I can across a cool little site HundredPushups.com and thought it was a nice little challenge to try.  Basically the site is about a simple challenge of being able to do one hundred pushups (or “press ups” as we call them here in the UK!) by training for 6 weeks, for just a few minutes a day.

Now I used to do quite a lot of press ups when I was doing martial arts, but I’ve not really done a lot for many years and had no idea how many I could do, though I know it wouldn’t be 100!  So, I thought I’d test myself, see how many I could do now, and then see how many I could do in 6 weeks if I train for it – I figure it can only help my swimming and training, and sounds like fun.

What is a press up?

I figure most people know what a push up is, but just in case you’re unsure, here’s the Wikipedia definition:

“A push-up (USA English), or a press-up (UK English), is “a common strength training exercise performed in a prone position, lying horizontal and face down, raising and lowering the body using the arms.”

Essentially you place the hands flat on the floor, shoulder width apart with the arms straight.  The body is held rigid with the shoulders, hips and ankles in line and your feet together, balls of the foot on the floor, what is known in yoga as the “plank” position.  The body is then lowered and raised using the arms, keeping the body in a straight line.  See the image on the right for the up and down positions (image courtesy of Wikipedia)

A “good form” push up lowers the body so that the nose almost touches the floor, and then raises again until the arms are straight without allowing the body position to change (i.e. the hips don’t dip and the butt doesn’t stick up!) so the challenge is to see how many “good form” push ups can be done. I guessed I could probably do around 20 – 25, but that was really only a guess.  So I did a few stretches, took a deep breath, assumed the plank position and managed…

24

Not great, I can certainly improve on that!  So, the challenge will be to see how many I can manage 6 weeks from now which will be 23rd June.  Now, that happens to be the first day of the Glastonbury Festival and so the start of several days break from training and blogging (and the start of several days eating festival food, drinking cider and partying hard!) so it seems like suitable timing!

Tags: challenge, exercise, press ups, push ups
Posted in Action