Hundred Push-up Challenge

Last week, I asked one of my friends from DailyMile about the hundred push-up challenge he kept posting about. He linked me to the hundredpushups.com site, which is basically a six-week program that is supposed to get you strong enough to do 100 push-ups without stopping. I sent the link to a couple of my co-workers that have been or trying to start up working out. Coop and Sam accepted the challenge and last week we decided to
start off the program with the initial test. Cooper did 27, Sam did 31, and I did 35, but I don’t think I went low enough on all of mine. According to the training if you were able to do more than 25 in your initial test, you should start on week 3 in the most advanced level. So this week we did.

Monday Coop and I went to the gym at lunch to start off Week 3 Day 1 as instructed by the program. The first day for our level had us doing 5 sets: 14, 18, 14, 14, and then max (but at least 20). I got the sweet app for my iPod Touch that tracks your progress on this program. Geez, there’s an app for everything! I was able get through the first four sets pretty well. I really had to push out the last couple. When I got to the max set, I only got to 11. Then I did the last nine over a couple more mini-sets. Hah!

Today I went after work to do my push-ups. Day 2 consists of 5 sets once again: 20, 25, 15, 15, and then max (at least 25). Again, I got through the first four sets alright. The second set of 15 was a little tough, I really had to push out the last 4 or 5. Then when I got to the max set, once again I collapsed at 12. I finished off the minimum 25 over a couple of mini-sets once again.

I am feeling okay after these first two sets. Not overly sore or anything like that. I think months (if not the past 2 years) of pushups really helped me out. I want to be able to max out to the minimum in the 5th set of the workout. I will most likely repeat this week’s workout next week as well, of course around my running schedule. Wish me luck!