Evil Russian push ups - A good workout

[mr-cooper]

I found this workout in another forum ages ago while searching the 'world wide web'

Thought I would pass on what limited wisdom I have...

Monday - first thing in the morning do a max set of the best push ups you can do. This number will determine your pecentages for the entire week. For the remainder of the day, do 20% of max every hour, until 2 hours before bedtime.

Tuesday - 30% each hour. Again stop 2 hours prior to bed.
Wed - 25% every 45 mins.
Thurs - 40% each 45 mins. You will start to really hurt!
Fri - 35% every hour.
Sat - pain day, 50% every 30 mins.
Sunday - 20% every 2 hours.
Monday morning do a max set, you then have your new improved max. You can do one other week, but never do more than two weeks in a row! To ease up or really hammar the program you can adjust the percentages, but don't adjust the timings. If you miss a set due to whatever, don't worry, you will be able to catch up on the next set.

To balance out the program, I run and add chin ups/pull ups to my day. For the first time on th evil russian, I do not suggest doing the chins or pull up, unless you are already very fit.

Enjoy the burn!


Post any results from using this in this thread, am interested in hearing what other people think.

increased my max by about 10-15 after the 1st week

[Aldo]

Looks good. The only problem I have with it is the lack of rest days, how are the muscles going to repair themselves? I mean two weeks is a long time, would it be better to haev two rest days in a week instead of going a whole week without doing a press up?

Also without any warmups you risk doing some damage if you go at it like that, though if you do a good warm up in the morning and try to keep your muscles active the whole day that shoudn't be a problem. Where did you get this from? Any more?

[mr-cooper]

Sorry i appear to have lost the URL for the site where i found this.

I see what you mean about the risk of damage and lack of rest...


One idea could be to do the same percentages, however, you could alternate between push ups and situps over a two week period.

e.g.

Monday - max effort push ups
Tuesday - max effort situps
wednesday - percentage of push ups
Thursday - Percentage of sit ups

and use the same percentages for both sit ups and push ups as i mentioned in my 1st post but for a course of 2 weeks.

This way, your working different muscle groups each day giving time for rest and muscle repair.

[Aldo]

I would think the best bet would be to just to do alternate days instead of alternate weeks.

eg

Mon- % pushups
Tue- rest/ different excersise
Wed- % pushups
Thurs- rest/ different excersise
Fri- % pushups
Sat- rest
Sun- rest

as apposed to

week one - exercise
week two - rest
week three - exercise

etc etc

Post the url if you find it. Cheers.

[mr-cooper]

I'll post it if i find it.

The only way to tell for sure how it would give best results would be to try it i suppose

I carried out the oringinal one (shown in my 1st post) over Christmas and as i said gained about 12 extra reps...

But it did hurt like hell, probably because of the lack of rest.

Another site i found with some more pushups is

http://www.milism.net/smpushup.htm

Some 'interesting' pictures but some good push ups.

[suicidal_tendencies77]

this form of training sounds very similar to a weightlifting/bodybuilding system called 'the Bulgarian Blast shock syndrome' and funnily enough it was brought to the fore by Bulgarian weightlifters in the 30s and 40s where upon they would do a maximum set of 10 barbell curls every hour all day and then repeat the next following 5 days,

although the concept is slightly different with body weight exercises people are spot on with the overtraining issues this presents i cant see it being more useful that doing it for 1 week absolute max

[rambo]

i'll have to give it a try.. would thiss be beter then say doing 200 push ups in one session i.e 5 sets of 4..

[mr-cooper]

5 sets of 4 doesn't quite make 200 pushups

Once you've carried it out, post how you got on with it.

I thought it was good becuase you have to push yourself when your in the army when you have nothing left in you so this is (almost) the same as even though your muscles are fatigued you have to keep going.

Happy pressuping (wow, a new word!)

Coop

[rambo]

sorry i ment 5 sets of 40..

will give it a try tomorrow..

[liam]

so your sayin we have to take up the whole day just doin push ups errrr no, why dont you go to the gym for 2 hours thats what me and my mate do and we feel it is really helping us and it only takes up two hours we do that like twice a week instead of all day everyday doing push ups.
Wouldnt that just damage your muscles?

[MikeB]

I reckon 5 sets of 20 every day should sort you out for both push ups and sit ups. every week test your max. then the following week increase your amount ie 5 sets of 21 or 22, 23 or however you want to do it

[Mick]

Hi all,
This Russian stuff was it from that Tsatsouline forum(Dragon Door), they also do something they call ladders explained with pull ups but can be applied to push ups aswell. The idea is this:

Do one pull up. Get off the bar. Wait the time taken to do another single pull up or have a partner do a pull up.

Do two pull ups, etc, repeat above partner does 2.

Repeat until your form suffers then start again. Reps sets for example
1,2,3,4,5,6,7
1,2,3,4,5
1,2,3
1,2
1

Apparently this is what the Spetsnaz do instead of smoke breaks during lessons with dips and pull ups, so they could pass a test of 18 palm away pull ups with 10kg of body armour

Follow this it is probably clearer
http://www.cbass.com/Pavel'sLadders.htm

[mr-cooper]

Well I'm glad to see everybody's enjoying reading and slagging off this programme (which I would like to add is NOT my own - just for the record)

BUT, has anyone other than myself actually tried it out yet? Would like to see if anyone has got results from it?

Coops

[MikeB]

Well I'm glad to see everybody's enjoying reading and slagging off this programme (which I would like to add is NOT my own - just for the record)

BUT, has anyone other than myself actually tried it out yet? Would like to see if anyone has got results from it?

Coops

I did try the "evil Russian" for a day and if i would have kept it up for a week as im sure i would have increased my max. BUT it is a little inconvenient having to do "x" amount of push ups every hour especially if you go out for a couple of hours because you can't really drop down and do push ups in your car, in a shop, office etc.

Personally i find it more convienient doing 5 sets of 20 or 4 sets of 25 for example.

[mr-cooper]

Yea I see what u mean - I did mine over the christmas hols so was home most of the time.

From Guildford eh? I aint to far from you, Im Winchester way! Have to go for a run some time! lol.

Coops