We read the studies. You get the answers.

Halfway through a set of one-arm overhead extensions, the dumbbell swaps hands, and the second arm gets the identical weight the first one got, just like last week. Somewhere in the swap an odd thought drifts in, of letting this arm keep today's dumbbell for good while the other moves up a size only once it can finish the top number of reps in its range.

Bench press days leave a record. The plates on the bar carry a number, logged in your phone, waiting to be beaten next week. Push-up days leave only a tally, and the higher it climbs, the less the set seems to weigh. So the push-ups vs bench press question often turns into private arithmetic, a hunt for how many floor reps one bar rep is worth, with nothing to convert, because in your head a push-up weighs nothing. The floor knows otherwise. At the peak of a regular push-up, fit young adults pressed about 64% of their body weight through their hands, and dropping to the knees brought it to about 49%. If you weigh 80 kilos (176 lb), that comes to roughly 51 kilos of you on your palms every rep, by FitChef's arithmetic, a figure that moves with your own weight.

“So, how often do you want to see me?” The options sit on the trainer's clipboard between you, three weekly sessions, two or one, and the monthly total drops with every line down the list. You came in wanting someone to tell you the number, and now you are the one who has to say it.