Push Ups are mental!

I've just completed week 3 of the push up challenge and I've decided that push ups are mental! By mental I mean psychological. By psychological I mean that your mind controls how many you can do - or appears to...

Take yesterdays effort for instance: The first set required me to do 11 push ups. I did this but could barely have pushed a 12th out. The second set required 13 push ups. I did this and easily pushed out the 12th but could not have pushed out 14. The third and fourth sets only required 9 push ups each. I could not have pushed out more than 9 for each - my arms were literally trembling! Then for the 5th set I had to push up until I maxed out but had to do a minimum of 13. I set the target at 18 because I had achieved 16 the last time and wanted to feel I was making progress. I did 18 easily but could not have pushed out a 19th!

What's going on? It's as if my mind tells my body what it is capable of doing for each set of push ups and enables me to access the required physical resources to achieve the task but no more. It definitely feels like a case of mind over matter. My husband has experienced the same phenomenon with his push up challenge.

Is this a working example of the unification of mind, spirit and body?

I decided to apply the principle to my training this morning. Instead of doing shadow sparring I set myself the task of going through all my punching combinations. We have 6 different combinations but the format is similar for each, consisting of : start in yoi, step into zenkutsu dachi with kamae, punch 1, punch 2, kamae, step back into yoi and then repeat on the other side. I decided to set myself the target of doing each combination 10 times on each side, making a total of 120 punch combinations. I thought this would test out my endurance, particularly as I intended to do every combination with maximum vigour!

I decided that a stepped approach similar to the push up challenge was required, so I did each of the six combinations in turn, 10 times on each side and then had 60 seconds rest before starting the next combination. The whole thing took less than 15 minutes and I didn't even collapse in a heap at the end of it!

It was as if once I had set the target and a schedule for achieving it, my mind just instructed my body to get on with it and released the necessary physical resources to do it.

I think I'm learning a lot more about myself from this push up challenge than just how to do push ups.....

Some ups and downs this week.....

The last two weeks training has gone a bit slower than planned! Unfortunately some of my training has been thwarted by illness (heavy cold) and injury (pulled deltoid muscle). Typically, the days I was unable to train because of illness or injury were the days I had the time to do it!

Last week I managed to fit in the program twice by doing different bits on different days as I felt up to it but this week I didn't do anything significant until today. I managed to get off work early so came home and spent an hour in the gym doing some fitness and weights training and some karate stuff. I feel I've made up a little bit for not training on Monday (my day off) but my left shoulder was so sore I thought I'd better rest it.

Strangely this did not stop me doing a double karate class on Monday evening (I'd have to be on my death bed to miss that). Unfortunately, Sensei had decided to dedicate the whole week to kihon training, mainly punching - which was good but very hard on my poor shoulder which was really throbbing by the end of class! We did some stretching at the end and Sensei showed my partner how to stretch out my shoulder.

Next morning I woke up expecting my shoulder to be really sore but to my amazement it felt fine. I don't know if it was the stretching or the kihon or something else but it's not bothered me much since.

The part of my training that I have consistently managed to maintain this last fortnight is the Push Up Challenge (see my left side bar for results). I am now on week 3 and have been following the program to the letter. My husband has joined me in the challenge so we can motivate each other to keep going. It is a hard challenge but I'm slowly making progress. At the end of last week (week 2) I maxed out with 16 push ups. I know this doesn't sound many but that only represents the last set of push ups out of 5 sets. You do a prescribed number of push ups for the first 4 sets with a minute rest between, then you do as many as you can in the last set - that's the number you record. However, if you add the 5 sets together I did 61 push ups - which sounds more respectable!

I have another day off tomorrow so I am hoping that now I am free of illness and injury I will be able to get up to speed with program again and have a good long session of solo training.

Happy training....

Push ups - the challenge...

In my last post I set myself a target of doing 50 push-ups. I hadn't really thought about how I would get there but T left me a comment with a link to a website called  Hundred Push-ups. com. Having reviewed the website I have decided to take up the challenge! My target is still 50 rather than 100 push-ups but I'm going to follow the programme to achieve it.

Why do push ups? Apparently push ups are the ultimate exercise. In a single push up motion you simultaneously strengthen the chest, deltoids, lower back and triceps. In order not to collapse to the floor with each push up you have to spend as much time and effort lowering your body down as pushing it back up. According to Myatt Murphy," It's this controlled pace that works muscles through three types of muscle-building resistance (concentric, eccentric and isometric) while teaching them to work as a team."

Myatt also goes on to say that other benefits of push ups include improving your reaction time by training your proprioceptive fibres to respond more quickly. Apparently, holding yourself in a push up position causes proprioceptive fibres (part of the body's balance system) to fire continuously just to keep your body from falling over. In addition, due to the high rep nature of push ups, they increase blood flow within the torso and arms, flushing out lactic acid and reducing post workout soreness in the muscles following weights exercises.

How do you do push ups correctly? Though people seem to have slightly different thoughts on this, the following video seems to outline the most common method:



Some sites seem to advocate going down until your chest actually touches the floor whereas others recommend lowering yourself until the elbows are bent at 90 degrees. I can just about get down to 90 degrees and still get back up but if I go all the way to the floor then I find it extremely difficult to get back up. What do you think? 90 degrees or all the way to the floor?

Timing also seems to be important. Most sites recommend taking at least 2 seconds to go down and 2 seconds to come back up to get the maximum improvement. Well I can't physically do it quicker than that anyway! It seems to me that too many people are in rush when they do push ups. Aren't you relying too much on leverage when you do them fast rather than muscular effort?

Good technique seems to be the key to getting the full benefits of doing push ups. The torso must remain rigid,  with the abs pulled in tight and the back straight. The legs should remain straight and the hips not allowed to dip. The head should remain in a neutral position, looking down and mustn't bob down as you lower yourself.

I don't think I can quite do the perfect push up just yet, so as I follow the Hundred Push Up Programme I will be endeavouring to improve my techniques as well as the number of reps I can achieve. If like me you're not too hot at push ups why not join me with the challenge - go to their website to find out what to do. I'll be reporting my progress in the left side bar.....