kentcowgill.org/blog

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 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.

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.