push-ups/pull-ups

[Taishar]

Hey everybody! For push-ups, would it be better to:
1. Do many rapidly
2. Do them slowly and go down deeper before pushing/pulling back up

What effects would each have, and what would be more helpful? And also, for people whose arms are always hard with muscles, are they hard from less fat, or just much more muscle? Thanks everybody!

[Misery]

It'd be better to go slowly. Feel the burn? It's working.

They get the harder arms with more muscle, and less fat combined.

[abrannan]

There are probably 100+ different ways to do push ups, and each has different advantages. Doing fast push-ups builds what they call "explosive strength" and is the basis for plyometrics. It's building focused strength for short term bursts of strength, like punching or jumping. The muscle fibers have much less stamina, but can accelerate faster. A slower pushup (Or even holding a position of a push up at a particular point) is more for increasing the fatigue on the muscle, and is used as the basis for Isometrics or static contraction training. This can stimulate a greater rebuild response in the muscles, resulting in increased mass (good for weight loss, you need to build muscle, not necessarily strength). The downside to this is that the muscles may not accelerate as fast, and the strength gains are only there in a 10-15 degree range of where the move was held.

So target your workout to what you're looking to gain from your pushups. Do you want increased muscle mass? More functional strength? Quickness? Which muscles are you trying to work?

A nice compromise would be to do something like the following.

From a standard pushup position, lower yourself down slowly (2-3 seconds) inhaling as you do so.
Once at the bottom of your motion, focus your energy and exhale quickly while pushing up as hard and as fast as you can (Your hands may actually leave the ground when you do this). Tighten your stomach muscles as you exhale, and maybe perform a tight yell ("kiai" from Karate).
Repeat to exhaustion
Move to your knees (the so-called "girl-style" pushups) and continue to exhaustion.
Stretch.