A little look back at my last sporting challenge
Recently, while surfing the endless expanses of the Word Wide Web, I came across an article that caught my attention. The author of this article was talking about his experience in a "30-Day Challenge". The challenge he submitted himself to was to do 100 push-ups every day for a period of 30 consecutive days. For some reason, I found this idea quite fascinating and immediately embraced the idea of giving this a try. My days of regular exercise have been over for quite a while, and especially in the last two or three years I've been lacking in exercise quite a bit. But nevertheless I immediately decided to join in. For one month I wanted to do 100 push-ups a day and see if I would see any positive change.
The first day was as expected exhausting, because the last push-ups were quite a while ago. But after 6 sets I managed to do 100 push-ups and was quite motivated for the coming month and even looking forward to the challenge. The next few days were similar, but I needed fewer sets to reach the required daily number of pushups. Of course, I experienced a rather strong muscle soreness, which I registered and nursed rather willingly.
As the days and weeks went by, I was able to increase the length of the individual sets, and even the number of daily push-ups. At the very beginning I was still doing 15 to 20 push-ups per set, but as the challenge progressed I was soon able to 30 and then even 40. And instead of the target of 100 push-ups per day, on some days I was even doing 150. At least physically I felt that my upper body felt more tense and harder, and at times I could even see a positive change in my appearance.
Since the scheduled 30 days were over pretty quickly, I quickly decided to extend the Challenge to 100 days, because as you know, you can't stand on one leg. And so it happened that in the following weeks, every morning right after getting up, I started to prepare myself with some push-ups. On most days I managed 160 push-ups in only four sets and felt really good and pumped up afterwards. And also my upper body and my arms showed now quite visible changes, which not only I noticed.
I was very surprised that I could really go through with it, to torture myself every day again and again with several rounds of push-ups, and that I could even increase the number significantly. Most of the time it was quite a routine and I started the first set immediately after getting up, but especially towards the end of the 100 days I found it harder and harder to keep up with it. Due to changes in time and place, I sometimes only managed to reach the minimum target number of 100 push-ups in the evening. After all, push-up are still no fun at all.
Even after the 100 days, I didn't completely give up the push-ups I had almost become fond of. Even though I don't need 100 push-ups a day anymore, I do at least one set of 40. Sometimes even more, but it's more important to me that I get myself to go horizontal at least once a day.
Exercise is always the right thing to do, and those who keep fit usually get more out of life. Of course, you don't have to overdo it, but every now and then you a little challenge is just what we need. Willpower and stamina have to be trained, so that we don't lose it completely, and my push-up challenge was probably just the right thing for that. Sure, fun is of course a completely different thing, but sweat and tears are sometimes quite helpful and necessary to get to our goal.
Today I am already on track and can therefore turn to other things that are more or less pleasant. But at least I'm still heading in the right direction.