My friend Karma at Insperspire posted about a little something she and Jimmy Spin are doing - 100 push ups challenge. Some of you super buff people are probably thinking, "only 100? I can do that in my sleep." And I reply with a genuine and heartfelt, "Hooray for you!"
I, on the other hand, can barely eek out 15 decent pushups in one shot. I'm still making sad attempts at the Hard Core Club, but struggled a bit in the 2 weeks after my half marathon ( I think I strained an ab when I had a wicked side cramp so core work hurt for a while).
So back to the push up challenge.... The work outs are totally do-able - do a handful of push ups, rest, do more and so on. It's kind of deceiving actually. Today, for instance, I did reps of 12, 13, 10, 10 and then 15 (after 4 reps, you do as many as you can, but they give you a minimum goal- which today was 15).
So I did 60 pushups today, choke! cough! gasp! But I still have a hard time wrapping my mind around the fact that I could actually do 100 at once. I did 10 good pushups for the initial assessment so it will be interesting to see just what kind of improvement I'll see at the end of the 6 week program.
I tend to work better when I have lots of balls in the air so I figured I should add squats to the mix too. There are also programs for 25 pull ups, 50 pull ups and 200 sit ups; I may be crazy, but I try to be realistic sometimes.
Is it just me or in the illustration above are his knees are a little too far forward. Maybe not?
So the squats program works pretty much like the one for push ups.... you do 5 sets of incremental squats 3 days a week with the 5th set being a 'max' set, and they give you a minimum number to shoot for.
I have to admit the squats challenge feels more like it's within reach for me. I've always had really strong legs nicely insulated by layers of cellulite so I'm trying to make sure I'm using proper form instead of just surviving like I'm doing with the pushups.
The kids have even joined in the fun and done some of the work outs with me. If I'm fast enough with the Flip, I'll catch a video of them. It's a hoot watching Shane do pushups!
I have to say that not having the pressure of a big race hanging over my head is kind of nice and even fun. I can do things like this and not worry too much about saving my legs for a long run or a race. It's going to be a fun winter! I can just feel it! :D
Welp, I finished my Week 2 workout this afternoon so I just have 4 weeks to go! Wish me luck!
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