Hi everyone, this'll probably be another stupid question, that everyone has heard many times. I don't have access to a gym, actually the truth of it is, I don't want to pay for one. I have an elliptical for cardio, but I want to do pushups and crunches to help firm up my core. But I'm not sure how to compare pushups with benchpressing.
Are they equal, should i do like 3 sets of 10 or 12 of pushups or should I grind it out and do a whole lot?
same question applies for crunches too I guess, any advice would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks

Pushup resistance is roughly 60% of your bodyweight, so if that represents what you are capable of with good form for 10 or 12 reps, then that's what you should be doing. If it's not, you'll need to adjust it. They are two different exercises, but they basically do the same thing. Just like you could bench press a light weight for numerous reps, you can make a pushup more challenging so that you have to decrease your reps. To the body, it's all just resistance: there's nothing "special" about one exercise vs. another in that regard.

You can also do things to make pushups more challanging: elevate your feet, wear a weight vest, do them between chairs (so you can go down farther, but be careful that can be very hard on the shoulder joints and damage your rotator cuffs if you overdo it), Hindu pushups, handstand pushups, etc. You might also want to try to get a chin up bar, that way you can exercise both the pushing and pulling muscles for balanced development.