On March 30, 2013 I began a year long task of 50 push-ups each day. I actually added an extra day to my year as I ended the daily push-ups on March 30, 2014.
I did not begin able to do 50 in a single set and as I recall, I started by doing one set of 30 and then a second set of 20. It took me about two to three weeks to work up to 50 in one set. Then after that I started adding more to the minimum of 50. As you can see, I made it up to 80 a day before my shoulders started telling me to back off and return to 50 a day. Actually I think I did 85 a day for a little bit. I know one day I did 100 (in one set) and set a personal record. Toward the end of my year of push-ups, my wrists started to hurt, so I had to change form and to do my push-ups on my fists to prevent my wrists from bending during the exercise. This was surprisingly difficult.
In this video my form is not perfect, however my chest touches the floor each time I go down. My extension on the way up could be better, but like I said, doing this on my fists added a challenge for me. Give the video a watch if you want to see an O-L-D man doing push-ups. It was rewarding to, in a sense, cross the finish line.
My total push-ups for the year was between 20,305 and 20,500. I should have kept better records but these numbers are pretty close.
I do have to qualify my "50 a day" by saying that I missed doing my daily push-ups on around 15 days. Most of those days were lapses of memory and a few were for medical reasons. However, each missed day was accounted for a made up on the following day. I did more than enough push-ups for the entire year!
I hope this information encourages somebody out there to try something a little different. The benefits for me were the added muscle and strength for such a small investment of time and effort. I will now modify my exercise routine to include a variety of lifts and moves for a better all-around fitness and at least a two day rest of the muscle groups before working them out again. The year of daily push-ups was a nice discipline to build upon.
Push-ups numbers through the year:
March 30 - April 15 ……………….... 50 push-ups x 17 days = 850 push-ups
April 15 - April 30 …………….…….. 55 push-ups x 15 days = 825 push-ups
May 1 - 15 ………………………...…..60 push-ups x 15 days = 900 push-ups
May 16 - 31 …………………..……… 65 push-ups x 15 days = 975 push-ups
June 30 days ………………………... 70 push-ups x 30 days = 2100 push-ups
July 31 days …………………….……75 push-ups x 31 days = 2325 push-ups
Aug 2 - 12 ………………………...….. 80 push-ups x 11 days = 880 push-ups
Shoulder started hurting. Backed off to 50 a day for the rest of the year.
Aug 13 - 31 …….…... 18 days
Sept ……………….… 30 days
Oct ………………….. 31 days
Nov ……………….…. 30 days
Dec ……………….…. 31 days
Jan …………………… 31 days
Feb …………………… 28 days
Mar …………………… 30 days
50 push-ups x 229 days = 11,450 push-ups
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TOTAL 20,305 Push-ups
Truly inspirational, im halfway in on my 1 year pushup routine and my aim is to be able to do two consequtive sets of 100 back to back
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