Hello, as we know, in order to improve muscular hypertrophy, one must do enough volume at an appropriate intensity. As someone who gets more and more advanced at their pressing, their bodyweight pushups will feel lighter obviously. So does this mean bodyweight pushups will be rendered useless for muscular hypertrophy if one decides to incorporate them into their routine or to just do them on their off days for ‘extra volume’? Since the pushups will technically not be an appropriate intensity? Thanks
You would need to do sets of many more reps over time in order to achieve sufficient motor unit recruitment. With that said, since we have evidence suggesting that taking sets to failure below intensities of about 30% 1RM is inferior for hypertrophy outcomes, so I would expect this to be the case for BW push-ups as well. So I wouldn’t say “useless”, but probably less efficient/effective for hypertrophy compared to heavier loading.
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