Body weight exercises: how much weight?

[Mr Punch]

how many sets/reps are you doing?...the one thing I found out about the BW stuff is that too many reps leads to tendon issues...especially as one [cough] advances with age...I was doing the 'workout 1' from trainforstrength.com for several months and the pushup pyramid has you doing something like 156 pushups total...I've often wondering if just doing 1 set of each exercise to failure and just keeping doing it to failure until you can do 100 or so in a row is enough reps for any motion.

for me, and the students of mine that I've watched do 'workout 1' for several months, it seems that once you could do that particular workout fully as he describes it two or three times a week w/ no DOMS or other issues you've maxed it (and I think any BW program) w/o adding the weight vest and could just drop back to once a week while moving on to other workouts for power.

Thanks for the input... I'm really not as advanced in age as, say, you, though am I, Matt?!

I'm not actually worried about how many BW exercises or the quality of them... more really just wondering about how much weight they count as effectively.

But just FTR, I'm varying them depending on what my programme says!

One w/o: warm-ups include say 10 or so lunges (BW only), 10 T-push-ups, then the workout proper has chin-ups (always to failure for me cos I can't get the reps yet , but increasing... supposed to be 3 x 12 for two weeks, then 3 x 10, then 3 x 8; T-push-ups 3 x 12 then 3 x 10 then 3 x 8, started with nothing, now up to 10 kg dbs...