It seems like about half the people I know have tried this website’s six week push up regime. I’m in the middle of the program, if by “middle” you mean almost half way through the workouts. Alas, I’m not in the “middle” if we count by time elapsed: it’s taken me about seven weeks to get this far.
I shouldn’t be surprised. 100 push ups is a lot of push ups. Imagine doing 50 push ups in a row and then without stopping doing 50 more push ups in a row. That’s how many push ups it is. Over the last two years, my work outs at the gym have been almost entirely cardio stuff. So it’s not surprising that I’m still struggling. Still, the fact that I’m not even all the way to half way after seven weeks pretty much confirms what you’ll notice if you read the site’s notes: that the six week thing is just a gimmick. You’re supposed to repeat days before moving on, take time out to do stress tests to gauge your progress, and so on.
I wonder what the net motivational effect of the bogus “six week” gimmick is. I suspect it may account for the sheer number of people who have tried out the website’s program (and probably made its operator some money in advertising in the process). On the other hand, no one I’ve spoken to has actually finished the program. I wonder if the expectations they may have started with had something to do with that.
If you’re determined to get to 100 regardless of how long it takes, the website has a fairly nice graduated set of workouts. It’s certainly not perfect, though, and I wonder if that’s because for marketing reasons they ended up telescoping several workouts into a single one. Check out, for example, day one of week three. I find this easy. I found it easy four weeks ago. But then take a look at day two on the same page. It’s not just a little harder. It’s much harder. Indeed, I’ve been stuck on it for about three weeks now (this morning I got to 15 on the final set).
Spaz | 22-Aug-09 at 4:26 pm | Permalink
Why don’t you do something challenging like the 100 Crunch workout in 6 weeks. 100 pushups is such a cop out! Our evil twin gym teachers got us to that in a few weeks of Grade 7 for Pete’s sake.
Chris | 22-Aug-09 at 4:50 pm | Permalink
Oh no they didn’t. Not in a row. I don’t think I ever did more than 65 or 70 in a row. Only S. Ferris could do 100, if I recall.
100 crunches is really easy. I do 100 crunches in a row all the time.
Spaz | 23-Aug-09 at 1:13 am | Permalink
Oh come on?! Of course we could. Wow I’d forgotten Sean Ferris. And he was in my class too. Anyway I guarantee success if you drop and do 10 everytime you cross a threshold.
Chris | 23-Aug-09 at 9:37 am | Permalink
I think you’re forgetting how difficult it is to do 100 push ups. How many can you do now? 30? 40? Could you triple your strength in six weeks?
Spaz | 24-Aug-09 at 11:16 am | Permalink
Obviously I’m forgetting otherwise I wouldn’t be so cavalier about it. But, then the purpose is to chide you not to speak seriously on the merits of this regime.
You couldn’t triple your strength in 12 months. But, given you could do the flexed arm hang for about half an hour 100 pushups should be easy-peasy. I bet your brother could do it. Heck your Dad could probably do it! Maybe even your other brother!
dagger aleph | 24-Aug-09 at 12:00 pm | Permalink
Ah, the flexed arm hang. I was pretty good at that, surprisingly.
I recently figured I’d try the 100 pushup things, and I stuck with it for two days. I didn’t quit because of high expectations that couldn’t be met. The “six weeks” thing seemed utterly bogus to me, particularly because righ tnow I can do only 11 push-ups (the modified kind using knees instead of feet).
dagger aleph | 24-Aug-09 at 12:00 pm | Permalink
“pushups thing” that should be.
Chris | 24-Aug-09 at 2:44 pm | Permalink
Spaz, quit yer chiding and drop and give me 100.
DA, if it makes you feel better, I started pretty wimpy, but sticking with it this long really has led to noticeable improvements.
Yoon, who sometimes likes to refer to herself as “She-Ra,” can do about 15 proper push ups.
dagger aleph | 25-Aug-09 at 1:04 pm | Permalink
“if it makes you feel better, I started pretty wimpy, but sticking with it this long really has led to noticeable improvements.”
That’s what people told me about running, too, but despite running thrice weekly at gymnastics class, and practicing for the Canada Fitness Test, it *never* got easier. I have no idea why I have trouble with these things — this problem doesn’t seem to afflict anyone else I know.
In the Canada Fitness Test I got “Excellence” on every activity but the endurance run, which I couldn’t even finish.
Chris | 25-Aug-09 at 2:58 pm | Permalink
I always got “Excellence” on every activity but the standing long jump, which for some reason I always failed miserably at. Like, we’re talkin’ “Bronze” miserably.
Spaz | 25-Aug-09 at 9:44 pm | Permalink
Hmm I got Golds until Grade 6 and then Excellences in everything, even, remarkably the Endurance Run. But after Grade 6 they weenied it all down. They changed the flexed arm hang to pushups (which some were allowed to do from their knees) and they changed something else as well I think. The Shuttle Run was the thing though.
Hey I’m just the peanut gallery, I can’t come close to 100. I think I could pull off 25, but Hannah just made me brace my arms so she could do push ups off my hands and now I can barely carry Dhara’s infant seat without wincing.
Chris | 26-Aug-09 at 7:41 am | Permalink
My Dad and my younger younger brother are training for another Young Feats of Strength contest in December. So I’ve got some motivation to stick to my training regime.
Anne | 28-Aug-09 at 2:08 am | Permalink
I can’t do them, they give me Spectacular Wrist Failure.
DA, a cautionary tale: my dad always had trouble with running, like they almost kept him out of the Navy because he couldn’t pass the running part of basic training. They kept him back for a month, during which all he did was train for running, never significantly improving his time. In the end they passed him… but wouldn’t let him see the stopwatch. “Oh, lookit that, you did it!” Years later it turned out he had muscular dystrophy of the legs. So — if you have overall problems with your legs beyond the low-normal range, it’s conceivable it’s a sign of a real physical problem. (But I assume we’re talking about normal gawky elementary school kid-ism, not something more. Mainly I wanted to tell that Navy story, because I’d never heard it until recently.)
How many chin-ups can you do, CY? Had a friend who was big into trying to get to [some absurdly high number of] chin-ups last year…
Chris | 28-Aug-09 at 6:31 am | Permalink
Chin ups? I was up around 19 or 20 about two years ago, but I’m not sure I could do more than 10 today. So sad.
It’s funny, at the gym I’ve noticed that my lats (main muscle helping with chin ups, I think) are over-developed (in strength, not size) compared to the rest of me. Sneaking peeks at other weight lifters I’ve noticed that fairly puny people often bench press and otherwise lift more than me. But as soon as I sit down at the lat pull down machine I regularly seem to shoot past people who are significantly larger than me. Not sure why.
Spaz | 28-Aug-09 at 10:05 am | Permalink
I bet Kegri could explain what repetitive activity has given you strong lats, but I’ll leave that to him.
Dana | 29-Aug-09 at 10:56 am | Permalink
Hi Chris. This made me smile right away – weren’t we talking about this way back when I visited NYC? BTW, I’m going to be joining a running clinic in the fall; I’ll let you know how it goes.
Chris | 29-Aug-09 at 7:40 pm | Permalink
We were indeed talking about this! I think I was about 2 or 3 weeks into it at the time.
Good luck with your running clinic. I’m not sure what that is, but it sounds hard core.
Kegri | 31-Aug-09 at 7:58 pm | Permalink
Spaz, I dunno about the lats, but his delts and triceps are likely the beneficiary of this exercise regimen…
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=hand+pushing
only the more sedentary would resort to modern technology. not our cy.
http://www.sulekhab2b.com/viewoffer/product/155671/hand-pushing-crack-sealing-machine-.htm
Leonard | 30-Mar-10 at 10:48 am | Permalink
I would like to say, doing 200 pushups about 5 times a week for 2 months so far, i have only improved from 30-35 straight, to 60 now. I do 200 pushups every session in 30 mins, and i was focused more on strength training than endurance, which explains my slow improvement. However I noticed my triceps and pectorals grow noticeably!
Aaron | 19-Mar-12 at 3:37 pm | Permalink
It took me probably 2 years to get through this. I can only imagine how you found day one of week 5 when you finally got to it. That was damned hard after a not-so-bad day three of week four.
I did eventually finish the thing and maxed out at about 110 pushups in a row.