Beau's Blog

For the month of September, I did pushups every day.

The motivation for this challenge came largely from when I committed to planking daily in June 2022. I started a 30 day challenge to plank daily where I started with planking for 1 minute and increased the duration as I became stronger. I ended up liking it so much that after only a week, I made it an indefinite challenge. After several months, I stopped being rigid about doing it every day, but I appreciated pushing myself and measuring my progress. With it, I did eventually get to 3 and a half minutes and that feeling of progress motivated me.

My goals with this challenge

1. Get physically stronger
2. Get mentally stronger AKA practice discipline
3. Develop a positive morning routine
4. Try something new to see what would happen

One aspect of this challenge that I plan to incorporate more into these challenges (and life in general), is asking a mentor for direction. My good friend Matt is a fitness coach and before I began, I told him what I was planning and I’m glad I did. He advised the following.

1. Measure how many pushups I could do before the challenge and at the end
2. Gradually ramp up my effort via sets and reps. (I don’t gym so while this one may have been obvious for many, I would not have thought to do this)
   • First 3 sets of 10 reps
   • Then once that’s comfortable, 3 sets of 12 reps
   • Once that’s comfortable, 4 sets of 10 reps
   • Next 4 sets of 12 reps
   • And so on

With that, on September 1^st, I was off! For day 1, I simply did as many pushups as I could, to establish my baseline. I did 25 pushups. Then, day 2 onwards, I did sets and reps each morning.

Matt also provided a video of himself doing pushups so I could see good form instead of winging it with my intuition.

I did not watch this video until the afternoon of day 6.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, I realized I had bad technique. My main takeaways were that my arms were too far apart and that I was not coming down very far. On day 7, with newfound form, I reestablished my baseline. I did as many pushups as I could.

I did 15 pushups. With better technique, my baseline was 60% of what I thought. It was humbling but I want to be someone who does something because it is right, healthier, more consistent, etc instead of someone who does something because it sounds better. So, while it felt disappointing, I accepted I could only do 15 pushups.

I then spent mornings in September and the beginning of October following the ramp Matt shared. I made it to 4 sets of 12 reps.

Since I had started off this challenge a little loosey goosey about establishing a baseline, I felt no qualms about ramping up until October 10^th, rather than an exact 30 days. On October 10^th, I did pushups until failure. I did 22! I felt pretty good about the 47% increase. Although I have to admit that anchoring is a powerful effect so there was a voice in my head telling me “damn, you didn’t even make it to that original 25 number!”

Looking back at my goals, I accomplished 1, 2 and 3. I was 47% physically stronger by one measure. For over a month, I followed through on a commitment to myself each and every morning. This is true despite moving around a bunch (Paris, Carcassonne, Barcelona, Tampere, Tallinn, Helsinki, Seoul, Tokyo) and doing many different things. I was mentally stronger through this new morning routine.

While all of that is true, the thing I ended up being happiest about was my morning routine more broadly. The idea with doing sets of an exercise is to give your body breaks. At first, I didn’t know what to do with these breaks. But after a bit of thought, I realized that short breaks in the morning were perfect to make some iffy habits more consistent. Brushing teeth, journaling, getting morning sunlight, breathing meditation – these were all things I l appreciated but struggled on with consistency.

Generally speaking, my morning routine now is:

1. Drink a glass a water in bed
2. X reps of pushups – currently at 15
3. Brush teeth outside on balcony
4. X reps of pushups
5. Breathing meditation outside on balcony
6. X reps of pushups
7. Journal
8. X reps of pushups
9. Cold shower

I’m happy with my routine. It starts my day off in a good direction, lessening the chances of things going sideways. Even if the day does go wonky, I can fall asleep feeling proud of my first 25 minutes.

The best things in life are often surprises. (Yay for goal 4) I certainly did not guess that utilizing the break time between pushups would be the best part of this challenge. It feels odd to me that by doing pushups more consistently, my morning brushing has become more consistent. Perhaps it’s all about momentum. Create positive momentum in one area of life and it carries over into other areas.

From a macro perspective, I’ll look to keep an open mind to find the less obvious opportunities in life.
From a micro perspective, I’ll look to create transition time that lends itself to highly productive minutes for me.
Concretely, I’ll continue doing pushups for now.

P.S. – As I write this, I’m in a cute quiet café in the hills above Kobe, Japan. “Don’t smoke in bed” is playing and I have a massive potted plant too close to me. I’m amused at it invading my personal space.