From strength building to shaping your upper body – pushup has many benefits. But is it good or bad to do pushups every day?
There is no simple (yes/no) answer to this. Because that wouldn’t apply to different people who do particular numbers of pushups per day.
So, considering all the factors, below I’ll explain – should you do pushups daily or not.
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Should you do pushup every day?
When you are doing 15-20 daily pushups, you will not find any problem. However, if you are doing 40-55+ pushups every day then your muscles will not get adequate time to recover themselves. Which can lead to muscle stiffness and performance drop.
Push-up is a great exercise to build your stamina and upper body. But do not overdo this single exercise.
It’s always important to give your body adequate rest in between two workout sessions to maximise your gains and to give your body enough time to heal.
When you do daily pushups – you are training a group of muscles every day. As you begin to do more pushups per day – the chances of overtraining those muscles increase.
If you want to do pushups more often – it’s better to do pushup 4-5 days and take rest on other days. In those 4-5 days, you can do 2-3 sets of pushup per session. This will help you to train more and also give your body some time to repair those muscles.
Is pushups everyday overtraining?
If you are doing less than 20 pushups everyday then doing pushups daily will not become overtraining. Or you are doing pushups as a part of a circuit workout where you are doing 5-10 pushups in every circuit training.
However, it’s recommended even if you do less pushups you should not do pushups everyday. You can do less than 20 pushups for 30-45 days. But don’t do daily pushups for a longer time than that.
If you do pushups for an extended period then doing pushups everyday can become overtraining. And it can result in workout injuries.
Pushups every day, good or bad?
If you are only doing 15-20 pushups per day and not doing other exercises that engage your chest, shoulder, hand & back muscles then you may not find any issues. So, daily pushups can only work for those who do 20 pushups or less.
But it’s most likely that you don’t do pushups just for the sake of doing pushups. You do pushups to get its advantages and to build your body and stamina.
To get better results from pushups it’s important that you do pushups until failure and not do less number of pushups than your body can do.
While doing the last 2-3 pushups you feel the real tension in your muscles. You feel like you can’t do 1 more. If you don’t try to do those last 1-2 pushups then you are leaving some opportunity to get better results.
On the other hand, if you can do 20 pushups but do 15 pushups daily then you will never cross the 30-50+ mark if you don’t push your body enough.
Having a pushup routine can help you to do pushups more often and take adequate rest. This can help you to train efficiently and good for long term fitness goals.
Related: Morning pushup routine: From beginners to advanced level.
Disadvantages of daily push up challenge
Daily pushup challenges can attract you if you don’t find the motivation to do pushup more often. Pushup challenge can motivate you to do pushups every day. But it’s only good for beginners and for someone who does less than 20 pushups per day.
As you have read earlier in this post – when you do more pushups, let’s say 50 then after some days your muscles will become stiff & you will feel tired (if you don’t take any rest day).
People aged below 25 can recover faster from a workout but still needs 1-2 rest days per week. When you do 50 pushups for 7 days – after a certain period you will see stagnant growth. Rest days are crucial for healthy muscle gains.
This situation can become much worse if you also do other exercises or workout at the gym.
When you only do pushups, you shouldn’t do pushups for more than 5 days.
If you go to the gym or do other exercises that engage your upper body muscles – then it’s better to do pushup 3-4 days per week.
How many days to do pushups per week?
If you do 20-35 pushups per day then it’s best to do pushups 4-5 days per week.
To get optimum results from doing pushups – you should try to do multiple pushup sets (2-3) in a pushup session – once you can do 25+ pushups in one go.
Doing multiple sets of pushup can give you better results in terms of toning and muscle building.
Remember – rest days are important if you want to maximise your gains and build up your strength. By taking the proper amount of rest in between two pushup sessions your body will become capable of doing more pushups in one go.
You can check my other articles about pushups … Here are my top 3 recommendations.
