Someone noticed I didn’t add an update for this week, and left a comment in an older post asking for one.   Basically I’m taking the week off, doing a few sets of pushups 2 or 3 days this week just to keep some rhythm, and I’ll attack Week 5 again starting Sunday night.  I suffered from a bit of burnout after doing Week 5 three weeks in a row and not really making much progress.  Last week I still couldn’t finish Day 1 in full, and barely finished days 2 and 3.  I was planning on doing it again this week, but when it came time to do it Sunday night I just couldn’t dredge up any motivation, and this is the first time in the program that happened.  I could have forced myself, and maybe I’ll regret this decision, but I decided to embark on this course.  I expect I still might have to do Week 5 two more times before I’m ready to move on to Week 6.

I’m reasonably confident it will not lead to an abandonment of the whole project.  We’ll soon see.

Actually, it might be more honest to note that I didn’t even finish the Week 5 program last week. There were several reasons for this, including that Week 5 is another significant step up from the previous week, travel, and others, but I both had trouble finishing individual sessions, and I only did 2 of the 3 sessions for the week. I redid Day 1 of Week 5 last night. I still can’t quite complete it. We’ll see how the rest of the week goes.

Thursday night I finished the Week 4 program on Level 2. Last night I took the exhaustion test and did 50 pushups.  This puts me off the charts for this point of the program: 31-35 pushups puts you in Level 1, 36-40 in Level 2, and 40+ in Level 3.

NB: I just noticed I’ve been using, and I will continue to use, terminology different from the 100 Pushups website for Levels and Sets.  What I call a Set, (and I think most of thee world does also) he calls Levels.  And what I call Levels 1, 2, and 3 he calls Columns.  The columns terminology makes sense, but the odd use of Levels doesn’t work for me, so I’m going to stick with what I’ve been writing.

Now my 50 pushups qualifies me for Level 3 for Week 5, but after my Week 3 Day 1 fiasco, I’m going to stick with Level 2 for Week 5.  As it is, Day One is a significant step up in total pushups from what I was doing in Week 4, even if I stay in Level 2.  I’m not sure I can do Level 3, and I’d rather complete a scheduled workout at Level 2 than bomb out at Level 3.

Finally, while I feel pretty good about the progress so far, what’s left seems pretty daunting.  I did 10 pushups on my first exhaustion test, and 50 on last night’s test. (BTW, I turn 46 today for reference).  That’s an increase of 40 pushups in 4 weeks.  But now I have to add another 50 in just 2 weeks if the program works at its stated goal (to be fair, it acknowledges that it might take an extra week or 2 for some).  You can also look at it in terms of multiples, which is less intimidating.  In 4 weeks, I’ve multiplied my exhaustion test results by 5; now I have to do a double in 2 weeks.  I’m not sure which way of looking at it makes more sense.  We’ll see where I end up.

Thursday night I finished the Week 3 program on Level 2.  My performance was similar to Day 2.  I was able to exceed the minimum on the last set by just a few, but ended up doing 105 pushups overall in 5 sets, 2 minutes apart.  This is the first time I broke 100.  I’m still a ways from doing 100 in one set, but the progress is good.  Week 4 is only a slight step up from Week 3 in difficulty, so it is sort of a plateau phase.  Hopefully it will lead to increased production on the last set of each day, where you have to do as many pushups as you can, subject to a minimum.

Unless something unexpected happens, I’ll wait until the end of the week to report.

Much, much better than Day 1.  Back in my Level 2 sweet spot, I did just fine on Day 2.  The program requires:

22
17
17
15
20 minimum
91 total

I did 25 in the last set, for 96 total.  The Day 3 workout is tougher than the Level 3 Day 1 workout I tried and did so poorly on.   I see three advantages going in to Day 3: (1) I’ll have 2 more workouts behind me, so I should be just that much stronger; (2) I will have 2 full days rest; and (3) the Day 3 workout allows 120 seconds between sets, and the Day 1 workout only allowed 60.  I’m cautiosuly optomistic I’ll do OK.

That was too tough.  As I wrote Saturday, I did enough pushups in the interim test before Week 3 to graduate to the third level of difficulty.  The jum was too much.  In fact, the jump from Week 2 Day 3 at Level 2 to Week 3 Day 1 at Level 2 is pretty high.

Here is Week 2 Day 3 at Level 2.  Each workout is 5 sets, and the last set is always as many as you can do subject to a minimum:

10
10
8
8
10 minimum.  That’s a total of 46 pushups, and I did 25in the last set for a total of 61.

Here are the sets for Week 3 Day 1 at Levels 2 and 3:

20                         25
15                         17
15                         17
13                         15
20 minimum         25 minimum
83                        99

Even at my above-mimimum 61 for the end of Week 2, those are significant jumps.  I tried doing Level 3, switched to Level 2 partway through the set, and ended up just doing as much as I could for the last 2-3 sets:

25
17
10
12
15
79 total.

I think if I had started at Level 2, I might have managed to finish the Level 2 workout, but I can’t be sure.  I will continue with Week 3 at Level 2 from here on out.  I think I can manage it, but if it’s too hard I’ll just repeat Week 3.

I also have one criticism of the program instructions.  It isn’t clear when or how you are supposed to fit in the interim tests.  The instructions stress the importance of rest, including the extra day between weeks, but when you do the interim test, you lose some rest time.  You could extend the weekend an extra day or two, but then you end up working out on different days, and the instructions definitely contemplate that you can work out the same 3 days each week for  six weeks.  It isn’t clear what you should do.  I hesitate to criticize, because it is really a great program and costs me nothing; I’m actually quite grateful, but clarifying when to do the interim tests would be an improvement.

I did the test at the midway point of the 3 day rest period, so I had roughly 36 hours after the last Week 2 workout before the test, and 36 hours after the test and before the first workout of Week 3.  I don’t think the latter was enough.  My arms still felt a little tired when I began the first workout of Week 3.  After Week 4, I’ll do the test 24 hours after the end of Week 4, leaving 48 hours before starting Week 5.  If that means a lower score on the interim test, so be it.

In the video below, the restart and the action begins about one minute in.

One week ago I reported on my start with this program.  I have now finished the second week, and just this morning I took the two-week test.  I did 28 pushups in a single shot.  This is an improvement over the 10 pushups I was able to do in the test I took at the outset of the program.  This result also pushes me up into the hardest level of the training program for the next two weeks.  While I’m pleased with that, it’s also daunting, as it involves a significant increase in difficulty. For example, my last workout for Week 2 required 5 sets totalling at least 46 pushups.  In the last set you do as many as you can (with a minimum).  I blew past the minimum and did a total of 61 pushups instead of the required 46.  The first workout at Level 3 for the next week requires a minimum of 99 pushups.  That’s a very big step up.

If I have to, I can always revert back to training Level 2, if necessary, but I hope that doesn’t happen.  Another update will come at the end of week 3.