Week 5 Day 3 Â Â Â Â 2010-02-12
Max in last set: 25
Notes: 13-13-15-15-12-12-10-25
Yet another week over. I can’t believe I’ll be starting week 6 next week. It seems like I just started out. That is, I will start week 6 if I am able to successfully manage at least 45 consecutive pushups tomorrow afternoon during the exhaustion test. 45 sounds intimidating. 
 But not out of reach which I still find impressive in itself.
I was a few short this morning, but I’m to too broken up about it. The first 7 sets were not too bad, but the 30 on the last was just a bit too much for me today. No worries.
In theory by the end of next week I should be in the one hundred pushups range, but at the risk of sounding defeated before the end, I’m not too confident that I will reach 100 by the end of next week. If I don’t, I will be repeating week 6 until I make it there.
That kind of makes me think, what do I do afterward? Just keep doing week 6 until I can do 100 pushups without a second thought? That sounds like a good enough plan. I’m sure I could continue and extrapolate the progression for the hundred pushups formula and push into the +100 territory. Or maybe start doing pushups with small children sitting on my back…
I still need to get into the rhythm of the 200 crunches routine. I have done a few but can’t quite get the steady routine worked out like I have with the pushups. Time is pretty limited in the morning so it’s not quite feasible to do both.
On another stream of thought entirely…LET GO OF THE TREADMILL.
It drives me nuts to see people with an incline of 10° on the treadmill and then grabbing the console and leaning back 10°; effectively canceling out any possible benefit from the incline. They may as well be walking flat! Then there are the others who will straighten their arms and lefitate themselves above the conveyor and ‘walk’ at ridiculously fast speeds by just brushing their feet on the conveyor. This makes no sense.
I think people may be too preoccupied with speed on the treadmill and will use their arms to take on the workload that their legs cannot manage at high speeds. But this really serves no purpose. You are better to go at a slower pace and actually exert yourself than to pretend to. I can get my heart rate every bit as high by running a 6° incline at 5mph as I can by running flat at 8mph. (While I am a metric Canadian, I am using mph as that’s what my treadmill uses.) Hell, I can get my heart rate just as high by walking 3mph and walking at a 15° incline. Speed is not the key to a good workout. Exertion is the key. Actually using your legs to hold you up and provide your balance will yield far better results.
Please note, I am not a professional at all, but I have read a fair bit on the subject and have compared the methods personally. Holding on to the treadmill, unless some medical condition dictates that you should, is only fooling you into thinking you are doing well. It’s also quite likely a reason that you may not be reaching your goals.