Why is it better to do 30 pushups in a row, than to do 1 pushup per minute for 30 minutes, and so on?
In: 45
Hi there!
WHAT IF I TOLD YOU BOTH OPTIONS ARE AWESOME?
Look, there are different kinds of muscle in your body, and there are different ways to exercise them.
30 pushups in a row is “conditioning”, it’s a way to prepare your muscles and heart for long duration work.
1 pushup per minute allows for time between activity, but it STILL makes you physical and that cannot be underrated.
It’s all good, and the BEST EXERCISE will always be the one you can do consistently.
its how your muscles react. when you only do 1 push-up per minute your dont push the muscles enough to cause a reaction but do them all at once and you shock the muscles causing tiny tears that will heal and grow
Very, very basically: Your muscles are like energy tanks. The energy in those tanks is depleted as your muscles do work and your body replenishes it by turning nutrients or stored energy into new “muscle fuel.”
If you do a long set of push-ups, then by the end of it, that tank, your muscles, will be “running on empty,” making your body realise that it needs a bigger tank. I.e. your muscles must grow to support the work they do.
For this growth energy is needed, again, from nutrients or stored energy. Thus, you’ll burn fat/calories by forcing your body to make your muscles work/grow.
If, however, as in your example with one push-up a minute, you were to give your muscles time to relax, then that tank will never be empty and your muscles won’t grow, as there is no need for them to do so.
Your muscle mass isn’t all turned on at once. It is turned on from the small, oxygen-heavy fibers first and then if they get tired or can’t keep up then more muscle mass is recruited, right up to the stuff that doesn’t fire unless it has to. If you do a single push-up then your muscle mass isn’t all turned on, and a break allows your small fibers to recover and lets them continue to bear all of the load of subsequent single push-ups.
By doing them all in a row you will eventually recruit all of your muscle mass and train it all, which can cause additional more distributed muscle micro trauma and stimulate more adaptation and repair.
Honestly though BOTH are worth doing. Any activity will promote an adaptive response and small amounts of activity throughout the day are totally awesome, as are blocks or more vigorous activity. Both are good. They are different but both good.
Exercise, your body is evolved to move and your body and brain are not healthy unless you are active. Physical and mental illness await those who don’t keep their body moving.
You have different types of muscle fibers that work in different ways. Some are weaker but don’t tire very easily while some are the other way around. When you use your muscles you don’t use all fibers at once, you typically recruit more when needed.
Muscle growth and adaptation happens when muscles are put through stress they can’t handle, which is why so many training methods stress the importance of going to near failure and progressively increasing the amount of weight lifted so you don’t stay in a comfort zone, instead you should aim to always overload your muscles when you work out.
Only doing a single pushup and allowing yourself time to rest in between wouldn’t stimulate your muscles enough because it’s such an easy load, no further adaptation is needed.
The other answers here touch on a lot of great points but I’d just like to add that it depends on your level of fitness. If you are only able to do push-ups at a 1 per minute pace, I.e they are difficult for you, then (You should probably switch to an easier variation) you will still be getting the benefits as that movement is challenging for your body to do and pushing yourself to do 30 in a row could be worse for you (Bad form, injury, etc). However, if that is super easy to do and by the end of the 30 minutes you could easily go on then you aren’t getting much in the way of results.
So, the important thing to think about is that it should be just challenging enough that it pushes you close to failure (Cannot do anymore with good form) whilst not being harmful. Adaptation is about consistently but gradually challenging your body. So if 1 good form push-up per minute for 30 minutes challenges you and afterwards you feel like you could barely do anymore, you’re still doing a good workout.
Because the first is HIIT and the second is moderate exercise.
High intensity exercise like doing the 30 push-ups in a row are scientifically proven to have more benefits on your lung capacity, cardiovascular health, blood sugar, and blood pressure, rather than moderate exercise of one push-up per minute.
If your goal is to be healthy, either is fine. But if you are in a situation where you just cannot seem to lose weight, or, you are on a plateau of muscle building, then you would want to go for the high intensity options to try to accomplish that breakthrough. It’s far more important that you don’t hurt yourself rather than cramming more push-ups into the span of 30 minutes.
Other than the answers given here, one other good reason is that your gym sessions would be several hours long
You can build muscle with volume, but there’s also other ways like metabolic stress (muscles filled with blood and “burning” sensation)
30 push ups in 1 set is the same volume as 30 push ups in 30 sets, but you will have better results from the first option since your intensity is higher and you’re combining 2 methods (volume+metabolic stress).
You also save a lot of time that way, you achieve the most volume in less time, but technically yeah, you could be exercising throughout the day and you would still gain muscle, it’s just not so convenient for a lot of people.
Better to hit the gym for 40min to 2h depending on your level and workout length and be finished with it.
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