Muscle tears, ligament tears, all sorts of injuries result from trying to get in one more rep past failure.

It doesn't sound like you've ever spent any time at the gym.  Nothing's going to tear.  You just won't be able to do it.  Period.  That's what failure means.

It's my experience that the same people who brag about getting thrown across the room by their father are also usually the same ones who brag about their sins.

Utter nonsense; there's no link whatsoever between bragging about being "tough" and being cavalier about sin.  In fact, many who brag about being tough physically will transition that attitude over to being tough spiritually (take St. Ignatius as an example).  Whether one considers sin something to brag about is entirely independent of bragging about being tough.

Utter nonsense; there's no link whatsoever between bragging about being "tough" and being cavalier about sin.  In fact, many who brag about being tough physically will transition that attitude over to being tough spiritually (take St. Ignatius as an example).  Whether one considers sin something to brag about is entirely independent of bragging about being tough.

Sure, because bragging about toughness is the result of godless pride and is a sure sign there's more vanity where that came from. We're all human so at a certain level there is always going to be some of that lurking around. But on these forums I expect much more of a capacity for introspection and humility. When all you know or care about is surface level quid-pro-quo, it isn't uncommon to find a background of abuse. When an irreligious father mindlessly torments his children for the sake of pure anger or hatred (no devotion to God), he's beating into them the same principles he operates from. Growing up and surviving the many tests of childhood, good or evil is commendable, but bragging about the sins of the father without the proper context (he was wrong and why he was wrong), there's no clear indication of what the right behavior is.

So we admire ourselves for being at the receiving end of someone's brutality but we didn't suffer it for Christ's sake and we don't bother thinking about how we could turn that into a spiritual good for ourselves and the assailants, it would be better we never mentioned it at all because there's nothing spiritually edifying to be had.  

I do, however, have a regular exercise routine that I perform at home so I know what you're referring to. You wouldn't be able to complete the rep, but you could pull the muscle easily at any point while attempting to do the next one and yes, that has happened to me. Pushups like most exercises you can do without equipment involve multiple muscle groups and body structures, so lots of things can go wrong.  Muscle failure can easily occur mid rep and if you're not careful you can easily hurt yourself.

Well, that's not my experience.  One you fail you fail.  Could you fail mid-rep?  Sure.  But falling to the ground from 2 feet up isn't going to injure anyone.  In any case, pushups have been used as punishment by the military, by coaches, etc. since time began.  I doubt that anyone's ever been hurt doing pushups to the point of muscle failure.  If that guy was able to have his boys do pushups for 30 mintues straight, they now have the potential to be Olympic champions; that's an extraordinary feat.

I don't think so.  It's just a natural male instinct ... to want to be tough.  Grace perfects nature and does not destroy it.  Your push towards introspection sounds very much like the soft millennials who are in touch with their feelings.  While introspection is a good thing, it shouldn't be at the expense of laying aside masculine instincts, and you don't want to turn boys into effeminate wusses like the millenials.  Boys by nature are rough and tumble, and bragging about being tough is an outward sign of their quest to become strong men.

Yes, outward aggressiveness isn't a virtue in adults, but that same kind of things in boys should be sublimated (to borrow a term from modern psychology) into interior toughness and strength.  Boys shouldn't offset these instincts by pitting them against emotion, but rather tame them with their higher faculties as their intellects and wills mature.

Grace does build on nature, but it is not a grace to act on fallen nature first, which is precisely what godless men do when they act on almost anything. Everything becomes an instrument of sinful desires. When it comes to building up natural graces, in this case building on physical fitness, it is either ordered properly under supernatural grace, or it isn't. Most people who devote their lives to this kind of activity do not have spiritual aims in mind and as a result it becomes a vehicle for vanity, impurity, revenge, violence for it's own sake, you get the picture.

There's a reason why the Catholic Church doesn't have a plethora of saints who had advanced fitness/bodybuilding regimens. In fact I'm having a hard time thinking of just one! Fasting and other deprivations abound, but the idea of getting stronger muscles is so far down the priority list that it hardly factors at all. Bodybuilding does not naturally lead one to the Faith anymore than playing sports for a living or becoming proficient in any particular discipline does. These skills can become useful only when the soul is determined to conform itself to God, until then they will usually serve as an impediment. It makes sense because it why bother with God when you're so good at achieving your material needs and wants. Arnold Schwarzenegger for example has so many barriers to Heaven as a direct result of allowing his fallen nature to inform the course of his life, that he'd probably be better off had he never picked up his first dumbell.

Never workout more than you pray is the rule of thumb I go by. If those kids were praying with their father more than 30 minutes a day, which is far more than the average is anyway, and they were Catholic, then I might be prone to give the father some slack. But since by all indications he is a typical mess, the sooner he is broken down, the sooner he might allow supernatural grace to take root.

A 30 minute period for one exercise suggests to me multiple sets of working to near failure and with each subsequent set, the cushion between an active muscle failing without injury decreases. That's taking into consideration that the proper form is used, which rapidly falls apart the closer you get to absolute failure. Then you have to take into consideration ligament and joint problems. Rotator cuff injuries are much more likely than a grade 2 muscle strain in this case but ligament and joint issues are a lot tougher to overcome and heal from than purely muscular ones. A muscle injury is still possible though. I'd be interested to know if previous untreated injuries have damaged their full range of motion and overall strength, negating the positive effects for fitness to begin with.

These were teenagers.  They have all the energy in the world and are in peak physical condition.  Ever watch a football practice?  No one's getting a rotator cuff injury from doing too many pushups at 18.  Your arms give out way before your shoulders are even tired.

30 minutes pushup energy? Doubtful. All teenagers are in peak condition? No. Are those boys in sports? Unknown. No teenagers get rotator cuff injuries from pushups? Under normal circuмstances I would consider it very rare. Are these normal circuмstances? No. Pushups work the shoulders and chest more than the arms. Working to failure leads to fatigue which leads to bad form, which is what results in rotator cuff issues and the like.

Working to failure is how you improve endurance in any form of exercise. The likes of a rotator cuff injury are usually caused by poor form or muscle imbalances, and while the former is definitely much more likely when you're tired, it's not the tiredness itself causing the injury. When you hit failure in a push-up you'll just fall onto the floor. Nothing should be pulled unless you've started using poor form to try and pump out extra reps, which is the issue with forcing them to do it for 30 mins(since they'll be hitting failure many times and their form will be AWFUL by the time they finish). So I agree in the sense that the punishment was extreme in the sense that the length of the exercise was far too long and completely impractical, but the assertion that exercising to failure is bad for you is simply wrong. You should always AIM for failure or as close as possible to it to improve.