One hundred pushups: my thoughts

[DC++]

Quite a few people on another forum I read are doing the One hundred pushups challenge, so I thought I would have a look at it. It looks like a well structured progressive program spread over 6 or more weeks and the constant progress tracking seems to keep people motivated. However I have seen more than one person ask "But what do I do when I finish the course?". This reveals what I think are the main failings of the program: it is too heavily focused on progress and it ends after 6 weeks, leaving people hanging. I suspect that many of the people who complete the course will let their fitness slide again once they finish due to the lack of a clear direction. Even if they don't, the strong focus on constant progress may eventually lead to dissatisfaction since it just isn't possible to make progress like that year after year. Also, just doing pushups gets mighty boring after a while and is very unbalanced fitness-wise.

These are all areas that I think Shovelglove excels in. Progress when measured as simply doing it every non-S day has no limits. Just keep doing it. There is also a clear direction - just keep going each day. And finally, it allows for a lot more variety which is excellent for preventing boredom and is also better for fitness.

Yeah, I know, preaching to the converted here.

And by the way, I was able to do 29 pushups in the initial test. I also tried the 200 situps and 200 squats tests (links from the 100 pushups page) and was able to do 61 squats and 201 situps.

The 201 situps is proof of how much shugging works the core since I don't usually do any ab specific exercises at all. I do a lot of yoga as well which will also have helped.

blah blah blah ...

[Bushranger]

I've never liked set progression programs simply because you feel terrible if you don't meet a target. Better to just keep on doing and progress naturally as a by-product of the training I think.

I also agree with you that it's not very balanced for overall body training and developing an imbalance is a big no-no and can lead to easy injuries. On that note, I am trying to work out some shovelglove movements that target the chest and triceps a bit more. If that fails I'll just chuck in a set of pushups and dips into my shovelglove 14mins.

[DC++]

Good point. I have seen people on the other forum mentioning how they felt frustrated because they only managed 18 rather than the required 20 pushups on the final set. For most people, that sort of self-applied pressure is not going to lead to a long term exercise habit.

Regarding chest and triceps, maybe half the time I do one set of pushups during the 14 minutes. And I do a one-armed tricep press during every session. This is like Tuck the Bales only I hold the hammer just below the head with the handle dropping down behind. For some reason I like that more than the reversed hammer position of Tuck the Bales. And if that is not intense enough you could always do it as a matrix set

I think the canonical answer is to forget about muscle groups in the way as forgetting about progress. But I just can't help myself

[Bushranger]

I've read through that push-up program in detail now. It's essentially Greasing the Grove, a technique I have used with great success to break a plateau or bring up a weaker area. It's very useful but I'm not sure how well it works for a long term strategy.

[jules]

Interesting. I looked up http://www.twohundredsquats.com/index.html

And I was able to do 45 body weight squats before I stopped. I'm 41 (female too) so that puts me in excellent. I also have at least 70-80 more lbs to lose. Obviously as a sole measure of fitness, it's lacking. Though as a measure of my leg strength I think it is fairly accurate -- I tend to have extremely strong legs.

I'm not going to try the push-ups or sit-ups test until my back feels better. I'm not sure enough of my form for the former and the latter requires rounding the back.

[DC++]

Jules, it is a wise move to leave out the pushups for now. Correct form pushups require quite strong isometric contractions in the back and abs for stability which doesn't sound like it would be good for you at the moment.

And congrats on 45 squats, that's a good number for anyone.

[chiangmaiboss]

Here is a different program I sometimes do. Actually I learned it from inmates when I was a prison guard. Get a deck of cards and throw a card on the floor. For red cards I do pushups and black cards do squats. Picture cards are 10, aces are 15 and number cards are obviously the number of the card. I keep going until I cannot finish the number of the card, or until I just figure I did enough. Try to go through the deck eventually. Then when I finish I add up cards and write down number of squats and pushups I did. I used to do this card game 4 or 5 times a week and it is more like a game than just doing pushups. Japanese wrestlers do a similar game.
I also used to play poker for pushups with other guards, which was also an inmate game.

[DC++]

Wow! The card game is a great idea. It sounds very difficult to get through the whole deck.

[chiangmaiboss]

It is hard to get through the deck. Sometimes I cheat and make the aces 11. There is a certain amount of luck involved. If you get a bunch of high red cards in a row you can tire out quickly from pushups. On the other hand, if the red cards are spaced out you can get through more cards before you crap out. Sometimes I substitute situps for the squats, too. Or you could do situps and squats or really any exercise you want.

[DC++]

I am going to try it next saturday with pushups and situps. I will let you know how far I get.

[chiangmaiboss]

Good luck DC. I see you do 200 situps which is really great so I know you will do very well.

[reinhard]

I think stuff like this can be fun as a supplement to a more regular routine, but goal-think can be dangerous if you take it too seriously and base all your efforts around it, for exactly the reason you mention: a goal implies "you're done," but you're never really done. On the day after after you've hit your 100 pushups or whatever you're going to have to do some more, and if all you had was a goal to motivate you, that's going to be tough. "Habit-think" has to be the foundation, I think, for sustainable long term fitness.

That prison-card game, does sound fun, though Especially with the backstory.

Reinhard

[Huffdogg]

New shugger here; just a couple of days into it so far and I already realized I violated a primary rule and began with a pair of S days. Ah well, live and learn. The good news is that I started out light, as I tend to get my reaction from any new exercise about two days afterwards. I'll likely wake up tomorrow morning knowing exactly how much my body likes the routine for the first time.

I used to be a competitive athlete, but that was over ten years ago, and my fitness state has gone to pot since then. I've experimented with different types of fitness routines over the years but no single workout "philosophy" has really grabbed me. I have recently started looking at more organic forms of exercise that engage multiple body systems simultaneously rather than specific muscle-group workouts.

That having been said, push-ups, pull-ups, BW lunges, and various other body-weight centric exercises are a decent metric for your fitness mostly because they're a nice descriptor of how strong you are *for your size,* which speaks to true fitness. I like to do them occasionally just to see how I do with them and maybe get a bit of extra "burn" out of a group of muscles that I feel I've maybe neglected lately, but using them as a workout in and of themselves is simply too boring and time-consuming (when you've gotten good at them, especially!).

The idea of doing shovelglove appealed to me for the same reason some of the CrossFit philosophy workouts do, or kettlebells or Indian Clubs, and especially fitness swimming; they all engage a large part of your body simultaneously, in a way that is natural and essentially subconscious, subtly involving your whole body, so that your whole body becomes more fit.

Anywho, off my soapbox now. That just seemed like a nice place to interject my first post

[chiangmaiboss]

Lat night I combined the shovelglove and the 200 squats routine. I did 14 minutes of the butterchurner, then without resting I did 200 squats, which took a little uner 9 minutes, and then again without a pause I did 14 minutes of the shovel. So altogether the workout took 37 minutes. Although I did this in air conditioned room I was sweating at the finish. The squats are pretty easy for me as I used to do the Matt Furey combat conditioning program faithfully when I was competing in martial arts and thus have done thousands of hindu squats. Also I like to climb the stairs of the local temple Doi Suthep which has over 200 steps and is good for the legs, and I do 60 miutes a day on the elliptical machine, as well as doing a lot of hiking in the mountains.

[DC++]

Chiangmaiboss: That is very impressive. Yesterday I combined the week 4 day 1 workouts from 200 squats and 200 pushups: one set squats, one set pushups until done.

By the end I could barely move. There is no way I could combine that with the shovelglove moves!

Huffdogg: Welcome. I agree that the bodyweight exercises are not as useful as something with a variety of compound movements. I am doing them as a supplement to shovelglove, yoga and skipping but I don't think I could do them every day as my main form of exercise.

[chiangmaiboss]

DC that will really get you in shape. If you get a chance check out Matt Furey's combat conditioning website. He explains how to do Hindu squats and Hindu pushups which are exercises Indian wrestlers used to do. They are a good change from the usual pushups and more difficult than they would seem.

[storm fox]

I'm no pushup ace, but if you just want to incorporate pushups into your regular workouts, I like the workouts at www.simplefit.org. There are others, but this can get you moving in the right direction.

[fungus]

Quite a few people on another forum I read are doing the One hundred pushups challenge

Is anybody succeeding? I don't see how anybody is going to do 100 pushups in six weeks if they can only do one or two at the start.

The whole philosophy of "six weeks from now you'll be able to do XXXX" seems wrong. The percentage of people who exactly six weeks away from doing 100 pushups is quite small - either it will be too easy because you're already quite good or you'll fail miserably. Neither of those is a good result.

[DC++]

Quite a few people on another forum I read are doing the One hundred pushups challenge

Is anybody succeeding? I don't see how anybody is going to do 100 pushups in six weeks if they can only do one or two at the start.

The whole philosophy of "six weeks from now you'll be able to do XXXX" seems wrong. The percentage of people who exactly six weeks away from doing 100 pushups is quite small - either it will be too easy because you're already quite good or you'll fail miserably. Neither of those is a good result.

Some people have succeeded, but as you suggest they tend to be the ones with high fitness to begin with. I think the "Learn to do X in 6 weeks" has more to do with marketing than reality.

I agree that the strong results+progress focus can be a trap. I am still doing the program as an adjunct to shugging but I have let go of any particular goal or timeframe. I am just doing the routines 3 times a week and seeing what happens. Essentially taking the shovelglove metric of "success = doing the program". If I need to drop down to an easier column or repeat a week's program (based on performance) then I do so without stressing about it.

In my latest test I was able to do 40 good form pushups which is a nice improvement from the 29 I started with. A long way from 100 but who cares? Not me

Some people on the other forum have gone from a max of 10 pushups to 20 in a few weeks. Again they think that 100 in 6 weeks is unrealistic but are happy with their improvement anyway.

[infoproj]

I started this but hit a plateau around 30.

So the goal approach is wrong, but using it to find your level is perhaps the way forward.