Glorious Pushups!

No secret my love/hate relationship with pushups. Having tried the 100 pushups program, and made it up to 50, I found that I liked pushups for their effects (excellent shoulders, strong abs and chest), and not so much for the necessity of doing them. The first 10-20 pushups are awesome, and I feel pumped. Get past that (or in multiple sets), and I'm counting down until I get to the end, and I subconsciously start making my range of motion shorter as a way to cheat it easier.

Charlotte reminded me of pushups today in her post about karate, and doing knuckle pushups on blocks of wood. Actually, I prefer knuckle pushups to regular palm ones. Carpal tunnel runs in my family, and plank position starts to feel quite uncomfortable after a while (one reason I ended up dropping to my knees when the number of pushups started to soar in the 100 program). Occasionally I do pushups on my fingers, but lift the heels of my hands off the floor, which also straightens my wrists.

A couple years ago, I participated in a small group training at my gym. The personal trainer would take us to the track on the roof, each of us with a massive weight (one of those big round ones from the weight room - mine was either 25 or 35 lbs, I don't remember which). We'd do various sets of exercises, then sprint around the track, repeat. At one point he had us doing pushups. And my wrists weren't feeling great, so I did them on my knuckles. On that soft cement stuff they make tracks out of (not as hard as sidewalk, but not quite rubberized either). It actually wasn't bad, apart from the divots the cement made on my knuckles. Note: when I do knuckle pushups, I do them with my wrists in facing each other, not facing my toes. I much prefer using a mat, however.

So here's our daily round-up of pushup styles:

1. On the wall: the most basic kind of pushups, perfect for people who are just starting out or who need to modify based on injury (for instance, not being able to support yourself on your knees, where toes are too much). Start 2-4 feet from the wall with your feet (the closer you stand, the easier it becomes), and then bring your face in to the fall. Exhale on your way back up to standing.

2. On your knees: you can do these on a mat or on the bare floor. Actually, I recommend (if you have a good sense of body awareness) trying it on the bare floor. But, mucho importante, NOT on your kneecaps. What you want to do is drop your hips so they're in a straight line between your shoulders and your knees. Keeping your hips in line will automatically keep your kneecaps off the floor (you want to be slightly above the knee). If you're on your kneecaps, your hips are too high. If it's too difficult to do the pushup with your hips in line and you need to raise your hips up (to make it easier), then grab a mat to protect your knees. Another note: keep your hands out a bit wider than the mat. How you know that your hands are wide enough is that when you're as low down as you're going to go, your elbows are directly over your wrists (and not further out).

3. On your toes: Hand position just like #2, but this time, your hips are in a straight line between your shoulders and your toes. Massively important here is to not let your hips drop. This is really easy to do - we focus so much on pushing up away from the floor, that we sometimes let our backs arch (hips lower than shoulders). This can cause back problems. When I was doing the 100 pushups program, I realized I wasn't doing pushups entirely correctly, because I started to feel it in my low back.

4. On your toes, higher intensity options: play with your number of contact points -
(a) lift one foot up in the air as you pushup, or do a
(b) one-handed pushup (yikes!)
(c) cross one ankle over the other to make feet into one contact point (this is one of my faves)
(d) knuckle pushups
(e) raise one hand up on a bench, step, or pilates block
(f) support your hands on two handweights. Do a pushup, then lift one hand with weight up, elbow skimming the side, for a row (back)
(g) start in plank position with your feet on a ball/bench, then do pushups
(h) add a clap at the top of the pushup

5. Tricep pushups, on your knees or toes: take your index fingers and thumbs together in front of you to make the shape of a diamond, a put it down on the floor. Do a pushup while keeping your elbows skimming in against your body. Harder option, put your hands right under your shoulders/armpits and do a tricep pushups with your elbows skimming your sides. I hate these.

6. Pushup craziness: when I took ju-jitsu, there were the craziest pushups we had to do. First of all, they were on the fingertips (unlike what I mentioned above, which is on the entire fingers and top of the hand). Just the fingertips. Now, start with your hips up in the air (almost like downward dog), and then simulate a wave - dive your face down towards your hands, then arch upwards, so your face is coming up first while your chest is down, and you're ending up in a fingertips version of updog. But this isn't zen like yoga. It's hard as all hell. And then hold plank for a while (and one time, I'm not kidding, the 250lb sensei actually stepped up on a guy's back like he was walking over a curb. And the guy held him. That's some serious abs right there). I can't for the life of me find a pic, or I'd totally post it for you.

Update: My Abs/Pushups Program

So the first week of my new abs/pushup program was for working out the kinks. So here's a bit of a revision. I didn't feel like I was doing enough pushups, and I wasn't feeling my abs much either after the 2 sets. So I'm revising it a little bit, adding some planks to hit the abs even more. And because the back to back exercises are different muscle groups, you don't need a rest in between (but you can take one if you want).

Some tips:

Bicycle crunches - make sure your shoulder comes up off the ground as you're bringing your elbow towards your opposite knee. It's better to do a couple full crunches (shoulder/back up off floor) and take a rest than it is to do a bunch of crunches that are barely going to hit your abs). A 4 count bicycle crunch is going slowly from one side to the other (and back), counting to 4. 2 count crunches are a little faster.

Plank - make sure your body is completely straight (think plank/board). Don't let your hips sink down or you can put a lot of stress on your back (in a bad way). Pull your abs in (belly button to spine) and hold. For the counting, I don't use a stopwatch because that's a pain in the ass. I just count slowly.

Pushups - I'm doing them on my knees because my wrists don't like me otherwise. Keep your hands out wider than your shoulders so then when you go down, your elbows are over your wrists. Your goal is to bring your chest down to the floor (without resting on it). If you're not quite there to start with, that's quite all right - it takes time to build up the chest muscles. Just try to come down a little further every day you do your pushups, until you can come all the way to the floor.

Week 1 - 2 sets (what's listed below is one set)

Day 1
Bicycle crunch - 3x 4count, 6x 2count
Pushups - 6
Plank - 20 seconds
Pushups - 6

Day 2
Bicycle crunch - 5x 4count, 8x 2count
Pushups - 8
Plank - 20 seconds
Pushups - 8

Day 3
Bicycle crunch - 7x 4count, 10x 2count
Pushups - 10
Plank - 20 seconds
Pushups - 10

Week 2 - 3 sets each

Day 1
Bicycle crunch - 3x 4count, 6x 2count
Pushups - 10
Plank - 25 seconds
Pushups - 10

Day 2
Bicycle crunch - 5x 4count, 8x 2count
Pushups - 12
Plank - 25 seconds
Pushups - 12

Day 3
Bicycle crunch - 7x 4count, 10x 2count
Pushups - 14
Plank - 25 seconds
Pushups - 14

My Six Week Abs/Pushup Program

(Since I'm not a man, and not likely to get 6-pack abs, this isn't the look I'm shooting for. But hey, any excuse to post a picture of some hot abs, right? ;)

So I fully intended to go back and complete the 100 Pushup Program. Really I did. Then, well, I didn't. Week 5 just seemed so daunting. And my wrists were so not loving me for doing so many pushups. So I stopped. And I still do have the cute little shoulder dimple which was the pleasing result of all those pushups. So I tell myself - maybe I should figure out a program for myself which does include some pushups, but not the crazy number of them from weeks 5 and 6.

Then I start thinking...hmmm...I should look up an ab program. And you know something? A six week ab program is a hard thing to find on the web (without paying for some kind of booklet or something). And most of the sites I came across require some kind of equipment (like a captain's chair, or a ball, or a bosu). While I love the ball crunches because of how wonderfully effective they are, they're problematic (just like captain's chair and bosu) because while some gyms have them, I don't have them at home). So I had to find a very effective exercise that will kick my butt without equipment. Check this site out for their top 10. And guess what? #1 is an exercise which requires no equipment, and not only uses abs but obliques. I think we have a winner!

The key to the bicycle crunch is doing them slowly. Singles will hurt your abs, but not quite the same burn as the slower ones. But because I'm always trying to mix things up, and fool my body into working hard, I'm going to do them at different speeds.

Because they're slower, each count is going to be going from one side to another (right elbow/left knee slowly moving on a count of 8 over to left elbow/right knee). So when I say 2x 8 count, this means counting out 8 (about 10 seconds) to one side, back, then repeat (so 1x 8 count is one time each side).

So here's my Week 1:

Day 1 - Tuesday - 3 reps of pushups, 2 reps of crunches, alternating
Bicycle crunch - 2x 8 count, 4x 4 count, 8x 2 count
Pushups - Sets of 6

Day 2 - Thursday - 3 reps of pushups, 2 reps of crunches, alternating
Bicycle crunch - 3x 8 count, 5x 4 count, 10x 2 count
Pushups - Sets of 8

Day 3 - Saturday - 3 reps of pushups, 2 reps of crunches, alternating
Bicycle crunch - 4x 8 count, 6x 4 count, 12x 2 count
Pushups - Sets of 10

Let's see how that goes. I've never done this before. Who knows whether that's too hard, too easy or whatever. I guess we'll see how it goes this week before I figure out how to tweak it. Maybe I should go buy a ball.

Whoever thought 30 pushups would be easy?

At this point, 30 pushups seems like nothing. But seriously, week 5 of the 100 pushup program is definitely not a walk in the park. About halfway through week 3, I dropped my pushups down to my knees. Part of me feels like that's cheating. But on the other hand, my wrists were taking a serious beating doing 100 pushups (over 5 sets) on my toes. Plus, given that both my mother and grandmother have carpal tunnel syndrome, I listen to my wrist pain.

So no toe pushups for me (at least, not for high reps).

Plus, doing them on my toes means that I only come down about halfway, three quarters if I'm being really good. When I dropped to my knees, I could then bring my chest all the way down to brush the floor, and it felt as if I were isolating the chest muscles better.

All that to say that I'm doing pushups on my knees and getting a better workout for it.

I did my week 4 completion test on Sunday, and I made sure not to not look at the minimum to get the top rung (because if I did, I knew, just knew, that I would only do the minimum and tell myself that was enough). I managed to pound out 50 (50!), and it didn't really start to get hard until about 35-40 (40 ended up being the minimum).

Monday I was teaching boot camp, and our cardio exercise was jumping jacks. And I was psyched to notice that I actually have shoulder dimples now when I'm doing jacks! My body type is the kind that doesn't gain muscle definition easily, so I'm always super excited when I have the least little line that shows up. If I end up not finishing the pushup program, then I'll still be happy for this little development, even if it goes away once I stop doing so many pushups.

But then came the start of week 5 on Tuesday. Week 5 and 6 look completely insane. I'm not kidding. I didn't have too much trouble with the last day of week 4, even though I did too many since I couldn't remember the numbers (I did 30,24,24,20,30). But once I get past 30 and start nearing 40, that's when the muscles in my chest start to burn badly. Which is the point, I suppose. Here's what weeks 5 and 6 look like:

Week 5
Day 1: (60 sec rest in between) 40/32/30/25/40(or as many as possible/AMAP)
Day 2: (45 sec) 20/20/18/18/15/15/14/AMAP 40
Day 3: (30 sec) 18/18/16/16/14/14/12/AMAP 40

Week 6
Day 1: (60 sec) 56/45/42/40/AMAP 56
Day 2: (45 sec) 30/30/25/25/25/25/22/AMAP 56
Day 3: (30 sec) 27/27/23/23/23/23/20/AMAP 56

Given that my max on Sunday was 50, doing 40, then another 32 with just a minute in between seems nigh on impossible. I made it through about 25 of the second set. I think I may take another couple days off of pushups, maybe do some chest flies instead, and repeat week 4 again.

I'm starting to hate pushups

ok, not really. I like pushups, really I do. But not when I do 85 in under 10 minutes. Teaching, I'd always say something really perky like "woohoo! Now it's time for pushups!" *insert wacky cheerleader voice here* (I'm not usually a cheerleader type instructor (I hope), but pushups just seem to bring out that side of me). But then, with teaching, we'd do no more than 15-20, maybe 30. So it was easy to get pumped.

But 100 pushups is. not. easy.

I'm sure that that comes as a big surprise to you, right? You're probably asking how exactly I thought that the 100 pushup program would be easy. And I didn't, not really. But I didn't expect it would be quite this hard.

I'm in week three (of six) now. And man is the different between weeks two and three hard. Pushups are three days a week, and each day there are five sets with rest in between. So last week I was doing sets of 15/15/12/12/as many as possible at least 15. This week starts out with 25/17/17/15/amap 25. Wha-what?! This may not seem like a huge difference, but I assure you, 25 pushups is a lot, especially when you're doing 84 total in one sitting! And damn does it make my wrists hurt!

And seriously, the whole "as many as possible but at least 25" thing....are there people who are actually doing more than 25? Because I actually had to drop to my knees for the last 10 pushups, so there was noooo way I was doing more than 25.

Now, I do like the fact that I can then say "hey, I just did 85 pushups" because, well, damn that's impressive, isn't it? But I don't know if I can make it to the end. I don't feel the need to necessarily do 100 consecutive pushups, my whole goal was basically to make myself do some lifting, now that I'm teaching boot camp (and therefore teaching people on a circuit class rather than doing it myself). And I don't want to pump up the size of my shoulders at all. But I'm hoping I can at least finish week three. Let's see how it goes.

Here's what weeks 3 and 4 look like:

Week 3
Day 1: 25/17/17/15/as many as possible but at least 25 (aka AMAP) - 60sec rest
Day 2: 27/19/19/15/AMAP 25 - 90sec rest
Day 3: 30/22/22/20/AMAP 27 - 120sec rest


Week 4
Day 1: 27/20/20/17/AMAP 27 - 60 sec rest
Day 2: 27/21/21/18/AMAP 25 - 90 sec rest
Day 3: 30/22/22/20/AMAP 29 - 120 sec rest

Week 3 and Week 4 don't actually look all that different. If I can make it through week 3, then maybe I'll be able to continue to week 4. But then I have my progress test and if I want to stay in the same bracket, I'll have to do at least 40. Yikes!

The One Hundred Pushups Program

I've decided that because exercise is so important to a healthy life (and without exercise I certainly wouldn't be able to eat as much as I do, or have as many of those "sugar in moderation" snacks), I'm going to post now and then on various exercise topics.

I teach step aerobics, weight lifting, Spinning, gliding, cardio kickboxing, and boot camp. I used to teach several weight lifting classes a week. Now, I just teach boot camp. I love boot camp, it's awesome and fun and energizing. But for the weight lifting part, I spent the entire time walking around and helping people with form. So I don't get a resistance workout of my own. I've been slacking on my own muscles.

Then I come across the 100 Pushups Program. First, they have you get down and pound out as many perfect pushups as you honestly can (by honestly, I mean no cheating by keeping your butt up in the air or only coming halfway to the floor). I do have to admit that I didn't come all the way to the floor, maybe 3/4, but I did 20. I may try again tomorrow to see how many I can do honestly coming all the way to the floor (damn that's hard on my toes, with all that blood pumping in my face and ears).

The great thing about this is that it's only three times a week. As it's not a good idea to work the same muscle group two days in a row (when you work a muscle, it makes small tears in the muscle, then the rest period allows those tears to heal and the muscle to grow). So three days a week is very manageable. For me, I think that Monday/Thursday/Saturday sounds feasible.

Here's what week 1 is going to look like for me:
Day 1 - 60 second rests between sets, sets: 10/10/8/6/as many as possible/AMAP-at least 7
Day 2 - 90 sec rest, sets: 12/12/10/10/AMAP-at least 10
Day 3 - 120 sec rest, sets: 15/13/10/10/AMAP-at least 15

Week 2:
Day 1 - 60 sec rest, sets: 12/12/9/7/AMAP-at least 10
Day 2 - 90 sec rest, sets: 16/13/11/11/AMAP-at least 15
Day 3 - 120 sec rest, sets: 15/15/12/12/AMAP-at least 15

Let's start with that. If I'm still able to move after that (or bend my wrists, because those 20 I just did definitely hit my wrists. Maybe I'll do them on my fists), then I'll see about week 3.

Does anyone want to try this with me?