Week 6 Day 1 Â Â Â 2010-03-08
Max in last set: 30+15
Notes: 25-30-20-15-(30+15)
I rolled out of bed today and almost immediately began doing pushups. Week 6 is intimidating to look at. I still have the mental conditioning that says to me “25 pushups? In a row? You’re crazy. Shut up.”
Regardless, I began and soon found 25 complete. 45 seconds later. “30 pushups now? Shut up.” 30 pushups later I was impressed with myself again. I may be accused of dwelling on the following but….when I started I could only do 8. I love it.
20 and 15 were a breeze after doing the first two. Admittedly the last set, a recommended 40 minimum sort of got the better of me. I managed 30 before having to stop, but not wanting to be beaten by a number in a table I took a 20 second rest and completed another 15 before falling in a heap.
135 pushups before setting foot outside my room.
Now for a quick note that upon thinking about it seems like common sense but nonetheless took me a while to come upon…
Take it slowly. For some reason and by some strange logic on my brains part I had this funny idea that if I had a lot of pushups to do, doing them rapidly would make me finish quicker and thereby make it easier to accomplish. Silly brain (Or body?). Need to run a marathon? Oh, I’ll sprint, then I’ll be done exerting myself sooner. Thinking about it and spelling it out really makes it seem silly but that is what I found I was doing at times; I don’t really think I realized I was doing it to be honest.
I don’t point it out to insult anyone’s intelligence; I just thought that maybe someone else may keep it in mind when they are doing their pushups and perhaps find they have fallen into the same habit for some inexplicable reason.
Slowing down to a more relaxed pace has helped me immensely!
Good luck to you all.
I find myself rushing through them. I guess the thinking is the faster I do them the shorter the time I am using my arms. Slower pushups means I am using my arms longer thus fatigue setting in quicker?
I think that was my reasoning as well. But when I started to think about someone trying to sprint a long distance race it kind of made sense. I think there’s a good middle ground between the two.
Remember this adage: “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.”