Feb. 09, 2009



I continued my push up workout which consists of doing one set of push ups every single day.

Every morning, for 21 straight days, I would hit the floor and see how many push ups I could do.

This experiment was slightly different than my original push up experiment. In my previous experiment, I was allowed to do a set of push ups at any time during the day. For this experiment, I decided to have a little more structure. I forced myself to have to do my daily set immediately when I woke up. I wasn't allowed to do anything else until I hit the floor and did my set of push ups..

Here are the results of my experiment...

Date (Year 2009)	Push-Ups Completed
Jan. 19	53
Jan. 20	57
Jan. 21	55
Jan. 22	55
Jan. 23	51
Jan. 24	52
Jan. 25	55
Jan. 26	58
Jan. 27	64
Jan. 28	60
Jan. 29	62
Jan. 30	62
Jan. 31	52
Feb. 01	60
Feb. 02	60
Feb. 03	62
Feb. 04	61
Feb. 05	60
Feb. 06	52
Feb. 07	60
Feb. 08	61

As you can see, I was able to hit the 60's mark for the first time ever. Another thing you may notice is that there wasn't much improvement after my record day of 64. This is something that I had anticipated would happen eventually. Almost every goal in life has humps and blocks in the road that test your commitment. I'm definitely experiencing one right here.

In my first experiment, I was able to have consistent growth throughout the experiment. And for this experiment, it started off that way as well.

I still have no doubt that if I continued this push up workout every single day, I would eventually reach my goal of 100 push ups. However, I'm motivated enough now that I want to reach this goal as soon as possible.

Which is why I believe it's time to rethink my push up workout...

Where To Go From Here

First, I must say that I've been complete satisfied with my progress so far. It was only a couple of months ago that I could only do 30-35 push ups. Now, I can consistently reach in the 60's. Something I never expected could happen from just doing one set of push ups every day!

When it comes to weightlifting, it's recommended that you only work one set of muscles once every 48 hours.That way, your muscles can fully recover so that they can grow that much stronger.

Professional weight lifters will lift every single day. But their workout will be something like exercising biceps, shoulders, and back on one day. And then do triceps, chest, and abs the next (or something similar). They never work out the same muscles on back to back days!

I knew this from the beginning of my push up workout, but I wanted the experiment to double as a mental challenge as well.

Now, I believe it's time to modify my workout in order to get the most results as quickly as possible. I'm going to create an experiment that is more in line with basic weight lifting recommendations. The next experiment will go something like this...

Every other day, I will continue to do one set where I try to do as many push ups as I can. But on top of that, I will do 3-5 more sets of push ups with 2-3 minutes rest between each set . I haven't worked out the details exactly yet, but the general rule is to do a heavier workout, with one day of rest in between.

I'll be sure to provide the details when the time comes.

*Note* If you find this push up workout interesting, I highly encourage you to give it a try yourself. Be sure to let me know how it goes and give me some of your own tips that I can try to help me reach my goal of 100 push ups.

 

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