While I may be a being of pure awesomeness and beauty compared to the average person in the area of general fitness*, especially when endurance is involved, I completely suck at upper body strength. I don't just mean that I'm not ripped and huge, I mean that I'm pathetic. You'd think a guy with my size would be at least competent at using his arms to move stuff around, but I am not.
This is where the One Hundred Push Ups challenge comes in. The site, and the associated app for iPhone, iPad, and Android, is a program designed to help you reach the goal of completing 100 push ups in one set. The concept is pretty simple. First, you complete a push up test. To do this, you just find a day when you're rested and healthy and see how many push ups you can do without stopping. For me, I completed my test on Sunday. I was well rested and healthy so I set out to complete my test. The result? Four.
Four. Stinking. Push ups. I did warn you that I am pathetic when it comes to upper body strength, right?
Now that I have my number, I know the exact training regimen to follow. For each of the three days a week for six weeks I follow the routine in the far left column. This is the wienie column. They don't call it the wienie column, but that's the way it feels. As for the routine, it's just a steadily increasing assignment of sets of push ups with a set rest time in between each set.
There are also challenges for sit ups, squats, dips, and pull-ups. I'm actually not so bad with core and lower body strength, but I may take the pull-up challenge if this is successful. My first day training was Tuesday. I'll post again in six weeks to let you know my results. If you decide to take the challenge yourself, let me know and keep me up to date with your progress.
* Please keep in mind that I'm comparing myself to the average American here and not to the average runner. Or Australian. Australian's seemed to be really fit when I visited in '98. Maybe it was just because I was staying in a hotel in the King's Crossing neighborhood of Sydney.
This is where the One Hundred Push Ups challenge comes in. The site, and the associated app for iPhone, iPad, and Android, is a program designed to help you reach the goal of completing 100 push ups in one set. The concept is pretty simple. First, you complete a push up test. To do this, you just find a day when you're rested and healthy and see how many push ups you can do without stopping. For me, I completed my test on Sunday. I was well rested and healthy so I set out to complete my test. The result? Four.
Four. Stinking. Push ups. I did warn you that I am pathetic when it comes to upper body strength, right?
Now that I have my number, I know the exact training regimen to follow. For each of the three days a week for six weeks I follow the routine in the far left column. This is the wienie column. They don't call it the wienie column, but that's the way it feels. As for the routine, it's just a steadily increasing assignment of sets of push ups with a set rest time in between each set.
There are also challenges for sit ups, squats, dips, and pull-ups. I'm actually not so bad with core and lower body strength, but I may take the pull-up challenge if this is successful. My first day training was Tuesday. I'll post again in six weeks to let you know my results. If you decide to take the challenge yourself, let me know and keep me up to date with your progress.
* Please keep in mind that I'm comparing myself to the average American here and not to the average runner. Or Australian. Australian's seemed to be really fit when I visited in '98. Maybe it was just because I was staying in a hotel in the King's Crossing neighborhood of Sydney.
1 comment:
If you can blog 365, you can totally do 100 pushups.
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