Last weekend was the beginning of the 100 Push Up challenge and I managed to get through 30 consecutive push ups for the initial strength test.

I really have no idea of what ‘normal’ would be for an average guy being asked to do push ups but I generally consider myself reasonably strong – so figured that an initial strength test of 30 was doing pretty well. It wasn’t until I read the training program to complete 100 consecutive push ups that I realised that I was no where near strong enough, in particular completely lacking the endurance. When doing strength training at a gym, I would normally do 3 sets of 10-12 repitions on a much heavier weight but the challenge of five sets with much, much higher repititions is going to be tough.

The first session in week 3 was, in short, an eye opening experience. I had assumed that since the guide placed me into week 3 that it’d be relatively smooth sailing, however I wasn’t able to complete all the requirements on each of the five sets and came up short in sets four and five. Not surprisingly, within 15 minutes of completing the session – my arms felt like they’d recovered and were able to go again. It wasn’t until Tuesday that I realised that doing push ups was working whole new sets of muscle groups, core muscles to be exact which were noticely tired and sore that day.

Session number two and the repitions increased again, which after not completing the first session successfully only two days earlier – I held little hope that I’d make it through. To my surprise, while I didn’t make it through all five sets completely – I only came up by a handful of push ups and incresed my total work output from 70 to 95 push ups.

On to the last session for the week and everything increased again, however after having what I’d consider a successful session two – I entered session three with reasonable expectations that I’d at least complete the strength training completely. Not only did each of the sets get completed, I pushed an additional 10 push ups out of the fifth set giving a total of 130 for the session.

I wasn’t sure what to expect going through last weeks work out with such a weak start, however after the initial shock of strength and endurance training for the first time in 10 months – everything kicked back into gear and I’m hopeful that I won’t fall off the wagon until I can complete at least 100 consecutive push ups!

I came across a personal fitness and exercise site named 100 Push Ups, which is about what it suggests – being able to do 100 push ups in a row.

Over the weekend I went through the initial test, which is to guage what your current fitness level is. The test is very straight foward, do as many consecutive good form push ups as you can in one session until you can’t push another one out. That number is used to place yourself into the fitness training program. I managed to get through 30 push ups in my initial test, which puts me into week three of the training schedule.

It wasn’t until I started reading through how the fitness program is structured to build strength that I realised that I was in for a bit of a shock. While at the gym, I’d normally do weights in sets of three with between 10-15 repetitions per set. At week three in the push up challenge, the sets start at 14 and go up from there.

As a matter of curiosity, a few months ago I thought it’d be useful to know how much weight I lift when doing a simple push up and it was approximately 55kg or slightly over 50% of my body weight. With that number in mind, I knew getting through the 100 push up challenge was going to be just that – a challenge and not something that I’d casually stroll through.

In the coming weeks, I’ll report back on how my progress is going on the challenge. I don’t expect it to be easy but I’m hoping that I build my arm strength up in a hurry, as by the end of next week the exercise program is expecting me to do 160 push ups over five sets with two minutes break between each set !