Do you want the most excuse-proof workout plan in existence? The one minute push-up challenge is the answer you’ve been looking for! Seriously, what excuse can you possibly have to not do 1 minute of exercise each day? What is the 1 minute push-up challenge and can it really get you any results?
The one minute push-up challenge is as follows:
Every single day, set a timer and perform push-ups as fast as you can for 1 minute straight. Keep a log of how many reps you get. If you go hard and fast enough, you should reach failure before the one minute is up. When this happens, pause just long enough to crank out a few more push-ups. Repeat as necessary until the end of the minute. As the days progress, your capacity will increase and the number of push-ups that you can do within the time limit will climb dramatically. Just this one all-out set will certainly make a difference in your muscle tone, size, and stamina. Because this is such a low-volume approach, it is important to do it everyday. After all, who doesn’t have time for 1 minute of push-ups each day? Seriously, it’s one minute – no excuses.
What exactly will you gain from the 1 minute push-up “challenge”? Let’s look a little deeper.
Will one minute of push-ups really doing anything?
Absolutely! If you really go all-out for a whole minute of push ups you will experience a massive pump and almost certainly reach the point of failure.
Training to failure is important if you are not taking a high-volume (lots of sets) approach. This means that you are really maxing out the muscle – forcing it into unfamiliar territory with the number of reps that you are achieving. This is how you progress. If you do this regularly, the maximum number of push ups that you can do will definitely increase quickly.
Even though this is one of the shortest workouts imaginable, you will probably experience at least a tiny bit of soreness starting out. You will also experience some muscle growth and some toning of the chest, arms, shoulders, and even your upper back and core.
Of course the benefits of this or any other workout program depends on what kind of shape you’re already in. After all, if you’re already Mr. Olympia, or even just a regular exerciser that is in pretty good shape, it is unlikely that one minute of push-ups a day will make a whole lot of difference to your physique.
Why just one minute of push-ups is effective.
Just one minute is enough time to fully exhaust your anaerobic capacity. You will certainly reach failure and push yourself to the maximum. Every time you explore the outer limits of your capabilities you stimulate and create micro-tears in the muscle leading to growth and strengthening as they heal.
In one minute you will max out are push-ups, ohe most powerful calisthenic exercises – along with squats and pull-ups. This will also result in a great pump, and a large release of endorphins which will make you feel great by improving your mood.
One of the unseen, and possibly the most powerful, aspects of the one minute push-up challenge is the fact that the recovery time is so short. You are only doing push-ups for 1 minute so the volume is very low. the means at 24 hours is plenty of time to recover and grow.
Of course if you’re new to exercise, you may be a little sore after the first few times you do this 1 minute push up challenge. So take an extra day or two in between as needed to recover from soreness. But as soon as you are no longer getting sore you need to do this every day.
Try the one minute challenge everyday for a month, I’m sure you will see the difference.
Two approaches to the one minute challenge.
There are two basic approaches to doing the one minute push-up challenge:
- Do push-ups as fast as you can for 1 minute and try and increase the number of reps you can do overtime. This will in effect be an upper body sprint and will really get your heart racing while taking everything ounce of short-term energy you have.
- Just aiming to maintain muscular tension for the entire minute, performing your reps at a slower pace. This will mean that you have one minute of time under tension and will thoroughly stimulate the muscles involved. This way it doesn’t matter how fast you go through the reps, it won’t make it any easier – because there is no magic number to aim for.
Training for time instead of sets and reps is a novel new approach to resistance training that will get you the most out of each minute you spend in the gym. Find out more here.
How many pushups can be done in a minute?
The average male, who’s in decent shape, between the ages of 20 and 29 can typically do around 30 push-ups without stopping. Some can do more, and many are not even do this amount. As the years progress, the numbers dip even lower.
After a few weeks of performing the one minute challenge daily, your maximum output of push ups in one set will surely rise dramatically. With the upper limit being set by gravity at around 2 per second, or 120 in a minute, there is certainly plenty of room for improvement for the average person.
What kind of results can I expect from one minute of push-ups?
The first and most noticeable result will be that your stamina will increase. That is, you will be able to do more continuous push ups. The push-ups that you will do will start to be of better quality too.
After a month or two, it is likely that a previously untrained person will gain at least a few pounds of muscle. With proper diet, a male trainee could even add 10 pounds of muscle over 6+ months. If you increase the intensity and volume a little after that, your gains could still increase!
Increased strength, stamina, and muscle tone will also be benefits that you will start to enjoy from the one minute push-up challenge.
Do I ever need to increase the time I do push-ups?
If you get to the point where 1 minute is no longer a challenge, and you are going through your push-ups so fast that improvement is basically impossible, you can increase the volume or difficulty.
To increase the volume, you should either try a two minute set, or perform two one minute sets.
Once you make the leap to a 2-minute set do you see that you burn out much faster. Expect the total number of push ups that you can do in 2 minutes 2 only be about 20% to 25% more than you can do in one minute. This is because the first minute will take most of your glycogen from with your muscle cells, the short term energy supply used for anaerobic exercise. There will be little left in the tank for the second minute, causing you to take some pauses to gather enough strength for a few more push-ups.
Although a 2-minute set will be very intense, the better approach would be to do two 1 minute sets with about three to five minutes rest in between. Alternatively, these sets could be performed a different times during the same day. This could be even more effective as your performance on the 2nd set will be better than if they were back
How to increase your push-ups.
It is extremely important to keep a log and track the number of push-ups you do everyday. If you keep track of what you’re doing and try hard to improve you will surely increase the number of push-ups that you can do in a single set, or minute.
Always aim to get at least one more than you did the previous day. Some days you’ll be a little weaker than others, some days you’ll be a little stronger. But over time as long as you’re actually trying to improve you will get you better at push-ups and your number will get higher.
Can I do one 1 minute set of other exercises?
The one minute challenge is an excellent idea for a variety of exercises. Besides push-ups, another great choice is squats. But really, you can do this with pretty much any type of resistance exercise and it will be very effective.
Try doing 1 minute sets of squats, pull-ups, push-ups, and planks for a full body workout.
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What’s The Best Way To Do 200 push-ups?
I call it PPM (Push-ups per minute). Place a clock or timer near you. You could watch a movie or TV show and have the timer running. Listen to music, whatever. Every minute, on the minute, do 10 push-ups as fast as you can, then rest and stretch for the rest of the minute. Continue this for 20 minutes. You will notice that at first this is really easy, but once you’ve got a few sets under your belt, it’ll start to take a little bit longer. As the sets take longer, your rest periods become shorter, providing less recuperation for the following set. Your heart rate will be elevated for the entire 20 minutes, and for a few minutes afterwards. Providing a workout with a steadily increasing difficulty from warm up to final set.
How Can I Fix Uneven Push-ups?
So you start doing push-ups, but find that your form is uneven. One side lags behind the other, or you can’t keep your shoulders parallel to the ground. You have a weak area in the chain. Push-ups are a compound exercise, that is, they involve more than one joint. So you need to figure out where you weak point is, and train to correct it. Uneven push-ups can be corrected by doing a number of things, including smaller sets, or partial (range) reps.
