Let’s just get it out there from the beginning, I didn’t reach 100 push ups as I guess I had hoped. In fact, I don’t even feel I came close, but we’ll get back to that.
Looking back at my introductory announcement and the one hundred push ups site, I think that I did read a bit too much into it. The site does not promise that you end up doing one hundred push ups if you follow the six week program, but in their own words “you’ll soon be on your way to completing 100 consecutive push ups”.
I started out by taking the initial test, just before I made my announcement, and did 18 push ups. The following Monday I started the program with day one of week one. The first two weeks were challenging, but not very hard. After the second week the idea is to take another test to see how much you improved.
The program is quite simple. You take and initial test, and based on your result you follow one of three paths through the program. After the second, fourth, and fifth weeks you test yourself to see if you should follow a different path.
Weeks three and four were really hard, but increasing the rest between each set meant I was able to complete them. Unfortunately, I got a little bit sick at the beginning of week four and had to spend a week away from the program there. When I returned I took the test again and restarted week four.
When it was time to get started on week five I had to do another exhaustion test. This time I did forty push ups putting me right in the top of group two. It was here that I first wavered. Turns out that doing forty consecutive push ups is really boring. The added element of boredom added to the hesitancy of the final two weeks, and to be frank I did not really see the point anymore, and was merely pressing on because I wanted to (I guess I am just a bit stubborn).
In the end I did the final test, and now I can do 47 consecutive push ups. I ended up doing a total of 1917 push ups. And I can feel and see increased muscle definition and volume of the chest and arms muscles, especially the pectorals and triceps. I don’t think I would recommend the program to anyone who doesn’t love doing push ups, because it just ends up being boring. Instead I would go for a variation of push up exercises to strengthen the chest area and arms more generally. Men’s Health had an article a while back with six different push up exercises (also available here) that I would suggest instead.