It started on Sunday night. My wife said, “Honey, I think I’d like to try that 100 pushups thing as well. We can do it together. Will you wait for me to do it?” I had suggested it to her way back when and this seemed to be a reasonable request, so I agreed. Monday came along, and I did my typical swimming routine in the morning. I got a little lost in my work and looked up to see my wife had come back from her Body Pump class at the gym. Now I knew she wasn’t going to be in any condition to do her push-ups, but I asked to make sure. I was right, she would have to start the program another day. As far as health goes, if you are going to skip exercise for more exercise, that’s hard to argue with.

So there was the change-up… I had switched my swim and push-up routine. That lead to the sinker… I had used up so much energy swimming that I couldn’t complete Day 7 of the program.

Maybe it wasn’t the swimming. When I look at the program I think there might be a flaw. At the end of week two, I did 34 push-ups in my exhaustion test. That set me up for a week three, where I start off with a set of 25. That 25 in the first set took it’s toll by the 4th set when I could barely do ten. There was no hope of me finishing off with another 25. It got me thinking. What if during my exhaustion test, I had been able to do 26 push-ups? That would have put me in the range to do 25 and the start end, pretty much the maximum effort I would give if I just had to do one set.

Where do I go from here?
It makes little sense for me to go to Day 8 today. Instead, I will repeat Day 7. If I get Day 7 down, I’ll move to Day 8 on Friday. Next week, I’ll restart this week again in hopes of doing days 7, 8, and 9. If successful, I’ll move onto Week 4.

I’m pretty disappointed have to repeat this week 3. At the same time, I realize the benefit of building up a stronger base that will help carry me through the rest of program.

Photo Credit: Doug Greenberg