I'm doing one of those challenge thingies... go me!
Four days ago I saw some YouTube video about someone saying how they were doing 100 push-ups a day for 30 days. And saying how hard it all was and stuff.
My first thought was 100 push-ups, I can do that. And then I realised that I'm probably at my lowest level of fitness in around 10 years. So maybe 100 push-ups would be a little harder than I really understand.
So, as a bit of a test, I did 100 push-ups to see how hard it is right now. And in 5 sets of 20 reps over a period of about 20 minutes and inter-dispersed with around 250 or 500m sprints on the rowing machine, the push-ups weren't really so hard. I felt good.
I could totally smash that challenge, I thought to myself with a mild level of smugness.
On my first day I used these handle thingies while doing the push-ups:
My logic was that the handles would help to protect my wrists without making the push-ups any harder.
Day 2
The next day I woke up and figured I may as well take up the challenge and get those push-ups done every day for the next 29 days. My fitness is rubbish right now so I may as well do something to make consistent improvements every day.
So while at the gym (and avoiding the vacuuming that desperately needed doing) I grabbed my push-up handle thingies and hit the ground for the next 100. I'd already cycled 40km or so that morning so didn't include anything else in the workout. Once again, I did 5 sets of 20 reps. And much to my surprise the last 20 reps were incredibly painful. Interestingly my lats were also insanely sore and felt like they were on fire for the last 10 reps.
Day 2 was already making me feel as if this challenge may not be as straight forward as expected.
Day 3
Day three was yesterday. And I'd spent the day distributing pamphlets for my gym on foot. This meant that I had walked around 15km throughout the day and didn't really feel inspired to do a workout. So, while at home watching a bad movie on TV , I jumped on the floor and pumped out 100 push-ups without my handle thingies.
And this is where I learned a little lesson. The handle thingies actually make the push-ups much harder. After my 5th set of 20 reps my chest and lats didn't feel like they'd done a lot of work. So I pumped out another 20 reps for good measure, and that's where I felt the muscle burn a lot more.
Day 4
Day 4 is today, and I'll be at the gym in a few hours so will jump back on the handle thingies again since they make the push-ups more challenging. There's no point making this thing easy right?
Weirdly, I'm actually enjoying this challenge. My chest and lats are constantly feeling like they've been doing work which is nice and I'm excited to see how many reps I can pump out without a rest after the 30 days is up.
I don't expect to see massive changes in my physique after the 30 days but I hope to have lost some weight over this time. And then I suppose I'll jump on some other popular YouTube fitness challenge for the following 30 days.
Or maybe I'll just jump on my bike every day now that the weather isn't consistently rubbish.
