PUSH UP DAY 5

25 Push ups

Streak extender.   Technically I did another 4 or 5 within the P90x3 Yoga DVD, but I'm not counting those as a means of creating a buffer in the event that I miss count a rep at some point someday.  Yeah, over thinking this so I am.

• One set of 15 prior to yoga DVD -- standard push ups
• One set of 10 following yoga DVD -- standard push ups

Oh and I was/am quite tight in the shoulders, chest and back this morning.  I've decided to blame it on the pull ups because that will help prevent push up hatred and in doing so help this streak to continue. 

Cumulative total:
337 (I just dropped down and did one more because 337 is a cooler number than its predecessor)

Question:   Does doing floor based exercise on the floor of a hotel gross you out?   I have a friend who won't ever walk in her hotel room barefoot...this kinda makes sense I guess, especially considering that one day I was doing sit ups in a hotel years ago and came up with a toe nail in my hair, but I continue to go barefoot and regularly find myself on the floor doing some sort of exercise or stretch. 

PUSH UP DAY 4

187 push ups

Today I started the 100 push ups challenge program -- I started on week 3 as that was suggested by the website based on the initial test.   It called for 5 sets, 1 minute apart ("or longer if needed") with the following reps per set:   14, 18, 14, 14 and then max.   Here is how it played out for me:

• 14 standard push ups
• 18 standard push ups
• 14
• 14
• 25 (18 standard and then the last 7 were with Finn on my back because he thinks it is funny to lay on my back when I do push ups -- I try to finish before the boys wake up, but they wake up extra early sometimes -- the only complaint I have about him jumping on is that he doesn't balance himself perfectly so I worry about over working one side, but this morning he kept one foot on the ground, so it wasn't all his weight, which I appreciated)

After doing the prescribed sets it was time to do the P90X3 video of the day called "The Challenge," which is just push ups and pull ups of varying types totaling to about 20 sets of each.   The idea is to pick a number you can (or maybe can) do for each and hit that number each set.    Today I picked 10 and 8....10 push ups and 8 pull ups.   Here is how all that played out:

• 2 warm up (Yes I was warmed up, but Tony told me to so I did)
• 10 standard
• 10 standard
• 10 military push ups
• 10 military
• 10 wide hands
• 10 wide hands
• 10 staggered hands
• 10 staggered hands
• 5 standard
• 5 military
• 5 wide
• 5 standard

Above were alternating with pull-ups and chin-ups of various types, but this is a push up blog now so I won't detail all of that.   In hindsight the one "max" effort I was to do today was actually assisted by Finn due to the fact that I stopped short of complete muscle out failure since he was on my back...not that it would've bothered him, it just gave me an excuse.   I'm OK with that though, even though I shouldn't be, because I seem to still be short of mentally prepared to go completely to failure.  

Spoiler alert!   Tomorrow will be a streak extender only...I might do my 25 reps in 25 sets :).  

Oh and as additional unnecessary info, I no longer allow Case to get on my back during push ups, dude weighs 65 pounds, which I'm pretty sure is what I weighed my first year of Mighty Might (under 80 pound) Football.   I was in the fourth grade.   Case just turned 7 and is in the first grade.

PUSH UP DAY 3

45 Push ups

The 100 push up challenge introduction says to take one or 2 days off after the initial test before starting the program, so I'll start tomorrow, which I think is a smart way to help continue this streak.  Or it's a cop out, either way I happy with it.   Anyway, today broke down like this:

• 15 standard push ups (warm up prior to P90X3 Agility X)
• 10 side arm balance push ups alternating sides
• 20 plyo push ups -- miserable efforts that result in hopping lateral movement

Running total, which has nothing to do with running:
124

PUSH UP DAY 2

31 Push ups

Today's push ups were at the behest of the great Tony Horton as I did Disc 1 of P90X3 -- a DVD based exercise program that is much less miserable than his famous P90X, but still grueling for its sheer relentlessness.   Anyway, that means the push up volume breakdown was as follows:

• 11 side arm balance push  ups (do a push up and then balance on one hand while turning to the side and pointing the off ground arm plus hand into the air -- picture 1 below, sans pony tail)
• 20 Strange ab working push ups (like picture 2 below, but imagine that guys left hand being perhaps a bit above his head from this angle?   When doing them you switch hands and feet position by doing push up jumps between them if that makes sense.  Whatever they suck, Tony is a machine.)

 

 

No, I don't know how to eliminate the space between above text and the first picture, I'm going to be surprised if anyone ever sees these posts anyway so I have decided not to care...one of the things that will keep this blog going is simplicity related to the act of posting, so...

 

Running total, which has nothing to do with running:

79

 



PUSH UP DAY 1

March 1, 2015
Referencing this:   http://www.hundredpushups.com/ Day 1 was the "initial" test.   

I managed 48 perfect form push ups prior to failure.   Probably more mental failure than physical as physically I may have been able to do ONE more, but having not done anything to physical failure in a long time it was hard to make myself do it, so I quit at 48.   Pathetic?   Sure.   But whatever. 

Running total that doesn't relate to running at all:
48

PUSH UPS STREAK

OK, I'm trying again!   This may last 3 days, it may end at 2, but hopefully it'll go for a while and the simple act of posting will provide some helpful accountability to myself...we'll see.

Here were the original rules I made for myself regarding a streak of consecutive days doing push ups:

• Do 25 push ups

That's it, I didn't make any more rules for myself thank goodness, so I guess I can do those in however many sets I choose or all at once.   And I can do them in whatever form I desire.   Huh, I really should be able to do this for a while right?   Well, I didn't even make it a month last time, so I guess we'll see.

Goals:

• Do the streak for a while
• Complete this 100 push up challenge thing because I've never done 100 push ups in a row before (http://www.hundredpushups.com/)
• Get back into the habit of posting things because then maybe I'll update my canoe blog and my Presidents blog--I have, after I think 2 years off, restarted reading about Presidents, though I'm horribly behind on posting about the ones I have read too. 

The End

Yes, it ended.  I feared on and off throughout The Streak that it would end due to something that would really disappoint me….an injury, an illness or just plain forgetting.   As it turned out it ended as a result of what was probably most logical, though never entered my mind until it ended – lack of desire to continue.   Kind of pathetic, yes, but kind of natural I suppose.   Was there more to it?  Yeah, I guess…I was extremely sick, by a healthy person’s arrogant standards.   I had the flu, spent the day struggling through mundane tasks and then just passed out around 7pm in a spell of dizziness and fatigue.   But I woke up at 11pm and thought of The Streak right away….I still felt awful, but I could’ve run 1.2 miles, I’m fairly certain I could’ve done it without negatively affecting me in any way other than being miserable for 11 minutes or so.   I just didn’t want to.   I thought to myself, well, it had to end sometime, this is as good a time as any.   My heart hadn’t been in it since I passed the 1 year mark…and probably before then – I think my inability to keep up with the various marathon plans I attempted to maintain throughout the year weighed on my feeble brain, I think I just didn’t look forward to it anymore…when it became a chore I wondered why I should continue, which is no way to go about streaking, but then, why stop I kept thinking….well, because I was sick, that seemed good enough at the time, so it’s over.   Fat ladies can sing all they want now, please.

Thanks to all for reading (I have 2 followers), for caring if you cared, for the support of course…now I have to figure out what is next – I’d like to get back to running and have thought of it often, but I needed some time off and took it…then cracked some ribs (non-X-ray confirmed assumption) in a snow skiing accident (probably wouldn’t have happened if I’d been in shape!) and have been fairly well laid up from any activity since.   I did however decide on a new thing to get excited about, do and maybe even write about, though it is not a streak.   Would those of you reading (I assume maybe someone set up the auto-email function and never cut it off because why would you need to when I just stopped posting?) care to read about canoeing adventures in the Southeastern region of the United States of America?  

Case and I had our first such adventure on Sunday January 13 and we’re looking forward to going out on the water again soon!   Check out this picture:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/casewein/8381208345/in/photostream