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I’ve been lax about updating here, but that doesn’t mean I’ve slacked off (as much) in the real world. I’m still pushing forward with my pushups, still rowing, and still using the elliptical. The latter two have been a bit less regular than I’d like, but it is what it is. Soccer season has started. We have three kids playing and are coaching one team (plus helping with another) so the week is much more fragmented than normal.

Anyway, the point of all of this is to simply report that I’ve hit a plateau of sorts when it comes to pushups. I ran headlong into Week 5 and haven’t been able to make it through. I went through it (Column 1) in full the first time and fell short by a few reps on the max round each time. In hopes of rectifying this, I went back and added in my dumbbell routine on my pushup days (in the evenings following all other exercise). I also decided to repeat Day 1 a couple of times. I finally managed to complete it this past Friday, but that was by taking longer than the prescribed breaks, and a whole lot of struggling.

With that (minor) success in the back of my mind, I decided to tackle Week 5 again starting yesterday. Sadly, it didn’t go as well as I had hoped. I actually made it through, but I cheated by stretching the breaks and I ended up making it through the final thirty by raising my hips and arching my backside up for a brief respite on two different occasions (once at 20 and again at 25 reps). While I didn’t break down and touch the ground with anything other than my hands and my toes, I can’t help but feel as if I cheated.

Anyway, I’m sure I’m being too hard on myself, but it’s not much fun to get stuck in a rut and keep repeating the same thing without any real progress. Kinda reminds me of this…

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”

- Benjamin Franklin

Perhaps the days of rapid progress are over with. Maybe I’ve come so far so fast by simply training the muscles that I already had. Assuming that I’ve reached my “natural” limits, perhaps I’ve slowed down because I need to start growing additional muscle to proceed any further. Who knows.

Like I said, it’s not a whole lot of fun. But what’s a guy to do? I think I’ll start by mixing things up a bit to see if I can break through. I’ll probably continue with the prescribed pushup workouts, but get a bit more creative with the dumbbells in hopes of making some progress.

This week, I’m embarking on Week 5 of the one hundred pushups challenge.

Required: 30/24/22/20/30+

I breezed through the first 30, had no problems with the next 24, started feeling it in the 3rd set (22), and managed to make it through the 4th set (20). Throughout the early sets I stuck tightly to the 60 second breaks, but I ended up taking an extra 30 seconds prior to the final set. I managed to make it up to 24 in the final set, but couldn’t squeeze out any more. But still, that’s 120 pushups.

Actual: 30/24/22/20/24

Looks like I’ll be repeating Week 5 again next week.

Over on my body weight log page, I noted that I’m 6′5″ and (currently) far from what I would consider “fat.” Nonetheless, I could stand to lose a few pounds, so I thought that it was high time that I formalized a goal. My approach thus far has been to simply focus on leading an overall healthier lifestyle, figuring that weight loss will be a natural byproduct of any changes that I make.

Back in March, when I first started getting serious about getting back in shape, I weighed in at 245.2 pounds. I was probably a bit heavier at the very beginning, because I didn’t buy a scale until about two weeks after I got back into it. As of this morning, I weighed 233.8 pounds. That corresponds to a loss of 11.4 pounds as a result of simply increasing my activity level.

So where do I want to be in the long run? As of right now, I’m shooting for 210 pounds as a longer-term goal. This corresponds to a BMI of 24.9, which would put me back into the “normal” range. Honestly, I’m not a huge fan of one size fits all numbers like BMI, but 210 is a nice round number, and getting below 25 sounds like a decent goal.

How long will it take me to get there? It’s hard to say. At my current rate, we’re probably looking at a year or so. I’m sure I could get there considerably faster if I made weight loss a primary goal. However, I just don’t have a real sense of urgency about this — as long as I’m consistently headed in the right direction, I’m happy.

Long time, no write… We’ve been quite busy around here, and I decided that it would be best to focus on things like actually working out as opposed to simply writing about working out. The most noteworthy occurrences over the past couple of weeks have been a short, end-of-summer beach vacation and then the kids started back to school earlier this week.

Body weight

I missed my most recent Monday weigh-in, as we were on vacation. Prior to that, I was holding steady at 234.6 pounds. I’ll have a better idea where things stand on Monday morning.

Hundred pushups

My pushup performance is improving slowly but surely. When last I wrote, I had finished Week 3, Column 1. Since then, I successfully complete Week 4, Column 1. However, I struggled enough that I decided to drop back and repeat Week 3 and Week 4, though I jumped up to Column 2.

This strategy worked out quite nicely, as I made it through Week 3, Column 2 on my first try, and I also experienced my first 100+ pushup workout. I then proceeded to Week 4, Column 2. Once again, I successfully completed the prescribed workout, though my schedule was a bit out-of-sync due to our beach vacation.

I ultimately decided to do Week 4, Column 2 a second time, and… I just completed the third workout of the week, and felt quite good. I outperformed the prescribed number every day, including an extra 10 pushups on Day 2. For the week, I did 300 (!) pushups. Details for all recent workouts can be found on my 100 pushups log page.

Food

Still nothing to report here. I’m mainly keeping this section in for future motivation, but I haven’t done much in terms of modifying my diet.

Other exercise

I’m still struggling to accommodate rowing and pushups at the same time. I’m trying to limit my rowing to strength training days so I get a true rest in between workouts, but things don’t always work out this way. Ideally, my strength training days would include pushups, rowing, and some dumbbell work. The interceding days involving either the elliptical or nothing at all.

Unfortunately, that’s not how it’s been working out, so my rowing has been suffering. It’s not all bad news, though, as I’ve increased my use of the elliptical over the past few weeks. Of course, while we were on vacation, everything went out the window. I stuck with my pushups, but didn’t do much else. Of course, we spent a lot of time in the ocean, so I got a good bit of unintentional exercise swimming in the surf, boogy boarding, etc.