Let's begin with some of the reasons you might want to be able to do more push-ups.

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Maybe you're looking to enlist in the military or join the police force, both of which use push-ups to test the fitness of a potential recruit.

Perhaps you've seen something about how middle-aged fellas who can bang out more than 40 reps are significantly less likely to experience cardiovascular events and have a lower risk of all-cause mortality compared to men who can do fewer than 10?

Or maybe you just like the idea of being strong enough to drop the ground and complete a respectable number of reps.

All of which are perfectly valid reasons IMO.

But, for me, it was all about the money.

I had signed up for a Push Ups for Charity event to benefit the Orange County Make-A-Wish Foundation.

For those who don't know, they do some incredible work with sick kids, and I wanted to do my best to raise as much money as possible.

The goal was to do as many push-ups as possible in sixty seconds and to get people to sponsor you on a per push-up basis.

Between all my sponsors, I was earning $35 per push-up, so there was a chance to make a good amount of money for the kids.

Plus, if we're being honest (and we are), a healthy dash of pride was also involved.

There would be a crowd there; my friends, sponsors, and wife would all be in attendance, and I felt like anything less than fifty reps in sixty seconds wouldn't be a good look for me.

Four weeks before the event, I tested myself and face-planted after a grinding 36th rep.

A month wasn't long enough to pack on enough extra muscle to help me get the job done.

So, I needed a way to what I already had and crank it up to 11.

Grease The Groove.

I first learned about the concept of Greasing The Groove (GTG) from Pavel Tsastsouline 's book on bodyweight training, "The Naked Warrior."

Pavel is considered one of the smartest minds in strength training and has a unique way of distilling advanced principles into exactly what works in the field.

Which is why his methods are so popular among both special forces and elite athletes.

In the book, he explained how doing multiple sub-maximal sets throughout the day builds synaptic pathways in your brain, making you stronger at a specific movement.

Pavel likens our muscles to cars with six-cylinder engines, with most of us only able to fire three cylinders at a time. By improving our neurological "groove," we can use five or six cylinders without needing extra muscle.

Although in the book, he applies the technique exclusively to higher-tension, lower-rep exercises like the one-arm push-up and the pistol squat, I also suspected that it would work wonders for developing strength endurance and helping me increase my reps.

The Plan.

The mile-high view of GTG is that you train 5 - 7 days a week and approach your training sessions more as a practice than a workout.

You perform multiple relatively easy sets throughout the day, and each rep should be clean and controlled, going no harder than 80% of your best effort

Pavel recommends taking a minimum of 15 minutes between sets, although longer rests are even better for this type of training.

The fresher you are, the better.

GTG reinforces muscle memory and neural efficiency and gradually increases strength without overtraining or fatigue.

The hardest part of this protocol is trusting the process.

Most of us have been programmed to think that if we want to get stronger, we need to crush ourselves during each workout.

This has some validity if the goal is to build muscle, but it is not the case when developing strength.

Legendary powerlifter Ed Coan, who deadlifted 901 lbs at a bodyweight of 220 and set over 70 world records, is known for never hitting failure in training and for taking long, decadent breaks between lifts in the gym.

His approach emphasized consistent, submaximal efforts to promote steady strength gains while minimizing the risk of overtraining and injury.

And among elite strength athletes, this is the rule, not the exception.

I set the goal of banging out at least eight sets a day.

Some before going to work in the morning, a few sets between clients at the gym, and then a set or two when I got home.

On days I felt good, I would do more. On days I was dragging, I'd just hit the minimum and hang it up. And I never pushed harder than an eight out of ten effort.

As the weeks went by, I noticed the amount of reps it would take to feel like I was in that 50 - 80% effort range started to creep up.

At first, I felt myself hitting that point at around 20 reps. By the end of week 2, I was comfortably getting in the mid-30s.

And not only were the reps going up, but they felt quicker and more explosive. I was becoming more efficient at the movement.

The plan was working.

As the event got closer, I was doing multiple sets of 40+ throughout the day, and it felt almost effortless.

So, how well did it work?

On the day of the event, I was able to bang out 73 push-ups in 60 seconds, more than doubling my number from four weeks earlier and raising over $2500 for Make-A-Wish.

That meant I had helped make a child's wish come true and earned some worthwhile bragging rights, which I have just exercised in this article.

I'd say that qualifies as a success and then some.

Stay Hungry,

Adam