Quickly gaining upper body muscle

I'm currently in the hiring process for both the local police and fire departments here, and their fitness requirements include a certain amount of timed pull ups and push ups. Since I have never been able to even do 1 pull up, I knew this was an area that I needed to start working on immediately, so I would be ready for the test in a couple months.

Now for a little back history: all throughout my life I have been weak in the upper body. Even when I was playing football and lifting weights constantly, my bench press max was never even close to my body weight. I could never figure out how to get stronger and keep progressing into higher weights. Since I started lifting again in the last 2 years, my bench press has risen, but still , nowhere near equaling my body weight. My biceps and triceps have grown, and become firmer, but the weight does not increase.

So anyways, at Wal-Mart I found a common pull-up bar for 19.99. It's one of those things that hangs on a door jamb, which you probably saw in some infomercial hosted by a wrestler or some other equivalent meat head. When I got home I put it in the doorway and promptly did 2 pull ups. I felt really weak while doing them, and didn't think my grip would hold. Thinking I needed to stay with it, I made a resolution to do at least 10 pull-ups a day, and also to do 100 push ups a day as well.

I saw results within the first week. Almost immediately, my bench press went up 10 pounds. I was able to do more on the incline press, and my curls were increased as well. The results didn't stop the next week: everything kept increasing. I'm simply amazed at the fact that all I needed to do to get stronger were simple pull ups and push ups. It never crossed my mind that these simple exercises would play such a pivotal role in muscle growth. I had always saw them as tedious calisthenics, which were slightly above useless, barring military punishment.

Now I am benching my body weight, and doing 10 pull ups in a row. I've upped my limits to 50 pull ups and 200 push ups a day and I'm getting so much stronger that I continuously amaze myself. I highly recommend fitting 100 daily push ups into your routine. When I first started out, I was doing sets of 20, at any time I had spare. It's really easy to do, and doesn't take any time at all. You will see results, and very quickly.