April 30 Day Push Up Challenge

Wheeew! What a month it’s been. This April some gym friends invited me to participate in a 30 day push up challenge. It was simple: 30 push up each day for 30 days. After a little research with Uncle Google I quickly learned some benefits to push ups. They are a whole body exercise that incorporates many muscles at once, biceps, abs, lower back, triceps, chest etc. It improves posture and boosts cardio health, which I understood after breathlessly standing after the last set.  I felt I had to jump on this challenge because of all my physical drawbacks I must say upper body strength is at the top of the list.

So, 900 push ups at the end of the month. I did a little math and figured by adding an extra 5 pushups a day I’d be topping 1,050 in a month, now THAT sounded like a challenge.

1,000+ push ups; some might say it’s a lot, others a drop in the bucket of their routine, but to me it seemed like a whole stock of pain and discomfort. Prior to this I doubt I’d done 100 regular push ups in my life. I’d been pretty comfortable in the ‘girl push up’ phase since I started exercising, but I liked the idea of working my way to consistent, proper form and increase my strength and stamina (good practice for Tough Mudder by the way).

I will freely admit that there were days I skipped my daily 35 and made it up the next day. So to that extent, no I technically didn’t complete the 30 day challenge but I did get to my total goal and for that I’m pleased.

I’m happy to say that on Day 30 I managed to complete the full 1,050 pushups and had a handful of photos in cool placed to prove it!

What did I learn?

You don’t know what you can accomplish when you take it one step at a time. 1,000 seems like a lot, 35 a day sounds reasonable, and on the days where you’re just not feeling it, sets of 5 is all it takes to get you to the goal of the day and ultimately to the finish. Sounds like a good life lesson doesn’t it?

I feel stronger, my upper body strength has improved which is a huge plus for me. Following the adage that you don’t finish a goal before setting your next one I think I’ll do a May Mile a Day Challenge. Thoughts?

Until next time,