time between reps

I have a question about strength training.  I know keeping the time between reps short will increase calorie burn, but does it affect muscle growth?  Basically I want to know if I do a set of 50 push ups within a 30 minute time frame will have the same muscle building result as doing 25 in the morning and 25 at night.  Anyone know?

Not to be a butthole or anything, but why not do three sets of heavy bench presses instead of gaggles of pushups? You'll get better results.

I do pushups, too but not for strength training. I use them during my interval circuits. In that situation I fire them off as fast as I can

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The muscle/strength building qualities of any exercise is based on how much more weight you can move.  If you can't increase the resistance, you won't get stronger or build muscles past a certain point.  If you can already do 50 pushups, pushups aren't going to get you any stronger/bigger, it doesn't matter if you do them all at once or split them up.

OH, well that answers that.

Can you do those handstand push ups? I'd break my neck.

Anyway I can't see how doing your reps all at once or twice a day would make a difference in the strength you build but obviously it would make a difference if endurance was something you were working on

Original Post by floggingsully:

The muscle/strength building qualities of any exercise is based on how much more weight you can move.  If you can't increase the resistance, you won't get stronger or build muscles past a certain point.  If you can already do 50 pushups, pushups aren't going to get you any stronger/bigger, it doesn't matter if you do them all at once or split them up.

 He could get fatter and increase the weight.

More to the point, he could start working on one-arm pushups, and explosive clapping pushups. Those last ones won't do a thing for his maximal strength, but it will do wonders for his explosive strength. (Ross Enamait can do triple clap pushups - that takes explosive strength!)

 You don't have to invest a lot of money into finding something passably heavy around the house to lift, it doesn't need to be a formal weight to be useful. And there is a few examples of Egyptian artwork older than the pyramids showing people working out with sandbags ;)

 I have Ross' book Never Gymless - found it useful when I was on a bodyweight kick a while back. Now, you're never going to get the same kind of results from a bodyweight-only approach as you will with one that incorporates external resistance, but if you are after results more in the combat endurance space than the strength space Ross' training methods are brilliant, he's famous for training up fighters who simply outlast their opponents.

also check out bodyweightculture.com since you dont want to do weights. its interesting.