might have about including this type of exercise in your workout routine.

I started doing pushups a few weeks ago. Every day when I got home from work I would do pushups before getting into the shower. I started out being able to do 10 pushups. Now I do them differently (arms straight out to the sides instead of out in front of me), I can do 20-25 at a time, and I do them both in the evening when I get home from work, and in the morning before I get in the shower to go to work. I don't do them every morning though, I miss 1-2 mornings a week due to being in a rush to get out the door.

That's great! You should keep doing them and then try and do this challenge reaching your way up to 100 push ups!