For the most part, the traditional style of doing pushups will not increase the amount of weight you can bench press. Muscles respond with increased size and strength as long as the resistance -- your body weight -- you are using forces them to adapt. If you have never performed a bench press before or the weight you are using is less than the effort to do a pushup, then your bench press will improve. However, once your bench press exceeds the effort of a pushup, your muscles will cease to adapt.
Variations
Variations of the traditional pushup will continue to add resistance to your chest and triceps muscles, thereby, forcing them to adapt and get stronger. When muscles get stronger they, in turn, get bigger and the bigger a muscle is, the more it can lift. For instance, if you train with a partner, they can either place weights on your back or press down on you as you are performing a pushup. If you are alone, you can begin by doing pushups from your knees, then progress to the balls of your feet and finally elevating your feet. These variations will increase the stress placed on your muscles.
Endurance
You will find that after concentrating on an exercise program consisting of pushups, the number of push ups you can perform at one time will increase significantly to 20, 30, 40 and beyond. While this increase in repetitions is proving that your chest and triceps muscles are adapting to the work load you are placing upon them, this result will do little to increase your bench press. The reason for this, is that this type of training is concentrating on muscular endurance and not size. Hypertrophy training requires that you increase the weight the muscles are forced to lift.
Periodization
There is a benefit to incorporating pushups into your exercise program. Your muscles cannot be trained perpetually for a program of hypertrophy and strength. Certain other elements must be a part of your training in order to maximize results. These elements include: rest, the time your muscles use to repair and adapt, and muscular definition, the portion of your program where you lower the weight being used and increase the amount of repetitions. This scheduled variation of training is referred to as periodization and is another way of maximizing your muscular response.
Conclusion
When you first begin an exercise program, where size and strength improvements are your goals, pushups can be used beneficially to increase your bench press. Even later on, when you have progressed from a beginner to an intermediate, weight training program, push ups can have positive results. However, the effect that pushups have on increasing your bench press is limited. Once your chest and triceps muscles no longer need to adapt to the resistance of a pushup, the positive effect on your bench press will be negated.
References
- "Serious Strength Training"; Tudor Bompa, Mauro Di Pasquale and Lorenzo Cornacchia; 2003
- "Fitness and Health"; Brian Sharkey; 2002
- "Human Physiology"; Lauralee Sherwood; 2004
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