Last month I completed a 30-day fitness challenge 1,000 pushups, squats, and crunches in a day. Watch the video if you prefer.
The Idea for the 1,000 Pushups Challenge
In early November I completed the New York City Marathon. I realized during my marathon training I’d solely been doing cardio. Besides some power yoga, I had done almost no strength training and was feeling weak. I wanted to come up with an indoor strength-building fitness challenge as it was getting cold in New York.
Early this year I read, Living with A Seal by Jesse Itzler the owner of the Atlanta Hawks. In it, he hires a Navy Seal to live with him and train him for 30 days. Towards the end of the 30 days, Jesse does 1,000 pushups in a single day.
Pushups don’t require me to be outside and they are a good upper body strength test. So I set a 6-month goal to be able to do 1,000 pushups, squats and crunches in a single day. Well, I was reading Antifragile by Nassim Taleb which discussed Parkinson’s Law. Parkinson’s Law states that work expands to fill the time allotted. This led me to change my time-frame to a 30-day goal.
The Setup
I drew up a training plan on the back of a napkin and I started to follow it. A key piece to accomplishing my task was using the power of social accountability. The company I am building in the personal finance space, Ostrich uses social accountability to help people improve their financial situation. So I announced my challenge on Instagram/Facebook and began my journey.
Early on I struggled to follow the training plan I drew out. 1,000 pushups seemed so far out of reach. What kept me going is the commitment I made to others that I was going to complete this challenge. Throughout the weeks there was only 1 day that I did over 200 of each exercise in a single day.
Game Day
On game day, I woke up and immediately the voice in my head said “you aren’t ready” & “you can’t do it.” But having announced the challenge on social media the voice changed to “you don’t want to let people down” and “not trying at all is worse than trying and failing.”
Ultimately, I got up and started doing my reps. My strategy was to do 30 repetitions of each exercise.
At various milestones, I announced my progress and received incredible support from folks following along.
In the end, I completed my challenge in just over 8 hours and managed to read the book What If It Does Work Out during my rest breaks. The challenge tested me mentally and physically to go from no strength training to doing 1,000 pushups, squats and crunches in 8-hours.
I learned that creating challenges and games is a great way to make achieving goals fun. As I’ve gotten older, I lost a bit of playfulness. Undergoing this 1,000 pushup challenge helped me regain a bit of playfulness. Yet what truly kept me going is knowing that if I quit I’d let not only myself down but have to explain to my friends why I quit.
Now You Try!
Since I’ve completed this challenge a week ago another friend has already completed it himself! Now it is your turn to give it a try! Here’s a link to my training plan for you to try. For nutrition, I exclusively use Isagenix products. I have been using their plant-based protein for years. If you are interested in Isagenix, you can purchase products through my site and can even become a licensed distributor.
If you decide to attempt the 1,000 pushups, squats and crunches challenge, let me know how it goes! Stay tuned for my next challenge… Men Can’t Do the Splits.