Okay, so it looks like I’m starting Week 6 of the Hundred Push Ups programme has started at the end of the week rather than mid-week. Two full days of meetings from morning to night meant I was too exhausted to even think about being healthy and taking care of myself.
Repeating Weeks 4 & 5 means that this programme has already taken me 7 Weeks. But that’s okay. The point of this is to set out to get a bit more fit without giving up, even if it takes slightly longer to get there.
In Week 4, I repeated the same column and progressed to Week 5.
But when I repeated Week 5, I made it a little harder by moving to the second column which technically I wasn’t ready for when I attempted Week 5 the first time. The second column was a struggle at sections, but I managed to do about 10 more push ups at the end of Week 5’s exhaustion test.
Although I barely made it to the second column of Week 6. The second column required 51 – 60 push ups and I slipped in there with 51.
So here we go again, into uncharted territory…
Day 1: (12th December 2008)
The sets today are back to the regular 5 sets comprising 40, 50, 25, 25 and at least 50 with a 60 second break in between.
40 was no problem, but one and a half minutes later, attempting 50, I collapsed at 38. I took a few deep breaths and continued to 45 and then collapsed again. After a few more deep breaths, I took the second set to completion.
Not a good way to start ey?
Well, I am writing this as I take my break before the next set of 25. Already my arms hurt.
The writing break took about 5 minutes and the first set of 25 was completed without issue. But the second was a bit of a struggle after taking only a 60 second break.
I shall take a longer break now before I proceed with the last set of 50.
Fifteen minutes later, I started the last set of 50. It was all right till the very end. I completed 50 and had no strength to go on for another one.
Day 2: (15th December 2008)
I decided to take an extra day’s break.
Today there are 9 sets to finish, comprising 20, 20, 23, 23, 20, 20, 18, 18, at least 53 push ups with 45 seconds of break in between.
The first two 20, were ok. The end of the second 23 was a bit tough with the muscles starting to lock up. I rested a strict 45 second between them. I continued with the fifth set of 20 and I slowed down tremendously, but I completed it.
I rested a good two minutes before I proceeded with my sixth set of 20 push ups. I did that slowly as well.
After a two and a half minute break, I proceeded with my seventh set of 18, at a slow pace as well. I feel I need a longer rest for the eighth set and a good break before attempting the last set.
After slightly less than 5 minutes break, I went on with the last set of 18. That was done slowly and comfortably, but my arms were also noticeably more tired.
I waited another 10 minutes before I did my last set. However. during that set, I had to stop at 42 for a short rest of heavy breathing, before proceeding with the last ten to complete the set.
This is starting to look like another repeat week…
Day 3: (18th December 2008)
Again, I took two days break, instead of one.
There are 9 sets again with at least a 45 second break between the sets. They are, 22, 22, 30, 30, 25, 25, 18, 18 and at least 55.
I took my time to do all the sets this session. From Set 1 to Set 8, I took anywhere from 45 seconds to a 2 minute break between them.
In Sets 6 & 7, which required 25 and 18 push ups respectively, Sumo was sitting on my back as I did the push ups and it wasn’t an issue.
I took the shortest breaks between Sets 1 & 2 and Sets 7 & 8.
As for the 9th set of 55 push ups, which I performed after a six munute break, I stopped at 38 to catch my breath, and again at 51. However, in total, I did 57 push ups for the set to make up for the pauses.
Weekly Conclusion:
I’m not really happy with my form in this 6th Week and have decided to re-do it. However, before I repeat it, I will go ahead and do the Final Test anyway. Yes, the test of whether I can do 100 push ups. I want to see how far I can get before repeating Week 6.