For anyone whoâs read my columns since the paperâs inception, youâll know that Iâm not partial to New Yearâs resolutions, and I donât subscribe to them. Resolutions, yes. Just not at the turn of the year, because I think that âfresh startâ mentality is shaky ground to build your motivation on. However, that does not mean that folly doesnât occur any time someone decides to make a change. It seems like any day of the year is as good as any to smack your forehead, and say, âYeah, just what was I thinking?â Of course, thatâs if you can even lift your hand to your forehead and your arm is not laying limp on the floor with the rest of your body and youâre muttering, âWell, that was stupid,â which is how I found myself at the end of my greatest resolution blunder of all time that was nearly two years in the making.
I read somewhere that in Army boot camp, itâs typical for a soldier to do five hundred pushups a day, the result of which is a pretty impressive build. Iâm thin but not toned, and since I always wanted to be toned but hate lifting weights, I decided to give this a shot. I set my mind to it and told myself that no matter how long it took, I would get up to five hundred pushups a day and reap the rewards of being buff for the first time in my life. This was four years ago.
The plan was to get up to five sets of one hundred pushups throughout the day, which to me, riding that fresh burst of energy you have when you take that first step onto the long road of change, sounded doable. But of course, I needed a starting point, so I dropped to the floor, thinking I could bang out at least twenty no problem, and…1…exhale…2…exhale…3…exhale…4…4…4…4 1/4.
Four. For such a small number, it was incredibly heavy for my ego to lift.
I could have given up and had I not adapted, I may have, but I was intent on seeing this through, so I adjusted my tactic and gave it a second go on my knees. This time I did twelve. Okay, not the twenty on my toes I was hoping for, but I could handle starting with twelve. And start I did.
Every day, I got on my hands and knees five times a day and did twelve pushups. Soon those twelve turned into fourteen then sixteen then eighteen, then twenty. Eventually, the twenty turned into forty, sixty, eighty. And after a year, one hundred. I was actually doing five sets of one hundred pushups a day, totaling five hundred pushups a day. They were on my hands and knees, but I considered that a the first win.
But seeing that my goal was five hundred perfect pushups on my hands and toes, I knew I wasnât done. At least now I had some real ground to stand on. You could see the muscles in my chest and arms growing and my waist, which is narrow and thin, was taking on a more angular shape.
Once I was doing five sets of one hundred pushups on my knees easily, I went to my toes. I immediately dropped to only being able to do forty at a time, but thatâs a far cry from the measly four from a year earlier, so I started again.
Forty became forty-two, which became forty-four, forty-six, forty-eight, and so on. I came to difficult point in the sixties because it felt like my muscles capped out in strength and wouldnât go any farther. But I pushed through, and once I made it past the sixties hump, I progressed more evenly again until I was doing five sets of ninety pushups a day. Thatâs 450 pushups on my hands and toes every day!
My arms were very defined, as was my chest and neck. And, for the first time ever, I could see two of my stomach muscles, which doesnât sound like much but do you know how toned you have to be to see your abs? Seriously. Two was awesome. Best of all, I only had fifty pushups a day to add to meet my goal. Easy.
In any story, itâs now where things usually take a ridiculous turn. When confidence is at its peak and your decision making ability is apparently at an all-time low.
Again, I was reading up on muscle building and care and read that in Navy SEAL training school itâs common and intentional to experience complete muscle failure, which I did not know existed.
Complete muscle failure is not when youâre carrying something thatâs gotten too heavy and you have to put it down. Complete muscle failure is when your muscles are so strained and exhausted, they actually stop working altogether until the strain is relieved. Navy SEALS do this so theyâre prepared if it ever happens on a mission. They need to know how to accept it and work through it. How to handle it.
I admit, I was oddly curious about what that felt like and decided to give it a shot. I have no idea why it struck me as something Iâd want to try, seeing that itâs practically tantamount to wanting to know what it feels like to be electrocuted so you grab two live wires and zap your brains out. But alas I was at that stage in my journey where I thought nothing could stop me, so I gave it a shot on my next round of pushups.
I did my usual ninety, and I wasnât at a point yet to increase the reps, so I should have stopped there. But I continued. At one hundred, it was very difficult. At one-ten, it was getting brutal and I was sagging in the middle. At one-twenty, my pushups were just plain ugly. I was barely getting myself off the ground and grunted and was teary and was red-faced. Then, at one-twenty-five it happened. The muscles in my arms simply ceased to exist. It was literally like they just left my body, like they were no longer there, and I dropped to the floor, heaving and breathless.
Soon as I hit the floor the feeling in my arms came back, along with some other feelings I was not very thankful for: like a horrendous pain in my groin and another on my right side just above my waist. It wasnât a hernia, but I think I came close.
It took me three months to recover from the injuries, during which time I was losing the tone Iâd worked so hard to build. When I finally felt better enough to attempt a pushup again, the pains came right back. Fearing additional injury, I stopped doing pushups altogether. That was two years ago.
A few months ago, I decided to start on this journey again, and after some very cautious exploratory runs over many weeks, I think Iâm in shape enough to start over, lesson learned. Thank goodness for muscle memory, too, because when I tried my max limit for reps in a row, I was able to do that initial goal of twenty right off the bat, on my knees, which only proves you never run out of opportunities in life to be humbled and find new resolve and be a little stronger for it.
