Death, Taxes &amp; Push-ups Review

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(More customer reviews)This is an extremely unbalanced and ineffective 'exercise plan'.

I am a big proponent of bodyweight exercise so I thought that this might be good.I could not have been more wrong.

I was a hardcore weight training guy for 20 years or so.The results that I got were very good in most ways.I developed great strength and muscularity.Unfortunately, my flexibility suffered.It also started adversely affecting my joints.

The thing that really got me to look into doing something else was martial arts.It was great to have lots of strength, but my decreasing flexibility (from weights) became a problem.For that reason, I started looking into an alternative several years ago.

At that time, I became familiar with Matt Furey's Combat Conditioning.That allowed me to maintain good strength while improving my flexibility.That program is also good for cardiovascular fitness.Doing extremely high repetitions will definitely work on the heart and lungs.I also started reading other material on bodyweight training and decided that it was a great method.

There are two main problems with 'Death, Taxes & Push-Ups'.The first one is that it is totally unbalanced.The author only does push ups.There is no leg work at all.Although pushups affect a lot of the body, they do virtually nothing for the legs when one is just doing standard pushups as the author advocates.It reminds me of some 'lifters' that I have known over the years who only do upper body work.Although they might develop a lot in that area, it was quite humorous if one ever sees them wearing shorts as they really just have 'chicken legs' that look ridiculous under a well developed upper torso.Not only does that look silly, it is dysfunctional.The legs are the foundation of one's whole body.It is laughable to think that one can be considered fit without strong legs.It may be quite telling that the only picture of the author shown in this book shows him head on in pushup position.His legs are not showing at all.

The other huge problem with this approach is that it is really obsessive.The author claims to have done 10,000,000 pushups in 25 years.He says that he does a minimum of 1000 per day.No days off.No rest days.No time off if he is sick.Not only that, but he 'banks' any pushups he does over 1000 per day in case he ever must have a day off.He says that he has 90,000 pushups in his bank.

The human body needs rest.That is one of the most important components of building strength.A person also needs to have downtime whe he/she is ill.The body needs that to recuperate.Although Skup sort of acknowledges that by having a 'bank', it sounds like he never uses it.

I fully recommend bodyweight training for a variety of reasons.It is good for strength, endurance, and flexibility.It also has very little injury potential.It is important to train one's legs as well as upper body.It is also important to rest and focus on other things in life besides pushups.

For anyone interested in bodyweight training, I would recommend the previously mentioned Combat Conditioning by Matt Furey. One might also want to check out training materials by Jack LaLanne or Charles Atlas.In addition to those, I would highly recommend Pushing Yourself to Power: The Ultimate Guide to Total Body Transformation and The Miracle Seven: 7 Amazing Exercises That Slim, Sculpt, and Build the Body in 20 Minutes a Day.These have all of the positives of Skup's book without any of the bad parts.

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Product Description:
Benjamin Franklin once wrote, 'In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.' Two hundred years later, Ted Skup adds one additional certainty: push-ups. In Death, Taxes & Push-ups, Skup confesses his secret obsession with the exercise and how it transformed him into a 'lean, mean, pushing machine.' He contends that with fitness levels at an all-time low, fitness should be a national priority. He also shows that the most important element in becoming and staying fit is consistency, which is achieved through a fitness program that you can perform anytime or anyplace. You have an arsenal of exercise options at your disposal, and push-ups are the ultimate choice.
Skup also takes on the 35-billion-dollar fitness industry and explains why it is failing us, with its bogus claims, magic bullets, and quick fixes. Although the fitness industry may not want to hear it, push-ups are free no equipment, no gimmicks and totally portable. They work for busy executives as well as people with tight budgets. The definition of good health is a sense of well-being, and Death, Taxes & Push-ups will be your guide to reaching that goal.
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