Wanting to try and stay strong, but can't go to weights.

[Sir Suomi]

Well, weights for me is officially done now that wrestling is now in the mourning, making it impossible to lift. I normally don't have time for weights after school due to homework, chores, etc. So, how do I keep trying to build up strength, especially upper body, without lifting? I'm thinking of doing 4 sets of 10 pushups and 4 sets of 15 situps alternating everyday, but I don't know if that will do much good.

[Castle of Glass]

go with your idea, but make it, if you can, 50 push up, 50 sit ups, and 15 pull ups. we have to do this everyday at my school on the wrestling team.

[Mortal Coil]

Sounds good, but try adding variation in the type of pushups you do: regular, wide, high, low, tricep, handstand... there are a lot of different muscles up there.

[Castle of Glass]

Sounds good, but try adding variation in the type of pushups you do: regular, wide, high, low, tricep, handstand... there are a lot of different muscles up there.
this is a good is a good idea, but first get the regular one correct and perfect.

[Mikedamaniak]

Add planking, and beleive it or not swinging arms back and forth very fast.

[Jack Wealthy]

Google building the gymnastics body and look through their forums. Don't just mindlessly add reps, that builds endurance. Increasing strength=increasing force output=increasing resistance. Which for bodyweight training means decreasing leverage. Google it and thank me later.

[Nellerin]

Bodyweight stuff (e.g. pushups) will get you toned but not really build much muscle. So other than using weights it will be very difficult for you to gain much muscle.

[Jack Wealthy]

That isn't true at all. Resistance is resistance. So long as it feels heavy, your body responds to it. Please explain how and why your body would not respond to an intense bodyweight exercise such as the Planche pushup, equivalent to a 2xbodyweight bench press.

[Sir Suomi]

I'm not trying to neccesarilly gain muscle, I'm just wanting to maintain my upper body strength.

[TigerBoy]

That isn't true at all. Resistance is resistance. So long as it feels heavy, your body responds to it. Please explain how and why your body would not respond to an intense bodyweight exercise such as the Planche pushup, equivalent to a 2xbodyweight bench press.

This is a point I've made myself before in this forum: "weights" are not the only answer, and I use various callisthenics including some isometrics in my core work. Bodyweight and callisthenics have their place, but they have their drawbacks and limitations. For practical purposes I don't think you are helping the OP by dismissing Seth's advice.

The biggest consideration is that not everyone is sufficiently coordinated or flexible to safely use some of the techniques that would be needed for equivalent bodyweight exercises. Some of the techniques require precarious balancing acts and plenty of injury risk as a result, and many aren't immediately accessible and need practice to be able to do in the first place.

It is very difficult to usefully graduate the resistance of bodyweight exercise and maintain full muscle extension /contraction range. Where you sacrifice leverage to increase resistance you reduce range of movement in at least some of the employed muscle groups. Isometrics by definition involve no range of movement at all. Training with reduced or no movement leads to uneven strength development across the entire range of movement, and less useful strength gains for practical purposes.

To suggest that Seth's comment 'isn't true at all' is thus incorrect: you will ultimately be limited by your own body weight, or by a compromised range of movement.

Using weights or similar resistance equipment gives you more options for graduating the resistance to suit ability, whilst maintaining full range of motion exercise and a safe, controlled body posture.