Here we go; Week 3 Day 1 of the Hundred Push Ups plan. I knew going into the workout it was going to be a tough one. I failed at this level the same time last year, and remembered all to well how challenging it was.
Looking back, I probably should have performed my push ups before going for my afternoon run, but figured the run would act as a nice warm up and get me ready for the Day 1 challenge. Oh well, live and learn (or maybe not, I never seem to totally learn my lesson)….on to the workout.
Required: 25, 17, 17, 15, at least 25
The first set is usually a challenge, but I actually manged the 25 quite comfortably. The first 17 went ok too, although I was puffing and blowing a little towards the end. The second 17 was where it started going wrong. At 8 I was battling against fatigue, but managed to gut out the 17 before deciding to take 90 seconds to recover. Luckily the extended recovery helped and the 15 wasn’t too bad at all; I took my time and made it through.
Everything fell apart in the last set though. I was struggling at 10, managed to get to 15 and even squeezed out another couple to make 17. At this point though my arms had had enough and that was all I could manage.
Looks like I’ll be repeating Week 3 again next week, but actually I’m ok with that. Tonight I managed 91 push ups, which is not a bad effort at all. Maybe if I’d done the push ups before my run it would have been a different story. I guess I’ll never know…
Actual: 25, 17, 17, 15, 17
Oh bugger. If you are repeating week 03 I’ll be repeating it for sure! Never mind, onwards and upwards!
Ha…just keep thinking about the badge! You’ll be fine…
I am just starting week 2……….and my run yesterday really sucked. I could see Steve tearing round the soccer fields…..while I wimped along hating life hahaa……I was glad when it was over
I have week 3 day 1 coming up today and am not very optimistic about it. I scored a 30 at the exhaustion test on Saturday after a run out in the heat, so I should clearly be in column 3. I still don’t think I can make it. The increase between week 2 and 3 seems to be to steep. Imagine someone who scores straight 26 at the exhaustion test. He would never be able to do 25, 17, 17, 15 and 25. I think you need to adjust the program here. If you fail after scoring 48, I’m sure most people will fail here. Something needs to be adjusted here I think – and if it’s only the scores for the exhaust test…? I dunno.
Anyway, don’t get me wrong. I love that program and I’ll stick to it. Giving up is not an option. However, I’m thinking about downgrading to column 2 for this week. Cheers!
Hey Sven: appreciate the comment and a valid one it is too. The exhaust test would be the most likely figure to change, but I’m not sure how that will go down with the hundreds who have already printed the plan.
Let me know how you get on…
–Steve
Alright: so I downgraded to the middle column and tried 20/15/15/13/20.
20 was okay, first 15 were okay, the 2nd 15 was hard. I increased the pause to two minutes and did the 13 with the last bit of strength that I had. I took another 2min pause and started the last set and was struggeling big time. 11, that was it. I think I’ll just continue with column two as good as I can and then repeat week 3….
It’s actually a bit encouraging that you failed, Steve. You set us a good pace–ambitious but not unrealistic.
I did 30 on my two-week test, which was fewer than I’d expected but a big improvement from two weeks ago. I might follow Sven’s example and drop down to the second column. After all, what I’ve loved best about this program is that I can keep up! I’d hate to lose that.
Hey Nick,
30 is excellent. Column 2 could be a good way to go. I’ll be doing Day 2 of Week 3 tonight – it’s going to be a toughie!
Keep having fun and thanks for the comment,
–Steve