Push Up On This!

    This week marks the point where I have been weightlifting for half my life, approximately.  I got my first set of weights for my birthday when I was twenty-six, or maybe twenty-seven.  After so many decades, I can't remember the actual year.  The late 90s weren't the best for me, although taking up weights helped. I am currently on my second set of weights, after the first set got lost in the 2003 flood.  Technically, they survived, but I didn't really want to re-use metal that had been submerged in mud and water.  I almost thought of painting them, but I thought better about it.  Anyway, to celebrate this anniversary, and as part of my New Year's resolution, I decided to take a push-up challenge.  I did my first challenge in December 2021.  I started out with ten push-ups on the first, and I tried to add at least one more each day.  I made it up to about fifty push-ups before I got sick on Christmas Eve, and I had to stop for the rest of the month.  I would occasionally add push-ups to my regular workouts, but I never made them a standard part of my routine.  Well, I decided to start another challenge this January, but I didn't publicize it immediately, unlike the last time.  I started out with fifty push-ups immediately, as that felt like a good number to start out with.  My technique wasn't the best, and I had to drop to my knees for the last ten or so.  Don't judge me!  There is a slightly derogatory term for such push-ups, but I won't use it here, but if you lift, you may have heard of it.  Like last time, I tried to push-up at least as many each day, even if I had to drop my knees, or take a rest.  After a week, I didn't have to go to my knees.  By the third week, I was reaching sixty.  I also started adding variations into the mix.  Usually decline or incline versions to the standard flat, as more unusual one would actually detract from the challenge instead of complimenting it.  As of yesterday, I was up to seventy push-ups.  While I doubt I will make it to one hundred by the end of the month, I am almost certain I will make it to ninety. And I will probably take it a little farther until I do make it to one hundred.  Now, I know this could cause a muscle imbalance and overuse.  Once a do make it to one hundred, I will end the challenge on a daily basis and start a new one.  I will continue to go for one hundred push-ups, or more, but on days that don't interfere with my standard workout days for chest.  I already to one hundred abdominal crunches every other day, with extra variations on my ab day.  For February, I will move onto back exercises.  The go-to bodyweight exercises for back should be pull-ups or chin-ups. (For those who don't know the difference, as both raises your body over a bar, in a pull-up you use an overhand grip with the palms facing away from you.  For a chin-up, you use an underhand grip with the palms facing towards you.  The chin-up also emphasizes some biceps use to raise one over the bar.) Unfortunately, I have nothing solid enough or narrow enough to really try either exercise.  I can do inverted rows, where one 'hangs' from a much lower location to pull one to it.  It isn't the best possibility, but it the only one I have. I will continue to switch out muscle groups each month to challenge myself, while relegating the previous one to a secondary workout each week.  By the end of the year, I could be doing multiple challenges to one hundred reps, and such workouts will become standard for me, as common as my regular weekly weightlifting sessions are. Maybe I could even find the time to add a true second workout session per week like I used to do back when I didn't have a job. Stay fit people!