First Attempt
My First Attempt at training for 100 Consecutive Push Ups was a failure. I got bored, my elbows were sore, and the blog post was too long and complicated. Above all, reaching for 100 Push Ups became an unhealthy pursuit.
Second Attempt
This time around, instead of prescribing an elaborate training scheme, I’m going to take my time getting to 100 Push Ups and talk about what I learn along the way. Tonight, my first push up workout will serve mostly for starting reference. I’m taking 10 minutes to do sets of push ups to failure, but I’m going to start easy and do my warm up when the clock starts. Let’s get started… 10, 12, 14, 10 (total: 46) and quitting with 4 minutes to go.
- Thoughts between sets:
- One of the main reasons I stopped my pursuit of 100 Consecutive Push Ups during the First Attempt is that form tends to suffer as we strive for better numbers. Whether in pursuit of higher weight or faster repetitions, we start to cheat our range of motion and our form suffers. My ultimate goals are health and functionality so sacrificing range of motion and form are unacceptable costs for gaining the ability to perform 100 Consecutive Push Ups.
- I ended my first workout after only 6 minutes because I can already feel my anterior deltoids asking what on earth I think I’m doing and I don’t have a good answer for them. Dumbbell shoulder press numbers and front dumbbell shoulder raises tell me my anterior deltoids are not weak or imbalanced so I’m wondering what all the commotion is about. I’ll look more into this and consider my rotator cuff while I’m at it.
- My first set was extremely slow and felt rickety but the second set was a breeze. It’s clearly important to warm up properly before an official time trial (example: 100 in 1 minute). Perhaps a more thorough warm up would alleviate my anterior deltoids’ concern.
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