Tuesday, February 19, 2013

On one giant leap for Emily, a small step for Emilykind.

I have achieved a thing! It is not a major achievement in the grand scheme of things, but for me it was difficult and I worked a long time at it and finally did it, so that means I am proud of it even if it is minor.

I have very little upper body strength. Last semester I would have said VIRTUALLY NO upper body strength, but now I have graduated to "very little."

Many of you have probably heard of the 100 Push-Ups six-week plan, but that was laughably out of my reach. So I modified the program to do 100 wall push ups. It was not easy for me. It took far longer than six weeks for a number of reasons. I had to redo week five because I failed the strength test after it.  And, just as an aside, even if everything goes as planned, the program takes longer than six weeks because after certain weeks you need to wait a couple days, perform a strength test and then wait another couple of days before starting on the next week.

BUT, when I started the program I could do nine wall push-ups and NOW I CAN DO ONE HUNDRED. That is, like, a lot more! So I feel accomplished, even if wall push-ups are the wussiest of push-ups.

One nice thing about this program is that you are constantly keeping track of how far you've come. Now I am starting the program over, doing both assisted sit-ups and desk push-ups, and maybe after I finish this "six-week" (ha!) program I will graduate to The Real Thing and be able to do ANY sit-ups and/or ANY push-ups for realsies.

6 comments:

  1. YAY EMILY! Way to go - and you're totally doing it right - slow progression to successively harder variations of an exercise!! I'd encourage you to try to some 'pulling' exercises, too, so you can develop agonist and antagonist muscles evenly. Keep up the awesome work!!

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    1. Thank you! Is there a pulling exercise I could do without purchasing anything, installing anything, or paying for a membership anywhere? I bow to your expertise.

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    2. I THINK I still have exercise bands that I can give you that will allow for just that! Let me A) find them and then B) coordinate when to bring them to you! Alternatively, and more immediately, you can do a bent-over row (yes, that IS what she said, but you can google for a video), they're very simple, and use whatever you have around - gallon of liquid is a convenient choice, but a wine bottle works well, too!

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    3. Soooo, I'm doing it, but it doesn't feel like exercise. Without a barbell, I wasn't really able to replicate the motion I saw in the videos. I feel it most in my legs, holding a pose for however many reps of lifting. The weight of bottles of wine didn't really register for me, so I am using a giant costco-bottle of olive oil. I guess it's better than nothing? Thoughts?

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  2. Replies
    1. Thank you! And as an aside, YAY working on your website. :D

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