pullups, dips, abs, and pushups

[stepaukas]

i have an unemployed buddy of mine and he asked me if doing 100 pullups and a ton of ab work on mon, wed, and fri, and then doing 100 dips and 300 pushups on tues thurs sat will build him up.
he said he seen on the military sites how they train doing these movements and they sure looked ripped and built. i told him about a site i heard about. stewsmith.com. he went to this site and seen navy seals looking very fit and ripped, so he is going to try it. now the seals and rangers do a lot more reps on these movements, so he said he'll start with these numbers and go from there. any opinions on this kind of training?almost like gymnastic training and those dudes are built..
can you get built doing these movements, and whats the min number of these 4 exercises you need to get that ripped look?
i didnt know. i guess you can do lots and look like a gymnast..

 

[FMJ]

I would say chances of next to nothing for this training to be successful.
It sounds like it would do little else than lead to the worst case of overtraining imaginable. You can get any fat bastard to do these movements and he'll never look ripped because "ripped" comes from low bodyfat.
The skinniest 100 pound kid can look ripped if he's got thin enough skin.
On the other hand you can do pullups till you're blue in the face (which I'm sure 100 of them will do) and you won't get any more "built" if you don't have your diet dialed in. How you gonna grow muscle without food?
Lastly, while pullups, dips and pushups are all excellent moves, they won't do you much good with those twiggy little legs you'll be struting around on. A balanced workout, a balanced diet and patience. That's how you look like navy seal. Otherwise you'll just look like a walrus.

 

[Marat]

Gymnasts and other athletes look the way they do, for the most part, for factors that are out of the general public's control. Additionally, not all elements of their plans are published: diet, additional training, drugs etc.

Therefore, following their plans is not necessarily a practical idea. This goes with actors too. Lots of people hop onto the "Jason Statham workout" and the "300 Workout" --- however, due to poor nutrition, terrible programming, and perhaps lack of drugs, they do not get the results that are expected.

If your buddy is deconditioned, doing just about any exercise will get him some sort of results. Additionally, psychological factors effect his results; by exercising more, he may start eating 'healthier' and thus lower his caloric intake. This will cause him to lose a bit of fat and therefore making him look a bit leaner. Losing fat makes many individuals mistakenly believe that they have grown bigger, and usually these results get attributed directly to the routine instead of the loss of fat. In time, he'll adapt to that routine and he'll stagnate. If he has some reasonable athleticism, this will come sooner than later.


I'd recommend ditching that routine and getting a more effective plan. Reading the link in my signature would be the first step towards doing that.

 

[BigBackGrips]

Marines and Seals look they way they do because they live the lives of Marines and Seals, and it's more than just their workout. If your friend wants to look like a Seal, he should join the Seals. Otherwise, he's just doing the part he sees on TV.
www.BigBackGrips.com

 

[kyoun1e]

You're not going to get "built up" doing that. Those are off the chart endurance rep ranges. You're going to get real good at those movements, but I would say you are not going to grow nor get any stronger in other movements.

Very low reps for strength gains. Like 1-5 reps. 5-8 reps for strength and gains.

KY

 

[CowPimp]

He might notice some modest gains in muscle mass early on, but he's going to stagnate pretty quickly I bet. If he isn't planning on getting much bigger, and is simply looking to get leaner without losing the muscle he has, then I think that is quite doable with an approach like this assuming appropriate nutritional habits are used.

One thing to keep in mind about gymnasts is that they are always really short, and that is hard to notice while they are on camera. If you are 5'2", then you can weigh in at 150 pounds and look pretty jacked. The other thing you have to keep in mind is a lot of the movements they are doing are a lot more difficult than dips and pushups, depending on the event. You cannot use that as empirical evidence to suggest your friend's routine would be effective at building muscle mass.

 

[SNC]

It will build him up a bit.

Dips are an awesome exercise for building mass. Most untrained individuals struggle to do 1 or 2 FULL DIPS, esp. if they are heavy.

If "pull-ups" are same or similar to CHINS, then again that's an awesome mass building. Again, it depends on reps, and the individual's bodyweight. If he struggles to do a few then it will build mass.

Press-ups are generally a bit easier and high reps (15, 20+) can be achieved instantly, or quite quickly and easily for many individuals.
Doing press-ups will promote a little bit of growth and build endurance and might even make a noticeable impact on the appearance of a completely untrained individual but anything where reps are high like that wont result in any significant increase in mass.