In my last post I briefly mentioned that my arms were sore from a push-up competition. Let me explain this more in depth. I work, as I’ve mentioned before, in a Physical Therapist’s office. The job is very physically demanding and I would say everyone who works in the office is very physically fit and athletic. We all kind of have to be somewhat fit because of the physical nature of the job, but I also like to think that we try to live healthy and exercise so we can be an example for our patients, a “practice what you preach” philosophy. One of my bosses does karate, is competing in a “tough mudder” race, and does the MS bike ride every year. About two or three weeks ago he asked me “if you did ten push-ups, every hour for ten hours, how many days in a row do you think you could do this?” I replied, “I don’t know, let’s try.” This is the WRONG answer! The right answer is one day, I could do it for one day! So we did it. Every hour at work (when we weren’t busy), we got down on the ground and did ten push-ups. Most of our patients were impressed that I did real push-ups and not girly ones and I was quite pleased with myself! It wasn’t so bad at first. Having an hour to recover really helped a lot. Just after I’d do ten every hour, I thought I was out of the competition. After having an hour to recover, I was fine and did another ten. It got really tough around 80 and I didn’t know if I could make it, but I prevailed! The next day I paid for it! My pecs were killing me! I probably could have suffered through about 30 on the second day of the competition, but I was too busy with other things. On what would have been the third day of the competition, I was completely out of the running. My pecs were so sore and I probably couldn’t have done a push up if I tried.
Since then we’ve continued the competition, but I’ve scaled back a lot. I had been doing fifty, twenty-five at the beginning of the day and another twenty-five towards the end of the day. On Tuesday, I did sixty, thirty at the beginning of the day and thirty at the end. My boss also challenged me to add some push-ups where I dropped all the way to the ground and then pushed myself back up to the starting position. I scattered some throughout the sixty, but I think those are what really killed me.
What the competition taught me, besides I could only last one day doing a hundred push-ups over ten hours, was that push ups (done right) really work out your arms and your core muscles (for those of you who don’t know, your core muscles include your abs and having a strong core helps reduce back pain and helps with balance). My abs feel an look great! I also learned that you really don’t have to spend all day in the gym. I would say fifty push-ups took less then ten minutes throughout the day. So if you can spare ten minutes a day, you can get in some sort of exercise. If you can do push ups, do them. If not, try some crunches or a position in pilates called “the hundred.” Get out for a brief walk. Walk the dog, if you have one. Carry grocery bags up and down the stairs, or find something simple that you can and will do every day for at least ten minutes, preferably something you enjoy and doesn’t cost a lot of money or require an elaborate set up so that you are sure to do it everyday. But my point is to do some sort of exercise, for at least ten minutes a day and mix it up!
(As much as I would love to have had photos of this, unfortunately, there are none! I can’t bring my photographer with me everywhere).