kentcowgill.org/blog

So much to write, so little time.

Having trouble remembering what I did and when (again) - so I'll work backwards. Again.

So because of all of that, I decided to re-start week 11 this week and I did the Chest and Back routine on Tuesday. I think I did pretty well, 264 pushups (a personal best), 65 pull ups and 35 chin ups. I'm totally blowing off Ab Ripper. And I knocked the scab off my knuckle from Shoulders and Arms. At least I got to use my pull up bar again. Last week seems like it counted for something, because I got more pull ups and chin ups than I did last time I did this routine with a pull up bar. I'm really anxious to see how well I'd do on the old 100 pushups program.

And over the weekend I did Yoga X, again all of it, and came back to Chicago. Believe me, with a 20 pound child and a 12 pound dog, plus a 15 pound car seat, a 50 pound suitcase, and a ... well, I don't know exactly how hevy it is, but I'd have to say my shoulder bag fully loaded is about 15 pounds - toting all that around is plenty workout enough. Not really, but it wore me out anyhow.

Later on Christmas Day I did Shoulders and Arms. Kind of. I had to use the bands again. While I'm glad I had them, I didn't take the time before the trip to fully learn how to use them for the various exercises. I ended up abrading one of my knuckles on Congdon Curls (curl up, hammer down).

Thursday, I had some catch-up to do so I did Plyometrics in the morning, tucked away in about 5 square feet of spare room in the, uh ... spare room :) I couldn't quite get a lot of forward/backward distance with moves like Monster Truck Tires or Leapfrog Squats, so I did the best I could with the room I had. And Lisa was out spreading holiday cheer with Matthew, so I had a few minutes to run through it. She got back near the end though, I had a great time playing peek-a-boo with Matthew as he was on one side of his carseat and I was peeking around the sides as I did lateral leapfrog squats.

I'm pretty sure I skipped everything on Wednesday. I just couldn't find the time with all the errands, visitors, carseat shuffling, and Matthew toting that happened.

Tuesday evening I got out my trusty bands, mounted them in a doorway, and did the Chest and Back routine. On the one hand, I couldn't do too many more of the band pull ups than regular pull ups, which tells me that it's a fair approximation of the real deal pull ups and chin ups. On the other hand, it just didn't feel like an honest-to-goodness pull up and chin up routine. But I managed to pump out 235 push ups.

Tuesday morning, December 23rd, was spent traveling with Lisa, Matthew, Spike, and the luggage.

Monday the 22nd I was busy tying up loose ends and packing.

I'm pretty sure I did Kenpo around the 21st.

I probably did Legs and Back on the 20th, or thereabouts.

It's very likely that I did Yoga X on the 19th, give or take. Of special note, I think I finally did the entire Yoga X routine.

There's a good chance I did Back and Biceps on the 18th.

I very possibly did Plyometrics on or around the 17th.

I find it likely that I did Chest, Shoulders, and Triceps on or around the 15th.

Signs point to that I maybe did a catch up Legs and Back on the 14th.

I have a fair degree of confidence that I did Shoulders and Arms on the 11th.

The odds are pretty good that I did Chest and Back on the 9th.

The week of December 1st was supposed to be a recovery week, and it was. I was sick. Not terribly sick, but enough to make me not want to keep up with everything. I have recollection of doing Core Synergistics, Yoga, and possibly Kenpo, but I'm not so clear on that one.

And that takes me back to where I left off.

It's been a while since I've updated my P90X progress.

A week ago Tuesday I did the Core Synergistics routine, and it was tougher than I was expecting (considering that the week is labelled "recovery week").

Wednesday I did a pretty solid workout at physical therapy. I think once I got home and ate, I was too tired to do anything, so I'm thinking I missed Kenpo.

Thursday I meant to make up for the Kenpo, but again was tired, so I skipped it as well as the X Stretch routine - which, now that I've actually watched a bit of the video, it looks like it's worthwhile enough to actually do on my "rest" days, even though it's longer than I was anticipating.

Friday, I'm just going to call it laziness, so I didn't do anything then either.

Saturday I think is when started trying to make up lost ground and did two workouts. I did Kenpo X during the day - Lisa was out shopping, and I put on a Kenpo show for Matthew. Apparently Daddy bouncing around throwing punches and kicks is mildly entertaining for him. I think I did another workout in the evening, but I'm having trouble recalling which one.

Sunday I did Yoga X, not wanting to do anything that might interfere with getting back on schedule starting Monday.

Monday, Lisa had an early soccer game so I skipped physical therapy, planning to go Tuesday and Thursday, and in the evening I did the chest, shoulders, and triceps routine. And it left my arms pretty abused by the end of it. I did fewer pushups than in other routines, mainly because there was so much triceps emphasis in this routine that it made the pushups much more difficult. I'm very glad it's going to be a week before I have to do that routine again. I had to modify a lot of the pushups to be able to even do them - especially the one arm pushups (ha!) and the hand-clap pushups - those were both done with my knees on the ground instead of my feet. The slow-motion pushups at the beginning of the routine really took their toll on me.

And right afterwards I did Ab Ripper X. Very difficult. I did fewer reps than when I did it standalone, but a lot more reps than the last time I tried to do it immediately following a workout. The best news is that I've apparently figured out how to fold my yoga mat to make it so my tailbone doesn't hurt any more. Good news is that I had been counting something else wrong - the roll-up v-ups. I had been counting them half as many as the DVD - how i counted, I had done at most 20. But according to the way the DVD counts them, I had done 40. I also had been doing "too many" leg climbs. I assumed I should do 25 of each of those, whereas the DVD only does 12 each. See what I miss by not following the DVD? Regardless, I won't change the way I've been counting them - but instead of striving to get 25, I'll be comfortable doing only 13; because it's a two part move, I don't want to leave the last move half done.

Then I took my day 30 photos. I'm not sure I'm seeing a ton of improvement. I should probably really watch my diet better.

Tuesday, on schedule, I had physical therapy where I did a lot of legs stuff, and then came home and did the Plyometrics. I'm still not squatting as low as I could possibly go during the various squat jumps, but I can at least get through the whole routine and still be able to walk the next day.

Wednesday, I was still feeling the effects of all the triceps work from Monday. I ended up doing Back and Biceps very late - too late to do the Ab Ripper afterwards. This was a pretty challenging day with tons of biceps work, and my new least favorite pullup, the corncob pullup. While holding your chin over the bar in a wide-grip pullup, move your body to the right, then over to the left, back to center, then push away from the bar, then go back towards the bar, and then finally let yourself down. Sweet mercy! (sweat mercy?) I only did five of those. I could've possibly squeezed out one or two more if I got myself off the bar for a few seconds and tried again, but I felt that stopping where I did gave me room to improve next week and the week after that.

Thursday I went again to physical therapy and concentrated on my lower back, leg abductors and adductors, and hamstrings. For good measure I threw in a chest press and pectoral fly, since it had been a couple of days since chest day. I didn't do any of the major leg work I tend to do since I'm doing legs later today. I also didn't do much other core work, because as soon as I got home I ripped through the Ab Ripper routine - 363 core moves. I intended to do Yoga later in the evening, but waking up early after going to bed late the last two days took its toll - I fell asleep early.

Now it's Friday afternoon, and my biceps are pretty sore today. I'm buttoning up the text of this post, and I fully intend to do Back and Legs today, Kenpo and Ab Ripper tomorrow, and at least Yoga if not also X Stretch on Sunday. Or maybe I'll switch Kenpo and Yoga - I haven't decided yet. I'm hoping the sore biceps won't interfere too much with the pullups and chinups I'm supposed to do tonight.

Not much to report - moving along with P90X.

I did that Chest and Back routine again, but started late again and had to skip the Ab Ripper X routine.

Today I did 112 pushups of several varieties - standard, military (elbows in), wide stance, decline, diamond, and dive bombers. I did 20 pull ups (10 each wide and narrow grip), 10 chin ups, and 77 rowing moves, but with heavier weights than last time.

Mental note: sushi is probably not good to have about an hour before a workout. At least not spicy tuna maki with extra wasabi. It didn't come back up, but it definitely didn't taste better the second time around.

And Matthew's surgery is scheduled for 7:30am tomorrow, which means we need to get to the hospital at 6:00am, which means we need to leave by 5:20am to be extra certain we're not late, which means we need to bathe him around 4:30am, which means we need to wake up around 4:00am. Ugh.

And then if I can at all manage it, I need to get myself to physical therapy possibly. But I'd definitely like to make it home for the Plyometrics workout, and of course the Ab Ripper routine to make up for skipping it tonight.

Did I say "Ugh" before?

Double ugh.

I had another late start tonight, so I only did an hours worth of the legs and back routine. And not a solid hour - although I was tempted to skip ahead when I did fewer reps, I instead used the time for a little ballistic stretching.

Because I haven't done this routine before, I really wanted to take it easy on my legs so I'd be able to walk tomorrow when Lisa and I take Matthew to pick out his very first halloween pumpkin!

And because it was so late when I was done with the hour of the legs and back routine, I decided to hold off on the Ab Ripper X routine until tomorrow.

Now I just need to make sure I don't find an excuse to put it off tomorrow :)

The "back" part of the legs and back routine was just several different pull ups and chin ups of varying grip widths. I did about 53 in total, the second set of which I "cheated" a little and let my feet touch the ground at the bottom of the move. But I'm still counting it as 21 chin ups (underhand) and 32 pull ups (overhand). A lot more than I did 5 days ago. And right at what I did a couple of months ago.

The legs part was pretty challenging as I alluded to before - instead of doing about 25 of every move, I did anywhere from 10 to 15 based on how my legs were feeling. I'll see how my legs are tomorrow. My only concern is that I didn't hit my hamstrings as much as my quadriceps, and I think part of the reason I was having issues with my knees a few weeks ago was an imbalance between the major opposing muscle groups of my legs.

If they're sore tomorrow, then I guess I'll know :)

It's been almost a week - but don't think I've been resting on my considerable laurels. I've done several more workouts for my chest, back, shoulders and arms - I've continued my physical therapy - and I've ventured into the Kenpo X and Cardio X workouts.

I've also measured everything that's appropriate to measure, and figured out that if I'm reading (and probably more importantly using) my skinfold calipers correctly, my body composition is in the neighborhood of about 19%. I still suspect it's higher than that, but since I've measured and calculated that number on a couple of separate occasions with slight variations in the measurements of skinfolds, I feel confident that I can at least use that number as a benchmark. Whether it's high or low shouldn't matter as long as it gets lower in the coming weeks.

So the Kenpo X workout is pretty tough - and fairly rough on my knees. I had to take it a little easy on the kicks. I decided to do the kicks because by and large, my knees were feeling pretty good. Fortunately they continued to feel good the next day, confirming that I didn't do anything terribly bad to them.

And then there was the Cardio X routine. I figured that would be a good one to whet my whistle for the other workouts since it touches on the Yoga and even the scary plyometrics workout. This one was very difficult - I nearly got my heart rate up to where it was on my faster run portions of my run/walk routine. Again I avoided any pain the next day even though my quadriceps felt some delayed onset muscle soreness the next day due to some of the jumping.

So the Cardio X routine was yesterday, and I took all my measurements yesterday, and I took the dreadful "before" pictures, so that meant I was pretty much obligating myself to start the real, full, and actual P90X routine today.

But first I had physical therapy. And not just normal physical therapy (though maybe that's a good thing). Today was the first day of my "step down" program. Meaning I'm done with the normal program, I just get to use their facilities and their expertise as I do all the stuff I can do at home, except for a few machines and devices that I can't quite replicate. I skipped a few of the recommended exercises since I knew they'd overlap with what I was planning on for the evening. Or the later evening.

Got home, had a quick dinner, watched Heroes, and then got busy. I did about 87 push ups of many varieties, about 15 pull ups and 8 chin ups. Yes, that's fewer than I was doing during the 100 pushups routine, but since these were all different varieties and hit all different parts of my chest and triceps, I think this was probably pretty good for a start. I also did roughly 75 rowing type movements with dumbbells. The weight here is still fairly low, especially since I moved to 2 circuits of this routine, as suggested by the videos.

And to the letter of the law with the P90X program, I went straight to the Ab Ripper X routine afterwards. It's still very hard, I still can't do everything, but I'm still working towards increasing what I'm able to do. But at the end of it, I had performed about 174 'reps' of all the various ab/core exercises combined. Really tough ab/core exercises. So don't scoff at the fact that 174 is only half of the 349 total reps that I could be doing. Supposing I didn't throw up mid-workout from the insane exertion.

Next up tomorrow is plyometrics. I'm a little scared - I just hope I can remember to take it easy on my knees and not catch quite so much air during the routine.

Since I last wrote, I've been doing a bit more of the P90X inspired workouts. I had been hesitant to start full bore into it, primarily due to my persistent knee issues, but also due to the fact that from the reviews I'm reading, I just might not quite be ready for it just yet.

And I recall with painful clarity what would likely happen if I start out with something too much too fast. Every time I take a step.

So I've been kind of noodling around, doing smaller version of the workouts, making sure I don't take off more than I can chew. Where the exercises use only bodyweight, I've been probably doing about a fourth or less of what I'm probably capable of, and very gradually working my way up. Where weights are called for, I've been taking it very light. I've also been avoiding the Plyometrics, the Cardio-X, the Yoga-X, and the Kenpo-X - all to avoid further damaging my knees.

But then I read something that made me change my mind a bit - at least with the Plyometrics, I've read that there are versions presented that have lower impact for those with bad knees.

So it sounds like I have less of an excuse to continue completely avoiding them.

I've done the shoulders and arms workout, basically doing various shoulder presses, biceps curls, and triceps work - but only one complete circuit (including the bonus round!). I've also done the Abs routine, and am slowly adding to the reps I do of each exercise. And I've done the Chest and Back routine again, but again with a very limited number of reps, and only one circuit.

I'll probably continue this approach, and try the other workouts I've been avoiding, and then probably launch into the grueling 6 day a week schedule.

It seems my hundred pushups plan as well as the couple of pyramids I did over the last few months at least has me to the point where I'm not sore after these workouts.

And the physical therapy that I've been doing seems to have adequately prepared my core muscles for the "Ab Ripper X" routine. At least the abbreviated version I'm doing.

I go back to physical therapy Monday so they can check in on the progress of the healing of my knees. They're slowly getting better - I can usually walk without limping, and I seem to be able to get up and down the stairs pretty well. But there's a few movements that seem to still jack up the pain so I'm nearly gasping with the suddenness and sharpness of the pain.

Pretty soon I'm really going to have to stop procrastinating and take some measurements so that I have more than just general "get rid of the fat" goals I can shoot for.

So it seems I'm going to wait a while before I can start running again. At least, I hope it's only a while, and not forever.

I think my biggest problem was being on pain medication for my back while I started becoming a bit of a runner. Naproxen sodium masked the pain of my back, and most likely my knees. And then the prescription ran out, and I didn't feel like being on pain medication anymore, so I stopped taking them. And then the knee pain starts. But instead of being just gradual, it hits me like a ton of bricks. And the knee "damage" probably just started because like with most things exercise related, I did too much too fast.

C'est la vie.

My physical therapist seems to be helping me work through the recovery, but it still seems slow.

But that certainly leaves my upper body free for abuse.

So I started doing a little something inspired by P90X, and a fairly decent follow on to my recent spate of push ups and chin ups. I can't really launch into the full P90X program due to my knee issues. For now.

It's been a few weeks (already?!) since I even did my pyramids, so I took it a little easy and did a few each of standard push ups, military push ups (narrower hand position with elbows tucked in next to the body), wide push ups, decline push ups, diamond push ups, and dive bomber push ups. Everything but the standard was a nice challenge, because I had never done them - and honestly I wasn't sure if I'd be able to do them, because I knew that a few of them were tougher than the standard. Yet another reason why I didn't do very many.

I also did a few each of wide grip, overhand pull ups, regular chin ups, and close grip overhand pull ups. Again a fun challenge - I had never done the overhand variety, and thought they'd be substantially harder and possibly out of my reach. But they weren't :)

I also did a few latissimus dorsi, rhomboid, and rear deltoid lifts with light dumbbells.

I'll probably be a little sore from this for the next few days. But maybe not too bad.

As far as my knees, I'll be taking it really easy, alternating compression (from cho-pat straps) and icing, and some easy stretching and very light leg extensions and leg curls.

Ok, physical therapy is getting really hard. First the usual stuff - marching bridges, leg lifts, etc. Then I had to do two sets of these horrible, torturous crab walks, wherein my ankles are connected to each other with an elastic tube and I'm supposed to walk sideways all the way across the physical therapy center. And back. Twice. I'm not sure which muscles it is that this really kills me on, but they hurt. If in fact they're still there. I'm not sure, but I may have worked them right off of my body. Ok, they're the tensor fasciæ latæ, and they hurt. A lot. And then this other thing I think my physical therapist invented on the spot to continue the torture - this crazy walking with legs bent, ankles attached with elastic, and wide, sweeping steps.

To top that off, then I had to work on the slide board. The thing that makes you make a motion like you're skiing, skating, or rollerblading. Several minutes worth. Twice. Guess what muscle this motion tends to work? That's right. Same ones as that crazy crab walk. Then these ludicrous walking lunges all the way across the physical therapy center. And back. But while down in the lunge position, hold a medicine ball out at arms' length and twist my torso 90º both ways.

And maybe some other stuff, but I'm too tired to remember it.

Then I get home, eat some dinner, check a little email, and I guess I wasn't feeling beat up enough, so I decided to do my next set of pyramids. 1-2-3-4-5-6-6-5-4-3-2-1. Total of 42 chin ups, 126 push ups, and 210 sit ups. All with really good form, except for maybe about 8-10 of the chin ups where I cheated a little.

If all of the above isn't enough, I'm thinking that if I'm still able to walk tomorrow, I'm going to do 9 sets of the jog/walk intervals from the 5K for beginners running plan, instead of the 8.

This is just insane. Someone needs to put a stop to this.

So, I was true to my word, and did some pyramids today.

I had done the 100 push ups (and 100 chin ups) thing for about 8 weeks. I made some progress, but it felt like I was stalling. So I did something different.

The routine is essentially this: 1 chin up, 3 push ups, and 5 crunches. Then multiply everything by 2: 2 chin ups, 6 push ups, and 10 crunches. Then by 3: 3, 9, and 15. And so on, until I've done 6 chin ups, 18 push ups, and 30 crunches. Then work my way back down: 5 chin ups, 15 push ups, 25 crunches. And so on. By the time I'm all finished, I've done 36 chin ups, 108 push ups, and 180 crunches.

This is the routine where I used to be able to work my way up to 10, 30, and 50, for a total of 100, 300, and 500. I'm not quite there yet.

But there are some good notes.

1) I was really concentrating on form. Powering through the 40 consecutive push ups had me cheating a bit - I wasn't going all the way down and having my chest touch the floor. Now I am. I've already mentioned how I've cheated on the chin ups - this time I bent my knees and didn't let my feet touch the floor (until near the very end).

2) This feels good. Granted, I had been doing a greater number of both chin ups and push ups with the 100 push ups program, but my form was sloppy and I was getting tired and discouraged.

3) A little more about that form. I had realized a week or two ago that it is entirely possible that I had been doing crunches and working only my rectus abdominals, and not my transverse abdominals (which seem so important to help mitigate my back pain). Now that I know how to engage my transverse abdominals, I'm concentrating on doing exactly that throughout the range of motion for the crunches.

So I figure I'll do these for a little while and work my way up.

Todays routine, for brevity in notation, looked like this: 1-2-3-4-5-6-5-4-3-2-1 (OK, maybe not so brief). Next time I'll probably repeat the 6 set (1-2-3-4-5-6-6-5-4-3-2-1) and work back down, for a total of 42 chin ups, 126 push ups, and 210 sit ups. And the next time I'll go up to 7. Or so I hope.

Will I keep at these until I hit the old mark? I'm not sure yet. I guess it depends on how I feel as I go along. This may just be a week, or a few weeks, or possibly more. I'm still kind of itching to hit some real weights again.

I'm not sure if it's funny or sad - I make a concerted effort over the course of about a month to get caught up and current on posting my workout progress to my blog - and no sooner than I do, but I start lagging behind again. I think I'm leaning more towards sad.

Speaking of sad, there was my performance on chin ups and push ups on Monday. I was finishing up week 5 for push ups, and week 1 (but the hardest column!) for chin ups.

Push ups: 16 then 16 then 14 then 14 then 12 then 12 then 10 then maxed out at 7. Rested about 30 seconds between sets, for a total of 101 in about 6 minutes. I think I was supposed to max out at 35 on the last set. Hah!

Chin ups: 15 then 11 then 9 then 9 then 9, but just barely. Rested about 2 minutes between sets, for a total of 53 in about 10 minutes. The jump from day 2 to day 3 in week 1, column 3 for push ups was definitely doable. Not so much for the chin ups. My progress with these seems to really have slowed down, so I'll just repeat this week. I think. Unless I decide to do something else.

The chart for this "week" (starting with an exhaustion test and a chin up day repeat and a LOT of rest in between) looks like this:

Tuesday I went again to physical therapy. It wasn't so bad today - I had a substitute sadist instead of my regular one. I'm sorry, I think I actually meant to say therapist there. My mistake. At least I could still walk afterwards.

Wednesday it was back to my regular sadist, and then later in the evening it was time for the repeat of week 5 for push ups, and week 1 for chin ups. Thanks to the roll-ins on the swiss ball, and a lot of other really tough core exercises (or at least, that's the excuse I'm going with) the push ups seemed unattainable tonight.

Push ups: 35 then 28 then 25 then 22 then maxed out at 17. Rested about 60 seconds between sets for a total of 127 in about 7 minutes or so. I just checked, and I did better than I did last time I attempted this set. I still collapsed - or at least nearly collapsed - several times near the tail ends of the latter sets. But I at least hit the rest of the targets, minus the max set.

Chin ups: 10 then 10 then 8 then 6 then maxed out at 8. Rested about 60 seconds between sets for a total of 42 in about 6 minutes. Not too shabby, but then again this was a lot fewer to shoot for than I had done on Monday. And I got a bit more than the last time I attempted this day. So that's progress - a little, which is better than none.

But it seems like my forward progress is stalling, and I'm getting a little discouraged.

August 27:

Back to the physical therapist today. Today they did something to my back - it felt like they were trying to dislocate my shoulder blade. But it sounds more painful than it was - it was primarily just a weird feeling. They also had me do a bunch of shoulder stuff, and some triceps stuff. Which I'm hoping won't get too much in the way of...

Push ups: Week 5, column 2, day 2. 17 then 17 then 16 then 16 then 14 then 14 then 12 then maxed out at 20. Rested about 45 seconds between sets for a total of 126 in about 7 minutes, give or take.

Chin ups: Week 1, column 3, day 2. 12 then 12 then 10 (these are getting pretty tough) then 9 (yeah, not too many more, but then I still) maxed out at 8. Barely. Rested about 90 seconds between sets for a total of 51 in about 8 minutes.

And then I noticed that I'm somehow out of Ensure™ bottles, which I was using as a post-workout protein shake. I was pretty sure I had some left. So, it appears that someone absconded with them. It totally couldn't have been me that took the last one and forgot about it. So I had to resort to some yogurt, which - now I'm not sure if it's the brand, or what, but - didn't taste all that great.

August 28:

Physical therapy today. My physical therapist is a sadist. The first half wasn't so bad, pretty much the standard stuff - treadmill, arm bike, stretches, light abs, shoulder, and gluteal work. But then I had to be in a pushup stance and walk my hands up onto a step and then back down. 30 times. And if that wasn't bad enough, then I had to hold a plank on a stability ball for 30 seconds. Twice. And then a set of stability ball roll-ins - uh, it says on that page that they're an "advanced" exercise? Sheesh. Let's not forget that just the day before, I did some triceps pulldowns in physical therapy and then went home to do 126 pushups. And boy, are my arms tired. No desire, motivation, or energy to do absolutely anything at home afterwards.

August 25:

Went to the physical therapist again. They're really tearing up my shoulders and back. Which is good, because that's what they've determined I need help with. I still had a lot of back pain from my work day - the CTA, my stupid Herman Miller Aeron chair (how this thing is supposed to be comfortable I'll never know), adjusting my desk, trying to sit with good posture, and then the CTA ride home all did a number on me.

So about that chair. I used to only slouch at my desk, reclined in my chair, etc. But that's bad. Even though it feels so good. So I'm forcing myself to keep my chair upright, legs and hips at around 90 degree angles - but something's not quite right. It feels bad, even though the Aeron chair is supposedly one of the most ergonomic chairs out there. I guess. Sure doesn't seem at all comfortable to me. Then, I realize that my desk is too high. So I brought in some allen wrenches to lower my desk. Did that, and now my arms are at a more appropriate angle.

But now there's another problem. My monitor height. Which is easy enough to fix, but the issue there is that it's a giant 30" monitor - so it's hard to get it to a height that feels right for the majority of the things on my screen.

It's pretty pathetic - nice chair, decent desk, nice monitor, but it feels like hell on my body.

At any rate, after physical therapy, I thought I'd be feeling pretty beat up - especially with the work on my core muscles (including my lower back) - but it's actually a little energizing. So energizing, in fact, that I felt really ready to jump right into...

Push ups: Week 5, column 2, day 1. 35 then 28 (oh wow, these are really hard today) then 20. I collapsed about 4 times near the end of the last set. Each time I collapsed, I rested at most 2 seconds, and did another 2 before collapsing again. I have no idea why I couldn't do these today. 80 in the course of about 4 minutes. This is the worst I've failed in ... well, ever. It was my triceps that gave out. I think I'll give 5-2-2 a try on Wednesday. But I'm thinking I'll likely have to redo this week.

Chin ups: Week 1, column 3, day 1. 10 then 10 then 8 then 6 then maxed out at 7. Rested about 60 seconds between sets for a total of 41 in about 6 minutes. Fairly tough, but I did it. And hit the target, even on the max out set.

Then I went back and did another set of 20 pushups. Which amazingly enough felt OK. I didn't quite max out, but stopped a few shy of it. Then I typed up most of this entry (starting from the push ups section - not quite the whole thing :) and then did another set of 30. So now I suppose that 130 in about 30 minutes, or so. I forget when exactly I started. After another brief rest and after I chugged down a protein shake, I briefly considered doing some more. But I thought I was pushing my luck.

BTW, it occurs to me that a few (or more?) days ago I mentioned something about "Oh, I don't need to do any ab work since blah blah blah" and yet here I am complaining about the abuse my transverse abdominal muscles are taking at the hands of the physical therapist. Suffice it to say that the crunches I was doing hardly hit all of my abs. Especially not the ones that are apparently weak. I'm doing little more than tensing the muscles and doing some leg lifts, and that's enough to make me sore.

I was sore the next day, so I skipped the kettlebell.

August 21:

Went back to the physical therapist today, they beat up my shoulders and transverse abdominals again. But that's OK - I obviously need the work. Since, you know, they diagnosed that I needed it - what with their poking, pulling, yanking, and torturing. Hopefully my sore shoulders don't interfere too much with my...

Push ups: exhaustion test... I did 40. And a half. But no halvsies. So 40. Which means I don't get to stay in column 3 for the next week - I'm in column two. I think I'll shoot for going through week 5, column 2, and then doing another exhaustion test to make sure I can get into column 3, and then go from there. I'm almost glad I petered out after 40 - had I done that last one where my triceps gave out, I'd have to start with 40 for my first set. Uh, hello? I could just barely do 40! Then I'm supposed to rest a measly 60 seconds and turn around and do another 32? I don't think so.

For chin ups, I'm going straight into week 1, column 3, since it's the target number is the same number as the last time around - just a different amount of rest between sets. So long as by "different", I mean less. Like, half. So without further adieu...

Chin ups: 10 then 10 then 8 then 6 then maxed out at 4. I think. I know I counted to 5 on the last set, but once again I don't remember if that was the last full chin up, or the last one I was attempting (and of course, subsequently failed to achieve). I'm still on the shorter door. At least I am fully aware of and fully admit to my cheating. I'll repeat this day to have it back in sync with push ups.

I'm also strongly considering resting 3 days. For one, I'm not sure when on Saturday I'll find a little time for my workout - we've got a day commitment out in the far west/northwest suburbs, and then we're having a babysitter over to let us have a night out - which we haven't been able to do since a month or so ago, which was the night we misjudged Matthew's antigrump capacity and had to run out of a restaurant with our food in to go boxes and a screaming infant in tow.

August 18:

Push ups: 30 then 22 then 22 then 20 then maxed out at 29. Wow. Rested about 2 minutes between sets for a total of 123 in about 11 minutes. I somehow had it in me to squeeze out the 29 max out set. Boy am I tired. But not too tired to do...

Chin ups: 10 then 8 then 8 then 5 then maxed out at 7, I think. Rested about 2 minutes between sets for a total of 38 in about 10 minutes. Again, these were from the shorter door, so I think I was cheating a little. I recall counting to 8 on the last one, but I think I only got halfway up on 8, so that's why I've got it as 7.

The chart for this week:

August 19:

Three kettlebell circuits. I'm thinking I really need to start thinking about buying a heavier kettlebell. But then I think that I'm certainly sweating, huffing, and puffing by the time I'm done with this one. Do I really need to push myself that much harder? Also, I've only done this (3 circuits) about once a week. I really think I should let me body get used to this increased activity gradually, because I really think I touched on overtraining there for a bit while I had split the chin ups and push ups onto their own days.

August 20:

I finally got myself to a physical therapist. Turns out that in addition to my previously diagnosed sciatica (compression of the sciatic nerve which causes some hip/pelvis/low back pain on my left side and an occasional shooting sensation down my shin - go figure) I also have a hip deflection. Or rotation. Or something. I don't recall. Also, some of my core muscles are a lot weaker than perhaps they ought to be. Like the gluteal meads, transverse abdominals, mid and rear deltoids, and who knows what else. So the therapist put me through some torture, er I mean strength, tests, and had me do some simple exercises which left me a little sore afterwards, and a little tired. Also the fact that Lisa and I took Matthew to the doctor in the morning, which meant that I had to wake up early. And of course the night before I had to stay up late doing all the normal evening things. So I didn't have much sleep. So I was pretty tired by the time the evening rolled around, so I completely skipped my push ups and chin ups. Which makes me sad.

August 15:

I almost skipped today. I went to see the doctor, taking public transportation, and the bus was really crowded. Which made me stand the whole way. Which made my back hurt a lot more. Which is a little ironic, since I was going to the doctor to help alleviate my back pain. We also had another nanny interview, which made me not be able to rest my back after I got home. Long story short, my back hurt, and I wasn't sure it would stop hurting before I had to go to bed. But it ended up feeling good enough, so I went ahead and did my...

Push ups: 27 (oh wow, my inner upper arms are kind of sore today, but) then 21 (not so bad this time around, but still not great, but) then 21 (kind of running out of gas towards the end there, and) then 18 (oh you gotta be kidding me, there's another set after this?) then maxed out at 25. The minimum, I might add. Rested about 90 seconds between sets for a total of 112 in about 8 minutes. No idea how I got the max on the last set.

Chin ups: 9 then 8 then 6 then 5 then maxed out at 7. Resting about 90 seconds between sets for a total of 35 in about 7 minutes. Lisa went to bed early, so I had to move the chin up bar to a shorter door. So these were a little easier, since I let my feet hit the ground after each chin up. I wonder if I could have done as many on the taller door upstairs...

Wee bit of bad news about going to the doctor today. They weighed me, and my weight appears to be the same. Granted, this is just after a hearty lunch, and it was a different scale, and I was wearing all my clothes (which I haven't been at home), so this may not necessarily be an accurate reflection of my real weight. But I guess I was secretly hoping I had lost maybe a pound or two in the four weeks I've been doing this. And of course it's not pounds that matter - I would happily weigh 10 pounds more if it were all muscle.

August 16:

I got out on my bike. I had to hurry back, because Lisa had somewhere to go, and I needed to watch Matthew. So instead of the circuitous route I took to get there, I took as close to a straight line as I could. Also, I had completely forgotten that this weekend is the Air and Water Show along the lake, so it was really unwise to go down the lakeshore bike path starting around Armitage. It was wall to wall people, none of whom had any idea that people might be using the bike path for - you know, biking?

I really wish I had the opportunity to go a little further, because I'd really like to keep steadily increasing the mileage of my rides. And it's also been a few years since I've been down the Lake Shore Bike Path, especially further south than McCormick Place. But I did get down to Shedd Aquarium and Adler Planetarium.

View Larger Map

August 13:

I stayed home from work in the morning to take Lisa back to the oral surgeon, but I found myself with a little extra time to make up for missing kettlebell last night. So I did the three circuits, hopped in the shower, and went to the oral surgeon with Lisa. She's doing fine, BTW. The swelling has gone down a lot and she only has a little bruising on her cheeks.

Later in the evening, it was time for my push ups and chin ups. I plan to do week 4 day 1 column 3 for push ups, and I figure I'll try to do week 1 column 2 again on chin ups.

Push ups: 27 then 20 then 20 then 17 then maxed out at 23. Rested about 60 seconds between sets, for a total of 107 in about 7 minutes.

Chin ups: 7 then 5 then 5 then 4 then 5. Resting about 60 seconds between sets, for a total of 26 in about 6 minutes. I could hardly do the last two of the four and the last three of the last five. But I took a rest for a beat or two, then gave it my all. So I hit all the targets today, but just barely.

And I rested August 14th, too. And I swear it's completely unrelated, but I'm finally going to go to a doctor to see about my back pain. I really just wanted to go to a physical therapist, but they seem to only accept "patients" with "prescriptions" from "doctors" for physical therapy. I just don't want my doctor giving me drugs. Ibuprofen is about all I'm willing to take, but I can't keep taking it like I have been lately.

August 11:

Push ups: 30 then 22 then 22 then 20 then maxed out at 28. Rested about 2 minutes between sets for a total of 122 in about 11 minutes. Yes - I did more than the minimum on the max. That feels pretty good. Even though I missed the max on day 1 of week 3 redux, I'll go ahead and move on to week 4.

The chin ups look tough today - almost unreachable - but I'll give it a go anyhow. I've got that 2 minute rest to try to get my muscles ready to go again, so I'll see if it helps any.

Chin ups: 10 then 8 then 7 then 5 then maxed out at 2. Rested about 2 minutes between sets - which obviously wasn't enough to recover to pull off the next set - for a total of 32 in about 10 minutes.

So the push ups week 3 and chin ups week 1 wrap up look like this:

Obviously these number surpass any I've done so far in the last 4 (or is it 5?) weeks. So I'll be moving on in push ups, and repeating week 1 column 2 for chin ups. Not so bad, hopefully the repeat of the week will let me hit all the targets this time around. It looks like the start of week 2 column 2 will be fewer chin ups, but in less time. I'll see if I can hit those - in another week, of course.

I meant to do the kettlebell training the next day, but I was tired. I woke up early thinking I might have to come home early and interview a nanny - but neither Lisa or I had the chance to set anything up.

I'm posting a bit more than a day or two per post, hoping I can catch up to current before too much longer.

August 8:

I think I'm supposed to do week 3, day 2, column 3 for push ups today, but I'm not sure. I'm more sure about doing week 1, day 2, column 2 for chin ups. Regardless of what I've actually worked up to, this is what I'll be doing for the day.

Push ups: 27 then 19 then 19 then 15 then maxed out at 25. Resting about 90 seconds between sets for a total of 105 in about 8 minutes. I actually think I could've gotten one, possibly two more out of the max set before total collapse, but I just stopped at 25. But the really good news is that today, I hit all the targets for week 3 day 2. Hooray!

Chin ups: Not quite so good. 9 then 8 then 6 then 4 and two halves and then maxed out at 2 and three halves. Yes, I tried to get more than two on three separate tries. And failed. Rested about 90 seconds between sets for a total of 29 in about 7 minutes. This is definitely more than I've done so far, but it was still short of the target. I think I'll probably end up repeating this one, too. Small bummer. But overall I'm still feeling good about my generally forward progress with the chin ups.

August 9:

Just to wrap up where I've been along the path to 100 consecutive push ups and chin ups so far, I've created a little chart tracking my progress.

This gives me a lot of hope - I can see, now that I've laid it all out, that I'm making some real progress. At times it feels like I'm taking a step backwards for every two steps forward I'm making, but I can see the method to the madness.

Thanks to Lisa's parents being in town to help out after Lisa's wisdom teeth extraction, I got to get out on my bike both days without feeling guilty about leaving her with Matthew! I got out and cleaned up my CamelBak backpack, loaded it up with about 3 liters of water, filled my tires up to 110 psi, and took off. I went just a few more miles today than I did last Sunday, so the total was almost 32 miles. The route was pretty similar to what I did Sunday, just following the trail a little further. Courtesy Google Maps again, here's my route for today:

View Larger Map

Lisa and I interviewed a few potential nannies on Sunday, and we had to take her parents back to the airport, so I took another day of rest on August 10.

August 6:
Push ups: 27 then 20 (wow these seem tougher than last time, but) then 16 (wow, that's a step back, right? but I'll keep going and) then (oh crap I realized I was doing the wrong week, so I'll skip back down to) 15 then (so now I'm 4 ahead of where I should be, assuming my math is right, so the max out target number should really just be 21 for me but I ended up and) maxed out at 14. Hard to compare directly, but I will anyhow. Last time I did 84, this time (resting about 60 seconds between sets) was 92 in about 7 minutes. Not bad. Better than last time, sort of, even though I did 5 too many in the first two sets. At least Friday should be OK.

Chin ups: 7 then 7 then 5 then 4 then maxed out at 4 and two halves. Resting about 60 seconds between sets, for a total of 27 in about 6 minutes. Obviously, I missed the target for the max-out set. We'll see how the rest of the "week" goes. I just took a peek - good thing I'll have 2 days rest before the herculean effort of doing 41 in about 11 minutes.

Also, I replaced my bike tires today. Strangely enough, the first one was again difficult, and the second one not so much. I didn't think I'd get rusty after not having done it in a week or so. I was fairly sure I had managed to damage one of the innertubes putting the super tight brand new tires onto the rims, but they seemed to hold 80 psi for a couple of days.

As far as a physical update, my triceps and pectorals are definitely looking better, and I'm noticing more vascularity, which to means translates to less subcutaneous body fat. Again I'm kicking myself for not taking measurements beforehand, but such is life. I have a record of at least my weight, though that doesn't always tell the whole story.

I'm really sore from the kettlebell workout yesterday. I really threw my hips, hamstrings, and gluteals into it - literally - and I'm definitely feeling it. And I felt it right through Thursday, so I took the day off. Also, Lisa had her wisdom teeth removed earlier in the day, and I had extra Daddy duties (in addition to loving and caring husband duties), so honestly I was a little pooped. But I had decided to skip everything on Thursday ahead of time, so I don't feel like I'm copping a major excuse.

August 4:

I'm really glad I took the opportunity to rest over the weekend. I feel like due to the bike riding, I could possibly use a little extra rest for my triceps since they seem to take a lot of the abuse of supporting the weight of my torso on these multi-hour bike rides I've been taking, but I guess it won't hurt too bad if I just start in to the push ups tonight. No sense in putting it off any more. And if I stick to a Monday, Wednesday, Friday routine, then I get two whole days of rest on the weekend. Well, resting as well as I can supposing I ride my bike over the weekend. Which supposes I'll find time to get it to a bike shop and have my tires replaced. I wonder... is it like a car where if you replace one, it's safer to go ahead and replace them both? I think with the distinct lack of crumple zones on my bike, I'll opt for playing it safer and replace them both.

Push ups: 30 then 22 then 22 (the last few are getting tough, and) then 20 (wow, I don't think I can pull off the max-out set, but I'll try and) then maxed out at 20. Trying for 21 had me collapse. Rested about 2 minutes between sets, for a total of 114 in about 11 minutes. 114. That's getting up there. I missed the max-out targets for all three of the days in week 3, so I think I'll just repeat it. Days 1 of week 3 is only 99 pushups in about 6 minutes. I'll keep a positive outlook for Wednesday, AKA week 3 day 1 redux. Hopefully with this slight step back, the max-out targets are more within reach.

Chin ups: Exhaustion test. I did 9. Not too shabby. 300% of my original in about 3 weeks. I can live with that, assuming I don't think too much about how far I seem to be from what I used to be able to do, much less the current goal of being able to do 100. Doing 9 consecutive chin ups qualifies me to start from column 2 in week 1. Column 2 of week one looks fairly tougher than column 1 of week 2. I hope the rest between sets allows for enough short term recovery to hit all the targets. I'm not fond of repeating weeks.

August 5:

Kettlebell. 3 circuits from Kettlebells the Iron Core Way. No ab stuff. It's important to note that I'm not skipping the ab work because I can't do it. I just don't want to. Not only have I done enough ab work in the past, but I really, really don't want to smear my sweaty self all over the floor. Once again I forgot to find a towel beforehand. Also, even as recent as a month before Matthew was born, when I was doing my boxing workouts, I used to do several minutes straight of crunches. I first aimed for 3 minutes, but after a while that wasn't a challenge any more and so I tried to see how many minutes of crunches I could do. I think I lost count after 5 minutes.

On a side note, it's too bad that every other week or so there's an exhaustion test. It's also too bad that I need to rest for at least a day after the exhaustion test. Why? Because for the rest of the program, I'll have no way to know what the heck day of stuff I'm supposed to be doing on any given Monday, Wednesday, or Friday. This is due to the fact that I've decided that those are the only days I'll be doing this stuff, and the exhaustion test will get a day of its own. Which will throw the schedule a little out of whack each time the exhaustion test comes up.

It used to be easy - Monday? Sure! Day 1 of whatever week. Friday? You bet! That's obviously day 3. Now I have to search backwards through my training log to figure out what I did the last time, and then cross reference it with the website to see what's supposed to come next. So that's an unexpected benefit of keeping this log - some degree of organization and a reminder (if not at least a way to figure out) what's coming next. But it's a pain.

July 31st:
Push ups: 27 then 19 then 19 (the last 5 of which were really tough, but I'll keep going and) then 15 (oh crap those last 5 were really hard, how can I possibly do the max and) then maxed out at 13. Rested about 90 seconds between sets for a total of 93 in about 8 minutes. Supposed to have been 105, but I ran out of steam for the last 12. The good part is that this was a full 9 more than I did two days ago. The bad part is that it looks like I'm going to have to repeat week 3. That's OK - missing the max-out targets for week 3 looks like it ought to adequately prepare me for ... week 3.

No kettlebell today. I want to make sure I don't get in danger of overtraining. Which I very well might be dangerously close to doing at this point - I've started an awful lot of activity lately, some of it quite intense. Because 93 pushups are a lot harder than about 24 chin ups, I'm thinking of moving my next kettlebell workout to Friday, right after my chin ups. Saturday will be pushups only, with maybe some biking. Sunday should be a day of rest. But maybe some biking. Due to scheduling (i.e. when I get home from work, it's usually my job to take over with Matthew), there's pretty much no opportunity to get on my bike and go somewhere throughout the week. Sure I can throw the bike on the stationary trainer, but it's just so much more motivating to get out and accomplish something.

August 1:
Chin ups: 5 then 5 then 4 then 4 then ... are you ready? maxed out at 8! Sure, the last two were just barely countable, but I'm pretty sure I got my nose up to the bar at least. And everything before, I had my chin well above the bar, whereas previously I only got my chin to the level of the bar. Rested about 2 minutes between sets maybe just 1 minutes between the third and fourth sets - I honestly lost count - for a total of 26 in about 10-11 minutes. Give or take. These really felt good. I'm noticing in the last few days that push ups actually seem to hit my biceps a little, because I could feel them after my push ups yesterday, and I think they were a little sore today. I honestly didn't think that would be the case, but I can't argue with the way I feel.

I just realized that since I'm done with week 2 for chin ups, I need to take an exhaustion test. I'm fairly confident I won't be able to hit the minimum to get into week 3 (16 consecutive chin ups!) - I may have to start in the 6-10 push ups column of week 1, which will only be a little tougher than today was. And now I'm envisioning working my way through 2 weeks - the first two weeks - of column 2, and then only exhausting myself into column 3 of week 1. Now I'm thinking I might have to go through all three columns of all 6 weeks, which might mean I'll be through this in 19 weeks. Why not 18? I had to repeat column 1 for week 1 already. This is much further out of reach than 6 or possibly 12 weeks.

But maybe I'm being too pessimistic, and I'll actually be able to move through some of these levels a little faster. Time will tell.

No kettlebell. I was exhausted.

July 29th: The push ups day I'm dreading. I'm feeling mostly OK, but a little tired and sore.

Push ups: 25 then 17 then 17 then 15, which were tough - I don't think I can do the last max out set, but then I tried anyhow, and - I maxed out at 10. Rested a little too long between the first two sets, but then about a minute between the rest of the sets, for a total of 84 in about 8 minutes. Supposed to have been 99 in about 7. I can go for the 105 in about 8 minutes on week 3 day 2, but I suspect I'll end early on the max out set again. Hopefully I'll at least be able to hit everything before the max out set, and maybe hit the same 10 on the max out set, so maybe I'll hit 90ish or so. Week 3 day 3 is a bit too far away for me to be able to speculate on how I'll do, so I won't. Later on I recalled that earlier in the day I had demonstrated one use of a swiss ball to some coworkers - push ups! Resting my feet on the ball. I did about 3. Maybe that's what kept me from hitting the 25. Hrm. No.

Kettlebells: That's right - I didn't do any kettlebell training Monday, so that means I get to do at least two circuits today. I'll maybe go for the third. And I did. And the third circuit was a little tougher than the second, and was topped off by some abdominal work - most of which I skipped due to excessive sweat of the back area, and my desire to not get too much sweat on the carpet, and the lack of a nearby towel. Also, I was pretty tired at the time. I did the rolling situps - new to me - since it looked like I didn't have to recline all the way to the floor.

July 30th:
Chin ups: 6 then 5 then 5 then 3 then maxed out at 6. What's that? More than the minimum on the 3rd set? Yes. I didn't write it down on the way upstairs and couldn't remember if it was 6-5-3-3-6 or 6-5-5-3-6. So I opted for the latter, to play it safe. Rested about a minute and a half between sets, for a total of 25 within about 8 minutes. The very last one was a struggle - I almost gave up at the half way point - but I hung in there, and gave it a final kick to get my chin very near the bar, and feel good enough about it to call it a solid 6. Friday should be a breeze. But what's the big upside to today? The first set was 6, and I'm pretty sure I could've done at least one more after the 6. Even discounting the potential 7th, that means I can already do twice the number of consecutive chin ups as I could do just two weeks ago. That's 200%! Granted, I need to be able to do about 3,300% of my original to meet the goal. Or rather just 3,100% now :)

July 27th: Exhaustion Challenge, push ups. 31. Kind of disappointing. But that's OK, I'm only getting into week 3. And I'm still at the highest level, which I'm assuming means that (as long as I can continue to hit the goals) I'll be that much closer to getting to the 100. I may have tired out my triceps earlier on my bike ride when I was putting most of my weight on the front, riding standing up and leaning on my arms. Regardless, I'm looking ahead to day 1 of week 3, and I'm scared. On Tuesday I'll be going for 99 in the space of about 7 minutes. That's going to be rough. But I'll keep you posted.

July 28th: I'm feeling pretty beat up, and almost didn't do my chin ups. I spent a lot of energy changing the tube on my bike tire... twice. Thanks to the pinch flat I gave myself putting the first one on. Man those tires are tough to get on and off when you're not in practice. I say this because while I struggled mightily getting the tire back on the first time, the second time seemed much less difficult. All of that aside, no excuses for the push ups or chin ups until I'm done, so...

Chin ups: 4 then 4 then 3 then 3 then maxed out at 6. Resting about a minute between sets, for a total of 20 within about 6 minutes or so. Thought for sure I'd struggle at the end, but somehow I managed to pull out one more than the minimum on the max-out set. Week 2 is officially under way, and I'm so far at the mark. I just noticed I don't seem to be too enthusiastic about getting more than the minimum on the max out set. Meh.

No geek update.

So I ended up buying a kettlebell and getting back on my bike.

Saturday (July 26) I bought a 25 pound kettlebell, and could hardly wait to start swinging it around. I went through circuit 1 of the Kettlebells the Iron Core Way DVD, which was a basic warmup followed by two three (I found out later) circuits of some basic kettlebell exercises. Even the warmup had me sweating and huffing. And I was running short on time, so I just did 1 circuit. All I can say is this: it's very difficult. I'm glad I didn't buy the lighter 20 pound kettlebell, because I didn't want to sell myself short. Also glad (at least for now) I didn't buy a heavier one, either. I'd like to make sure I've got the techniques down pretty solid before going heavier. Oh, and maybe get the initial full body soreness out of the way, too :) Because I was fairly sore the following day. But it didn't stop me from doing it again.

Sunday I did the circuit twice. And then Lisa wanted me to do the first part with her. So I did. But the second circuit on the DVD was a little bait and switch - they added exercises to the second circuit! So the second "circuit" was longer than the first, and with more stuff! How dare they! Just kidding, of course, the added exercises just really sent my sweat glands into overdrive. I got a really good workout, and I don't think I'll be ready to do this again Monday. I noticed the backs of my forearms are a little sore from frequent hard contact with the kettlebell. Either my technique is off, or this is just one of those things I'm just going to have to get used to.

(I found out later that this is primarily technique - I need to learn to flip the kettlebell (and my wrist) around a vertical axis and bring my wrist to the kettlebell - not bring the kettlebell to my wrist. Which causes impact. Which causes soreness.)

I also rounded up my bike shoes and helmet, filled my bike tires with about 95 psi of air, and took off. Lisa had taken Matthew and Spike out for a walk, so first thing I wanted to do was to catch up to them. I made a loop around the park a block away, then swung back towards the house - but no sign of them. So I took off to this bike trail bridge (going over W Peterson Ave in the map) I finally figured out how to get to. I have no idea how many miles I ended up doing, but I was out about an hour. But then I remembered I could plot arbitrary routes with Google Maps, so here's the actual route:

View Larger Map

Turns out it was about 6.5 miles.

About a third of the way back, I noticed my rear tire getting lower, so I slowed down and kept most of my weight over the front tire. Two thirds of the way back, I was riding on the rim. So I had to walk it the rest of the way home from W Foster Ave. Bummer.

July 25:
Super tired today. Woke up very early, had a pediatrician's appointment, so a slightly fussier than normal baby. Also, I worked from home. I also had a sleepy baby, so I got more work done today than if he hadn't just been shot full of drugs. But I had to get through the push ups and chin ups today, so...

Push ups: 15 then 15 then 12 then 12 then maxed out at 20. Resting about 2 minutes between sets, for a total of 74 within about 11 minutes. The count for that last set is no typo - it's twenty. I have no idea where the gas came from, but I apparently had enough in my tank for 5 more than the goal for today. Since this is the successful completion of week 2, that means I'm due for my next exhaustion test. I'll do it Sunday. If I feel good enough, then I'll start week 3 on Monday, otherwise Tuesday. But if I do Tuesday, I don't think I'll get 2 days off in a row again for a few weeks since I'll certainly want to go back to having day one on Monday as soon as possible. So I'm really going to shoot for Monday :) As far as the exhaustion test goes, I'm almost hoping I can't do more than 25 (even though I know I'll be able to) since the amount of pushups for that level looks really daunting at this point.

Chin ups: 5 then 4 then 4 then 3 then maxed out at 5 (and a half, but again - no halfsies). Resting about 2 minutes between sets for a total of 21 within about 9 minutes or so. But even without the half chin up at the end, I've still hit the minimum for day 3 of week 1. So that means I get to move onto week 2 day 1. Which is only 19. And after 2 rest days (no exhaustion test for chin ups since I haven't made it through week 2 yet) that should be a piece of cake on Monday. Or Tuesday. Nah. I think even if I push the push ups to Tuesday, I'll still do the chin ups on Monday.

No geek updates lately.

As far as a physical update... I doubt I've lost any noticeable fat, or put on any serious pounds of muscle, but I'm pretty sure I'm noticing that the muscles I use for at least the push ups (triceps and pectorals, mostly) seem to look and feel better these days. I wish I had started measuring my body fat before I began any of this. I only estimated it around last week, right as I was finishing up the graphing program. But I'm sure my estimate was way off, as I basically pinched the skinfold sites with my fingers and thought something like "Yeah, that's about 9 millimeters". Highly inaccurate. But even with that, I was at about 24-25% body fat, which equals 40 pounds of fat out of my 180 pounds of total body weight. Given the amount of fat I see around my midsection, I'd say that's probably not too far off. I suppose maybe I'm afraid that if I take the actual measurements, I'll actually be at a fairly higher percentage. Which would be depressing.

I'm still torn with what kind of workout I want to start doing after the hundred pushups challenge. I keep reading up on kettlebells, and would like to give them a serious go. Or there's the P90X program. Or there's my old pyramid workout - though that doesn't seem to be enough of a departure from the hundred push ups challenge to keep me terribly interested. Or I could start up my boxing workouts again, assuming the sounds of me pummeling my punching bag in the basement isn't too loud to carry up to Matthew's room and bother him. Or get back on my bike. Or hey - I could do pretty much all of them :) But not much seems to really strike me as simplistic as what I'm currently doing - hardly any equipment, hardly any setup time, it doesn't last long enough to make me start sweating too much (at least prior to week 5, where instead of 5 sets there are 9(!)), and if need be I can break away and take care of Matthew if he's crying. It's also about all I can do to keep myself from running out and buying a kettlebell. Maybe I'll do that, and start getting familiar with swinging one around, so long as it doesn't interfere with what I'm doing for the hundred push ups program.

July 23:
I was really raring to go earlier in the day, but lost my motivation after dinner. However, I'm pretty sure I'll be pretty down on myself if I can't slog through this program. Best case, it's six weeks. Worst case, a few more weeks than that. But honestly, it's really just a few minutes a day. And I ought to be able to find time and energy to do it for that short amount of time. And if these six weeks pass as fast as the four months that we've had Matthew, then I'm sure they'll fly by before I know it. So without further adieu...

Push ups: 16 then 13 then 11 then 11 then maxed out at 17. 17! Two more than the minimum! Hooray! Resting about 90 seconds between sets for a total of 68 in about 9 minutes or so. Despite my feeling of lacking energy, I was still able to pull through these and even ended up doing more than I was hoping for. All I have to get on Friday is 69. Easy peasy, especially with 2 entire minutes of rest between sets.

Chin ups: 4 then 3 then 2 then 2 then maxed out at 5. 5! One more than the minimum! Resting about 90 seconds between sets, for a total of 16 in about 7 minutes. So it looks like repeating the week has so far proved that I just needed a little extra work to hit the week 1 targets. Though Friday is a bit of a large leap up to 21, so hopefully the extra rest will be enough to let my muscles recoup between sets a little and reach 21.

July 21:
Having mostly successfully completed last weeks regimen for push ups, I'm moving on to the week 2 program from hundredpushups.com. Having failed to complete the week for chin ups, I'm starting back at the beginning of week 1, hoping I can use the opportunity to rest up a bit while still gunning for more during the "max out" set.

Push ups: 12 then 12 then 9 then 7 then maxed out at 15. Resting about a minute between sets for a total of 55 within about 6 minutes. Five more than the minimum goal for today, which is good. Nine less than saturday, but in a shorter amount of time. The last one or two of the second to last set seemed pretty tough. The last few on the last set were very tough. I didn't quite push myself to the point where no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't possibly do another. But I felt fairly sure that I wouldn't be able to do a full one after the last one. I have my sights set on doing the 66 on Wednesday. I don't find it likely that I'll do more than the 15 on the last set. But we'll see - so far I've managed to surprise myself in the short amount of time I've been doing this.

Chin ups: 2 then 2 then 2 then 2 then maxed out at 4. Resting about a minutes between sets for a total of 12 in about 5 minutes. These felt pretty good except for the last two, which I really had to struggle with. But overall I shouldn't be surprised since it's a bit of a step back from the end of last week. Wednesday ought to be similar - the minimum for the goal is only 15, and I know I've already succeeded in doing more than that. Granted, it was with more rest - but the push ups have shown me that this kind of progression is at least possible.

No geek update today.

July 18:
Whoops. I meant to do week 1 day 3 today. Good thing I didn't, because...

July 19:
Seems like I needed to rest up for the big effort.

Push ups: 15 then 13 then 10 then 10 then maxed out at 16. And a half, but I'm not counting halves. Resting about 2 minutes between sets, for a total of 64 push ups within about 10 minutes. These felt pretty good, except for the last few of the last few sets. It seems like I'm well on my way to being able to do 100 in about 6 weeks, at least according to hundredpushups.com. I just hope I can keep this up. For the push ups, anyhow. Because next up were...

Chin ups: 5 then 4 then 3 then 3 then maxed out at 3. At least 3 short of the goal of the program. I rested about 2 minutes between sets for a total of 18 within about 9 minutes or so. So 5 more than on Wednesday - so at least that's something. But because of my failure to hit the mark, I think I'll repeat this whole week. Which means I'll have a bit easier of a time hitting my number on Monday. I briefly considered just repeating today's program until I got it, but I struggled every day of the week 1 program applying it to chin ups. I'm thinking that for push ups, the schedule is realistic - since push ups seem like they're easier overall than chin ups. But chin ups are a little tougher, so it might take a little longer then the 6 week goal. Like maybe twice as long. But that's OK - 100 consecutive chin ups would be a very impressive feat.

For the geeky update, I've created the graphing code which currently just tracks 3 weights: total body weight, lean body weight, and fat weight. I decided to let the user decide how big a graph they wanted see, which could be problematic. The graph is weight by day, so if a day is missing (i.e. the user only weighs/measures himself once a week) then when asked to show a graph for 10 days, there may be only one data point - and there wouldn't be any outliers to graph against. So I decided to, given a particular cutoff, backtrack until the next most recent data point was located.

July 16th:
Generally, I'm less sore than I was fearing today. Normally when I start exercising - or at least doing things way more than I had been used to - I get a bit sore the day after, and really sore the day after that. That really wasn't so much the case today. I have been exercising a bit for the previous several weeks, but nothing approaching the all out (or the nearly all out) effort I've been putting forward with the chin ups and push ups.

Push ups: 12 then 12 then 10 then 10 then maxed out and 10 and a half. Resting about 90 seconds between sets - total of 54 in about 9 minutes. These seemed pretty rough, especially the last few of the last two sets. I wasn't half as sore as I thought I would be today, but also I was hoping to max out with more than ten on the last set. Friday is looking definitely possible especially with more rest between sets. And honestly, it's only 9 more than I did today. Having pulled off 11 more than I did Monday, a measly 9 more certainly seems doable. But we'll see. Because next up is what I'm really dreading...

Chin ups: 4 then 3 then 2 then 2 then maxed out at 2 and a half. Very nearly three. The last half was half again halfier than the last half I halfed out on Monday. But I still won't count it as a whole. Again, I rested about 90 seconds between sets for a total of 13 in about 7 minutes. These weren't nearly as bad as I was fearing, but I still ran out of gas for what would've been the 14th. And I was hoping for 15. On the bright side, what I did today was 4 more than I did Monday. On the down side, I'm scheduled for 21 on Friday, which seems fairly unlikely - even with the longer rest period between sets. I'm guessing I'll hit 19, and peter out on the last set trying to go for 5 again. However, I won't condemn myself before I start. At least, not any more than I already have.

On a bright and definitively geeky note, I've now built a web based body composition calculator, which calculates BMI, basal metabolic rate, calories needed for total daily expenditure based on activity level, and body fat percentage. All I need to enter is my height, weight, age, and a few skinfold measurements. On a fairly wide technological departure for myself, this is entirely done in javascript, helped along by my favorite javascript/AJAX toolkit, JQuery. I have yet to build a back-end for it to store data from day to day and draw a graph of the values calculated. For which I will naturally use perl.

July 13th:
Push ups, initial test: I did 20. I could've probably squeezed out a few more, but 20 is where I stopped. The program at hundredpushups.com doesn't really have you do anything different if you can do more than 10, and I'm planning on starting in with the program on Monday (the next day), so I figured I wouldn't kill myself eking out the last few. But man, that's a long way from the 300 I used to be able to do, albeit in pyramid sets.

Chin ups, initial test: I did 3. There is a very slim chance that with an appropriate amount of grunting, kicking, and facial contortions I could have possibly gotten close to doing another one, but my wife was in the room next to my chin up bar trying to get some work done, so I left it at 3, and left her a little less disturbed than she could have been. But man, that's a long way from the 100 I used to be able to do, albeit in pyramid sets.

So I'll be starting this program on the highest level for push ups, and the lowest level for chin ups. Sounds about right, since chin ups have always been a lot harder for me anyhow.

Which takes me to the next day...

July 14th:
Push ups: 10 then 10 then 8 then 6 then maxed out at 9. Resting about 60 seconds between sets. Total of 43 within about 5 minutes. The start of the second ten, the eight, and the six seemed a little tough. I think I'm a little sore from my initial chin up test yesterday, and it is surprisingly interfering with the push ups a bit. I'm dreading Wednesday a little, I'll have to do 11 more push ups than I did today. But I guess on the bright side, today I did 23 more than I did yesterday.

Chin ups: 2 then 2 then 2 then 2 then ... two and a half. And then another half. Resting about 60 seconds between sets (except I tried that last half chin up within a few seconds after the previous half). So that's three on the last set, right? Well, no - I guess it doesn't count unless I get my chin over the bar. Or at least near. Total of (let's call it just) 10 within about 5 minutes. Man, I can't believe I used to do 100 of these things within 40-50 minutes or so. I really had to strain for the 6th and 8th chin ups. I was really kicking to get the 10th, and I completely ran out of steam on what would've been the 11th. I'm not sure how I'll be able to do any more than these on Wednesday. But today was 7 more than yesterday, and Wednesday is only 5 more than I did today. That ought to be doable, no?

Since Matthew was born (and even before) I had been severely lacking in my personal fitness. I recall a time where I used to do a pyramid workout consisting of 100 chin ups, 300 push ups, and 500 sit ups. I'd start with 1 chin up, 3 push ups, and 5 sit ups. Then multiply everything by two; 2 chin ups, 6 push ups, 10 sit ups. And so on up to 10; 10 chin ups, 30 push ups, and 50 sit ups. And then back down the pyramid levels, so that by the time I was all finished I had completed 100, 300, and 500 of chin ups, push ups, and sit ups respectively.

Naturally, it took me a long time to work my way up to that level, and even then I ended up doing short sets during the chin ups and push ups because it was so hard to do so many, especially so close to each other. By the time I was in the 7+ chin ups/20+ push ups per pyramid level, I could only do maybe 4-5 chin ups or 10-15 push ups in a row, so I'd take a lot of short rests and complete the required number for the pyramid level.

Regardless, this was years ago back when I was really working out a lot. I've really let myself go in the interim. I don't think I was weighing myself much back then, but I'm pretty sure I'm about 15 lbs heavier today. I felt like I had to keep up with my wife's caloric intake as she was pregnant with our little bundle of joy. You know. For support. Well, that's not entirely true, but that's pretty much what happened.

So around July 13th I stumbled across a site called hundredpushups.com and was immediately smitten by the idea - which is to work your way up to being able to do 100 consecutive push ups, over the course of about 6 weeks. It sounded awesome to me. The plan is to do about 5 sets of push ups (more sets in later weeks), each set being fewer repetitions than your all out maximum for each set, and rest for a length of time between each set.

I also decided to follow the same routine for chin ups. I'll be posting a narrative about my misadventures and missteps along the way of pursuing these goals.