Tag Archives: healthy habits
100 Push Ups in 2011
Over the last 2 years I have been on a professional, physical and spiritual journey. In that time, I have established the Media Communications Council that currently serves over 800 youth in Central Texas and is poised to serve thousands more. But on a more personal level, I’ve completely changed my eating and exercise habits. It started with riding my bike. I bought myself one of those bike trainers for Christmas in 2008 so that I could ride indoors every day. That bike was like my exercise wooby. Six days a week for over a year… 30 minutes, then 45+. I limited my meat intake to once every 4 to 6 weeks and found out that I enjoyed fruits and vegetables more than I ever thought. Oh, and another one of my staples the egg white omelette.
At first, I would eat similar quantities of food that I did before but I replaced the meat, bread and sugary stuff with fruit, vegetables, fish and poultry. And it worked. The first year, I lost 5 – 6 inches of gut. I literally rode the wheels off my bike and took to walking my dog more and more, even jogging. But I even with a good diet and 45+ minutes walking/jogging 5 days a week, I had plateaued. To add to that, bad knees made it particularly hard. They would swell and sometimes it would be difficult just to walk during the normal course of the day. Not to mention that I had an injured shoulder that was very weak and in need of some rehabilitation.
This past fall, I decided to join the gym. Now, I had half assed joined the gym a few times before over the years. But after working so hard to make progress I had made thus far, I was just not willing to backslide anymore. So, I joined and even got a couple of free sessions with a personal trainer. It’s been really good for me. I’ve been able to cut down the impact on my bad knees and my shoulder has strengthened substantially. I realized how weak my core has been all these years and the benefits of simple calisthenics. I discovered High Intensity Training (HIT) “brief, infrequent and intense” exercises and approaches that allow me to work out in shorter time frames but with better results. The result has been an additional 12 pounds along with a dramatic redefinition of my body mass in just over 2 months.
And that brings us to 100 Push Ups. Push ups and calisthenics are simple but amazing things. They develop strength but also are great for cardio. Do your max number of push ups (whether its 5 or 50+) and you’ll notice how hard your heart pumps by the last one. I usually start out my workouts with a good stretch and then in the course 15 minutes I’ll do crunches, push ups, leg lifts and scissor kicks in fairly rapid succession. This gets me in a good sweat and develops both my strength and cardio. I then go on to the machine weights to focus on a particular muscle group such as legs, arms, etc. and finally finish up with 15 – 30 minutes of high intensity cardio on the a bike, the treadmill and/or the elliptical.
Back in October, I could only manage 3 sets of 10 push ups. Within a week, I was up to sets of 15 and now can do sets of 30. I usually max out at about 40 at once. Even with this amount of progress, it’s kind of hard to imagine doing 100 at a time but I would not be where I’m at now, if I let that kind of thinking rule my life. So, I downloaded the app and I have resolved to do 100 push ups in one set during the course of 2011.