Procrastinet

100 Pushups - Week 1

filed under: Stuff you never, ever needed to know

Apparently a sudden online trend has sprung up around the site hundredpushups.com, which claims to have a regime by which you can train yourself to do 100 consecutive pushups in a 6 week program.

I'm ON THAT.

I did the "initial test" tonight, and discovered that I could do 23 and a half pushups before my arms stopped moving. I used to be able to do 25-30, so that's not a terrible dropoff. I'll start the program (a series of reps with varied intervals) tomorrow, and keep tabs here so that I can be shamed if, come August, I can not tear off a century at will.

I'm going to be SO BUFF.

That is all.

MAJOR UPDATE:

Oh, it's on. Mr. Peanuthead has signed on for the 100 pushups challenge, with a little wager to make it more interesting. In eight weeks (allowing two weeks of slide) we'll be in Tahoe for a wedding - at which point we'll go head to head to see who can do 100 pushups... FASTEST. There's $50 riding on it.

Of course, Mr. Peanuthead is, at 7 years my junior and 12 pushups fitter in the initial test, well ahead of me. Even so, fitty bucks is fitty bucks. So mid-August will find me WAY MORE BUFF than him.

UPDATE (ongoing):

Week 1/Day 1 - complete. 10 pushups, then 10 pushups, then 8, then 6, then as many as you can do (at least 7), with 60 seconds in between each.

The set of 8 started to get shaky. On the fifth of six I, um, may not have gotten all the way down. And on the sixth of the "at least 7" I definitely dipped my ankles to help sort of throw myself back up. But I got 7 - and then my arms dropped me on my face on the floor. They quit like somebody threw a switch.

It felt like somebody snuck up on me during that last set and replaced my biceps with baked potatoes. But I got through it - 41 pushups total. SO BUFF.

Week 1/Day 2 - complete(ish). 12/12/10/10/10+, 90 seconds between. On the fourth set my form went to poo on the last two, and on the fifth set I definitely started to lead with my butt on numbers 8, 9 and 10. Still, I got from nose-to-the-carpet up into the air, so I'm counting it. Sorta. 54 total pushups (49 if you leave out the bad form ones).

Woke up yesterday with knitting needles in my pecs. Seriously. Sore. Better today, just in time to get all wrecked up again.

Week 1/Day 3 - complete(ish). 15/13/10/10/15+, 2 minutes between. Kept the form more or less together through first four sets, then bonked after 9 on the last which was supposed to be 15+. So I totalled out 6 short of where I was supposed to be.

Still, 57 pushups total. Considering that 41 kicked my ass just five days ago, that's not bad.

Week 2/Day 1 (6/27) 12/12/9/7/10+, 1 minute between. Felt *way* stronger on the first set, just as cashed by the end. Did 11 in the last set, for a total of 51. Made the number required, but 6 fewer than two days ago. Hmm.

Week 2/Day 2 (6/29) 16/13/11/11/15+, 90 secs. between. I've started to suspect this program isn't all it's cracked up to be, as the number I was supposed to do today was totally impossible, and I'm only on Week 2. Rather than fall short on total, I stopped when I totally bonked but then when back to complete the set after a short rest.

So my actual set went 16/13/11/10/7/4/5. 66 total. I know in future weeks you're encouraged to repeat weeks if you can't hit your numbers, but that's looking totally inevitable and I'm left wondering who, if anybody, can actually go from 23 pushups to 100 in 6 weeks. Even the author of the site admits that, the first time he did it, he had to repeat a week.

In other news, ProcrastiWife has joined the challenge! She knocked out 9 pushups (not girl style, either) in her test, putting her in the second column. Way to go!

Week 2/Day 3 (7/2) 15/15/12/12/15+, 2 mins between. Actual was pretty close - 15/15/12/12/13/2 - w00t! Didn't feel wobbly until the last couple of the third set, and the last several of the fourth set. After second set, Lisa (who had already done hers) said "you make that look so easy." After the fourth, she said "yeah you're not making that look easy anymore..." Total: 69.

She banged out 7/7/5/4/5+ as 7/7/5/4/3, which is damn good.

Up next: I "re-test" to see how many I can do in one go.

Week Two - Re-Test - On the malodorous floor of the Rt. 9 Budget Inn, Warrensburg, NY, I banged out... 32 pushups in a row. Which is nine more than I did two weeks ago. And still 3 shy of where Mr. Peanuthead started, which makes me a little nervous about my part of this wager. Lisa is projecting "exponential" improvement in the coming weeks, which was probably just to make me feel better.

In the meantime, she cranked out 9/8/6/5/7, which is pretty damn impressive.

Posted by rjt at June 19, 2008 11:16 PM