I knew Week 5 Day 1 of the Hundred Push Ups plan was going to be a tough one. I glanced at it briefly last night to refresh my memory and kind of wish I hadn’t bothered. I was even tempted to postpone the start of the week to Monday, but figured it would be just as tough whatever day I chose to do it.
So after my six mile run and weekly yard work was out of the way, I decided it was now or never.
Required: 40, 32, 30, 25, at least 40
I was dreading the opening 40 but they actually weren’t too bad at all. After taking full advantage of the allowed 60 seconds I started on the set of 32; this was where it started getting tough, but I managed to make it through…just. My arms failed me on the next set however, and I could only manage a shaky 22.
60 seconds later I lowered myself into position and gutted out 25 good ones, but could only manage 23 in the final set of the workout; no way could I get anywhere near the required “at least 40”. I’m slightly disappointed, but also quite proud that I managed 142 push ups in one workout – 18 more than my previous highest. Looks like I’ll be repeating Week 5 again next week, but that’s not a bad thing. It’s all progress, right?
Actual: 40, 32, 22, 25, 23
If anyone else is following the plan, please note the slight change in Week 5. On Day 2 and 3, there are actually 8 levels instead of the usual 5 and the time between sets is reduced to 45 and 30 seconds respectively.
With the push ups behind me, it was time to perform the penultimate workout of the six-week Essential Abs program; a nicely structured program that gets progressively more difficult as time goes on.
Today the plan called for 15 reps of each of the following exercises. I usually substitute the frog legs crunch for the corkscrew and switch the isometric back extension for the plank exercise. Today was no exception.
Corkscrew
Hip Up
Reverse Crunch
Crossover
Oblique Crunch
Catch
Toe Touch
Crunch: legs up
Crunch: frog legs
Isometric back extension
Hi Steve,
I’m sure you’ve probably already seen this link, but congrats for getting lots of great press from Lifehacker.com for your Hundred Pushups website. That’s truly awesome! 😉
As of today, the Lifehacker article got 172,301 views & 119 comments – Wow! Talk about some great PR. 😉
Looks like you’ve started a push-up revolution!
-C
Thanks Corey. Yes, the Lifehacker article and making it onto the front page of Digg’s Health page really took it’s toll on my web host’s server. Apologies to everyone who experienced any slowness on that day…
Still can’t understand how the site and the program took off the way it did, but I’m not complaining!
Thanks for the comment,
–Steve
Wow, truly amazing!
And of course, congrats for making it to the front page of Digg’s Health page.
Regarding the web host situation: Yikes, maybe that explains why I saw an unusual looking page the one day I checked your blog. 😉
Incidentally, Erik mentioned some blurb to me the other day about how he saw your pushups site on Lifehacker.com & how the site was hit with a ton of traffic.
Lifehacker has a huge following, so I’m not surprised about what happened to the web host’s server. Even so, the response to your site has been really incredible.
I’m looking at web host options at the moment. I use a local company at the moment which is fine for all my blogs and static web sites, but is very expensive when you start increasing monthly bandwidth. Dreamhost is supposed to be a good one and I have a referral coupon from a fellow blogger which will help lower the cost.
Good old Lifehacker eh? What next I wonder??
Week 5 is hard, indeed! I feel your pain. I’ll be repeating it too.
Weeks 3 and 4 were tough, but since I struggled through, I went against my original plan of repeating and instead moved on to week 5. It’s definitely the week to repeat.
40 pushups put me in column 2. Week 5 day 1 saw me failing on the last set. The quick, short sets made day 2 more interesting, but I failed again at the end.
I am optimistic that next week I’ll be strong enough to do it well. Thanks again for posting this plan! I’m really happy with my progress. It actually feels like I have arms, now, which is kind of cool.