As I noted earlier in the week, I experienced a setback in the 100 pushup challenge when I passed the Week 2 exhaustion test, but failed on Day 1 of Week 3. I think a couple of things factored into my failure.
- I didn’t really push myself on the max rounds during Weeks 1 and 2. In every case, I exceeded the required number, but I probably could’ve squeezed out one or two more reps. I think that pushing myself a bit harder would speed my progress.
- I didn’t pay close enough attention to the clock. More than anything, this challenge is about endurance, and I’m convinced that you have to stick fairly close to those “minimum” rest times if you want to succeed in the long run.
- I did my exhaustion test on Sunday and then picked up with Week 3, Day 1 on Monday, with no rest in between. In the future, I’ll either do the exhaustion test on Saturday (following a Friday workout) and then rest on Sunday before launching into the new week, or I’ll do the test on Sunday and then take a day off before doing the next week on Tu/Th/Sat.
So… How did my workouts go the rest of this week?
I ended up dropping back to Week 2 so I could pay closer attention to items 1 and 3, above. Here’s how it worked out:
Week 2, Day 2 (Again)
Required: 11/9/7/7/Max (at least 10) — 90 second breaks
My Results: 11/9/7/7/16
Comments: I’m pretty pleased with this performance overall, in that my max reps went up from 11 last time to 16 this time.
Week 2, Day 3 (Again)
Requirement: 10/10/8/8/Max (at least 10) — 120 second breaks
My results: 10/10/8/8/20
Comments: Here again, I’m quite pleased with my progress. My max reps went up from 15 to 20. In fact, my max round, which was done following 36 pushups spread across the preceding four sets, was 2 better than my exhaustion test this past Sunday. Hopefully I’m now ready to tackle Week 3.
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Hmm…I agree with you about those rest times. I think those will be my downfall too.
Yeah, i think i’ve fudged it a bit on the rest times.. I need to work on that. I’m starting day 1 of week 3 tonight. we’ll see how it goes.