Keep in mind that only doing pushing exercises can lead to muscular imbalances.

You can create a more balanced body by doing pulling exercises like pullups or body rows in the same quantity as your pushups.

Too many people overlook this! I suggest alternating between push and pull days.

And don’t forget the cardio.

After a couple years of daily pushups, the maxreps should be over 100 and it much more closely resembles a quick cardio burst than anything resembling strength-training.

I do > 160 in a regular set after over a decade of daily pushups, it's not really an issue.

Eventually I ended up adding handstand pushups to my daily routine to bring back something strenuous.

Edit:

Both of my wrists have been broken in the past. When I started this regimen it wasn't even possible to do 20 pushups without agonizing wrist pain. Those pains are a distant memory, they vanished completely around the one year mark. Thank you daily pushups.

When you say "soldier-like physique" it evokes a level of fitness that is a good bit more than "above-average"; converging on elite.

And, a single exercise is not likely to produce that outcome in the average person. Genetic factors greatly influence specifics like fat-distribution and leg musculature (or lack thereof), hormone levels, etc.

So, the effects of one-set-to-failure will vary wildly among people, even when considering solely the targeted muscles. But, if you're lucky enough to benefit from it, it's still reasonably likely that you'll wind up looking decidedly unsoldier-like from the nipples down.

I didn't say Rambo.

All soldiers go through basic training. Basic training achieves pretty much just "above-average" fitness.

Sure, the military has PT studs, but so does your local gym. Those aren't really representative of the average soldier.

The point is you can make your general appearance comparable to the average soldier's with a very minimal investment of time and effort, and zero additional equipment. A developed upper body and solid core does wonders for a man's posture and overall appearance.

I'm confident that prospect appeals to a significant portion of the male keyboard jockey population.

I live in a military town, most soldiers just look like guys forced to do pushups every day wearing well-fitting clothes. And I'm regularly mistaken for one, even though I spend all my time at a computer.

>most soldiers just look like guys forced to do pushups every day wearing well-fitting clothes.

So, your statement was actually "most soldiers look like guys who do a bunch of push-ups, so do a bunch of push-ups and you'll look like a soldier"? Hmm.

Sure, I get that most soldiers don't technically look like Rambo, but if you weren't using that phrase as a figure of speech to convey "extremely fit", then it's kind of meaningless right? Like saying a "professional boxer's physique", then saying you were thinking of Butterbean.

So, yes, if we lower the bar to say "slightly above average", then your point is "more valid" though a good bit less revelatory. You're essentially saying "exercise will help you", which I think we can all agree on.

But, the broader point you're now making that doing anything is much better than doing nothing is certainly valid and worth emphasizing--especially for us in the HN crowd.

The point was to suggest that everyone has time to do pushups every day before hitting the shower, to substantial effect. That you don't need to join the military to access the core of what makes them more fit than the average person: a disciplined daily physical activity, regardless of its brevity.

I'm operating under the assumption that this is of value to the average young sedentary male computer geek I presume the HN crowd is largely composed of. Most people seem to be under the impression it requires hours of workouts and access to special equipment to see any results. The law of diminishing returns applies very strongly here, meaning you can see a significant portion of what's on the table with very little investment.

Using a soldier as reference was more intended to illustrate that doing the thing consistently every day is the important part, and is a major component of what the military forces onto its soldiers. You don't need a gym membership, you need a barrier to getting on with your day that shouts in your face "get down and give me $number", every, single, day, indefinitely.

> Only insofar as some actual soldiers never attain some kind of soldier-like physique.

Doesn’t this qualification end up nullifying your original comment?

He means that there are exceptions but that that comment is true in general.