Monday, May 3, 2010

Alert: I must now turn sideways to walk through doorways ....


Here is my 100 Push Up, ahem,  Race Report:

Okay, so I woke up yesterday after tossing and turning all night long because of a mixture of fear and anticipation.  The focus for the day would be nutrition. Well, nutrition and focus.  So my focus would be to focus on being focused and nutrition.  You know the body cannot properly perform unless it is running on solid petrol.  Whole wheat bagel and turkey sausage along with a protein shake.  Then to relax the nerves I sat down on my couch and commented on a bunch of blogs and watched a movie on SyFy about a giant Hydra that was killing people and could only be killed using the mythical sword of Hercules.  Because apparently the sword would cauterize the wound and new little hydra heads would not grow back.  Makes sense to me!  Seriously, I cannot make this up.  It was perhaps the most awful movie ever made and I enjoyed every single moment of it.

Now I had been hydrating all morning and was feeling good but as every athlete knows you need to, "be the ball." So I began visualizing actually doing 100 Push Ups, and as we all know if you can think it you can do it! I was exhausted after this mental exercise and decided to take a pre-event nap while watching the Penguins game.  And being that I was still in the clothes that I slept in this worked it out wonderfully.

After being lazy the short slumber, some light stretching and a variety of jumping jacks and loud grunts occurred because ladies and gentlemen, it was GO TIME!

I have been using push up handles for the last six weeks.  These help your wrists stay stabilized but also make the push ups a little harder since you tend to go deeper in the move if you were not using them. Since today was the big day it was time to scrape the stands and go old-school.  Palms to the floor!

The push ups began while "The Final Countdown" (Click HERE and continue reading ... much more epic this way) from Europe was blaring in the background from my iPod. I made it to 60 reps a lot easier than I even visualized, I was thinking that 120 reps was a possibility at this point.  Then I hit 70 and the pain train came to a screeching halt in the station.  At this point I paused at the high point and decided to just do 10 at a time.  I slowly got to 80 and my arms were getting shaky.  Ten more and I was now at 90 and my arms were screaming, I was out of breathe and was feeling dizzy..... 91, 92, 93, 94 ....9555555.... pause...breathe .... 96. 97, 98, .... 2 more Nancy .... 99, 100 ..... Ding, Ding, Ding .... collapse in pain on carpet for probably 10 minutes.

So, good day.  I set a new PR with 100 push ups.  Nailed my nutrition plan.  I'd like to throw out a big thanks to the band Europe for writing and performing, "The Final Countdown".  To my family and friends for their encouragement.  To all my fellow bloggers who pushed me to reach deep down inside myself and strive to achieve perfection,  to my shirts which have been burdened with being stretched out in the sleeves from my big ass arms.  To my Pugs for not jumping on my back for the first time in 6 weeks while attempting push ups.  To all the haters who said this could not be accomplished - eat it biatches!!

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Alright I am done with the foolishness.  The real story is that I did the program as followed and did the 100 before I went on a run. It hurt and I'd be happy to never do another push up again.   But the above version seemed so much cooler. And I may or may not have actually been listening to Europe.

Congrats to Scott at Tri Diesel for hitting 103 Push Ups this week to join Boomer, James, and me in the Badass of all Badasses club:
Please let me know if anyone else has hit the goal or has completed the  challenge.  One thing for sure is if you are following the plan you will see some pretty incredible gains.  My wife started out with 16 pushups and is well over 60 now and her arms look great.

Send in your success stories!

Thanks for Reading,

Jeff

20 comments:

  1. Right on brother! Way to knock em out :)

    Tony Horton would be proud of your push up skills now!!! HAHA!

    Keep up the hard work, and I just realized you aren't taking your rest that you said you needed anymore now are you?! ;) I can relate to you 100% Jeff haha!

    Later man!

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  2. You are a BAMF! Now get those guns licensed!

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  3. Nice job Brother! Ohh Yeahhhhhh!

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  4. Good work bad ass man! I hope you have cut the sleeves off of your shirts! :) Way to go!

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  5. Woohoo! Congrats! Your first story was hilarious! Ha ha! :)

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  6. I'll stealing the "I'm a bad ass" photo and sending it to myself in an email.

    ;)

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  7. That is great! I am on day 1 of week 2. I plan to stick to this plan like glue. I'm hoping my arms will have some nice definition when I'm done. : )

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  8. Mendelbaum! Mendelbaum! Mendelbaum! Way to go, Izzy!!

    Now can you lift that TV?

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  9. Ya know the focus to focus on being focused can only be fully focused by focusing on the focus of a someone focused on killing a freakin' Hydra. That's just science and you can't argue with science. Focus.

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  10. BADASS indeed! Way to go, yeah, I don't think I could do 16 either:( Le sigh...

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  11. Super badass!!! I'm going to try the program after my marathon at the end of the month.

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  12. Congrats on your push-ups. That's amazing. I'll give you a pass on Europe.

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  13. Nice to have you in the club!!! I know your triceps were screaming. Mine felt like rocks and stayed tight for a long time. I would have loved to see a picture of you right after the last pushup. I know those veins in your forehead were sticking out like hoses. So do you have those tickets... to the gun show!!!

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  14. Oh crap! You too...seriously!?! Congrats to you and all of your studness:) Way to join the team with Boomer and James!! Also, congrats to Big Daddy Diesel!! I am still in the 45 range but I am doing another week or two just to see if I can ramp up anymore!

    Have a wonderful day Jeff!

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  15. Congrats!! I mean wow that is a huge accomplishment, getting through Hydra (Ha ha I mean the push ups man!) But still that was an awful movie, only slightly worse than Anaconda III which came on just before. Cheers!!! Keep up the excellent work you bad ass!

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  16. The ONLY way I was gonna let you get away about blogging about such a movie is if you hit your 100!!!!

    Congrats my friend.

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  17. Anaconda 3 ... how did I miss that little made for SyFy gem? OMG..just looked it up on IMDB (2.8 out of 10 stars) and stars David Hasselholf as a mercenary !?!?! I am beyond excited to see this now ... it will undoubtedly make the Hydra movie look like an Oscar winner... Thanks for the tip Jennifer!!

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  18. congrats jeff!! hilarous "race" report :) loved it. i could even feel the burn in your final (ten) countdown.

    i didn't make it to the hundred yet... it's been 6 weeks already? man... by the time i get there you will have long deleted the side bar ;)

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