How Many Repititions?

Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005

One of the most common questions I hear from people who are following my Shaolin Fitness Secrets routine is “how many repititions should I do?”

It depends on the exercise but in general, once you can do 25 reps (and often less), it’s time to freshen up the routine.  Now you might ask – “Okay, are you saying, once I can do 25 push ups, I should move on to something else?”  

No, I’m not saying that, but you’ll note that regular push ups aren’t in Shaolin Fitness Secrets.  Finger tip push ups are – and I wouldn’t do high repetitions of that because of the stress on the finger joints.  Regular push ups are found within the Deck Squat variation recommended at the beginning of the book to help people get in shape fast – but even then I advise shooting for a goal of 25.

As for regular push ups, my School’s workout sets a goal of 50 within 2 minutes. After that, I recommend people try to cut their time.  As I’ve said in the past, any routine that requires me to do 125, 150, 175 of anything is going to bore me, while causing me to spend too large a percentage of my valuable training time doing one thing only.

Instead of focusing on reps at all, I suggest we try to focus on not missing workouts.  Even if your goal is to only train 3 times a week, you’re better off putting your energy into making those 3 times happen week after week, than you are trying to push yourself to more reps, more weight, longer duration without ever breaking out of the stagnant cycle of an on-again off-again workout schedule.

If all you manage to do is keep up regular training, your body will answer most if not all of your questions about how many, how much, how long, etc.

So focus on not blowing off workouts and watch the good things start to happen to your body, your self-discipline, and your self-esteem.

Take care.  Train like you mean it (regularly).

Rob LaPointe