Less than one hundred pushups...

I'd been struggling with the 100 pushups program, barely making it through most days. Last Friday I finally had a good day in which I breezed through the first four sets, and in my final set, which called for at least 33, I did 38. This was possibly the most I'd done in a quarter century. Over the weekend I did the prescribed progress test, which again went well -- I did 46, which is more than double my initial test.

So I was feeling pretty good going into week five. My progress test had bumped me up from the middle track to the hardest track, so I was expecting a challenge. I got it! My first two sets of 36 and 40 were OK, but my form was slipping by the end. The third set of 30 was a struggle, and the fourth set, only 24, was impossible. I gave up at 18. I still had a final set to go of 40 or more.

I'm unsure about how I'll proceed from here. I may just restart week 5 every 2 or 3 days until I can get through it. Another thought is to restart with better form. I've not been lowering all the way down so my chest touches on each repetition (or, I guess in my case, my belly will touch first!). I just go down to where my arms are bent to about 90 degrees. Obviously the way I've done it is easier. There's no sense even trying to do week five with the more difficult "proper" form in the shape I'm in now. But I could do week 1 that way, and work my way up from there. In any case, I have two days to think about it.

Despite this setback, I'm very happy with the program. I've been able to do well over 100 pushups in sets with short rest periods, if not all at once, and that would have been impossible just a couple of weeks ago. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in developing better upper-body strength.