30 day pushup challenge and Eli’s Quest To Get Back Into Shape. Eli used to do 100 pushups at a shot. Eli was into boxing and trained quite a bit, even having an eight-pack! Oh boy, where did the eight pack go? We all know the answer to that one. Snickers, chips, pretzels, soda, we all have paid money to the producers of junk food, had the temporary high of the sugar, and let the processed food reshape our body into the jello that we now have to deal with.
I was no different, but I did make changes and Eli took notice. In this very park here in the pictures below, Eli dared me to a 30-day pushup challenge.
He said, “Okay Hashi Mashi, if you can beat my pushup high, then I am going to do your Hashi Mashi program for at least three months!” Of course, my interest is that anyone and everyone should feel their best, and having experienced the difference myself in how I feel, I accepted his challenge.
The 30-day pushup challenge rules
Both Eli and I were free to make any rules that we wanted for the 30-day pushup challenge. I gave him my suggestions and we decided to meet back at the park in a month’s time. I knew that Eli was shooting for 100 straight pushups. My suggestions were the following:
30-day pushup challenge Week 1
Day 1: 5 pushups
Day 2: 7 pushups
Day 3: Rest!
Day 4: 7 pushups
Day 5: 9 pushups
Day 6: 10 pushups
Day 7: Rest!
Week 2
Day 8: 12 pushups
Day 9: 15 pushups
Day 10: Rest!
Day 11: 17 pushups
Day 12: 18 pushups
Day 13: 20 pushups
Day 14: Rest!
Week 3 Pushup Challenge
Day 15: 22 pushups
Day 16: 25 pushups
Day 17: Rest!
Day 18: 27 pushups
Day 19: 29 pushups
Day 20: 30 pushups
Day 21: Rest!
Week 4 of 30-day pushup challenge
Day 22: 32 pushups
Day 23: 34 pushups
Day 24: Rest!
Day 25: 35 pushups
Day 26: Rest!
Day 27: 38 pushups
Day 28: 40 pushups
Day 29: Rest!
Day 30: 50 pushups or whatever max that you can do.
The Pushup Duel
So that was the plan on my part, to try and hit 50 pushups. Eli’s plan was for a 100. Made sense to me since he is so much younger, and he used to do 100, so he would probably get there after a month. And now, time for the 30-day pushup challenge:
Eli suggested taking a few shots of him removing his shirt for the 30-day pushup challenge, as it can be used in the future as his world champion pushup shots. So, we agreed to do full pushups with good form, and that meant a straight body and nose touching the ground for each full pushup. And being that both of us have pretty long noses, no one here had an advantage in that area.
Eli went first on the green tar court and he blasted out the first ten and cruised on the next eight and then pushed out two more for a total of twenty. Who knows, perhaps he was going easy on me because I did recall him saying that he used to do up to 100 pushups in one shot when he was training as a boxer.
Then it was my turn, so I took off my p-coat, shirt and tie, sunglasses, and on that brisk day in the park thirty miles north of New York City with the Kakiat Mountains in the distance, I went for it.
The first twenty went well, and then forty went pretty well. There was a slight pitch in the green top of the court, so that was a bit distracting. By 42 I was starting to struggle a bit, made it to 45, and pushed out another 5. At that point, after 50, my arms definitely wanted to give, my body too, but Eli was egging me on and I was able to push out two more to 52…I really wanted to make 53, went down, and was pushing my hardest to get back up…but totally failed halfway up.
So, at the end of the day, I did 52.5, at the age of 56, and this is the reason for this post today. And Eli has started on the Hashi Mashi Path, accepting the idea of it being a journey and going one step at a time, one day at a time.
We, therefore, present to you Eli after the 30-day pushup challenge. Please show him your support for him to get lean, get strong, get defined, get ripped, and certainly, that is possible for him, and doing that by eating real food, doing real strength exercises, which will result in a new you, a new Eli.
Here are the main points that Eli is going to follow:
1. Eliminate all junk food, you all know what that is, it comes in bright colorful packages, did not grow in the ground or on a tree, has been processed beyond recognition into some unknown substance, like, cheese doodles, chips, pretzels, baby ruth, Doritos, ice cream, cookies, sodas. Even eliminate processed grains like whole-wheat bread, whole-wheat pasta, any bread or pasta. If you must have something like bread, I suggest not have more than 2 slices in the morning or have a cup of oatmeal (which is a better choice because of its lower glycemic index) or a cup of rice/pasta.
2. Add as many vegetables as possible to your meals. Spinach, pepper, mushrooms, asparagus, broccoli, you get the idea. Add fruit like orange, grapes, avocado. Add nuts like almonds. Add beans like black bean soup and hummus. Add protein like fish, chicken or beef, for vegetarians, add tempeh or tofu.
3. Drink water.
4. Get to sleep by midnight and get 8 hours.
5. Do real strength exercises like pushups, situps, deadlifts, squats, bench, rows, and overhead press with free weights, stop using machines and stop doing so much cardio. If you want to do cardio, do 20 or 30 min on your rest days between lifting.
6. gradual improvement, for example, I started with 1 pushup back on June 21, 2012, and yesterday I was able to do 52.5 consecutive pushups, I have been gradually adding one pushup a week or a bit more frequently. Same with squats, started with a 45lb empty bar and have been working my way up, now up to 120lbs and staying at 5 sets of 5 reps…
7. Focus on yourself…that probably has helped me the most to get out of my depression…so instead of thinking of others, external people, events, all of which I have no control over, I started to focus on myself, on what I could control, food, exercise, and thoughts…that has made a big difference for me…to where people actually think I am pretty optimistic…now that is shocking..but it is true!
8. Be consistent…
9. Shoulder my responsibilities – Turn all of the ‘they should, he should, she should’ and turn them into I should. For me, it was liberating to stop thinking about what everyone else should be doing and instead put that on me, cause once I shoulder it myself, I have the power to do something about it.
10. Let go of emotional demons…basically meaning that if I am feeling a grudge….stop it…let it go…replace it with thinking of something that I have gratitude for …like still having some hair…being able to work out…breathe…I notice that when I am thinking that way, I do not have much space for paralyzing depression, the catatonic state that I had been in for so many years.
and Zehhu, that is it.
So if you know Eli or you do not, give him some support. It is always easier to take on a 30-day pushup challenge like this with encouragement. No matter what, he like everyone will have to do the work themselves, you have to make the right food choices and the right exercise choices as well as the right-thinking choices.
And when July rolls around, we will have some great after pictures to compare to these before shots.
Have you ever done a 30-day pushup challenge? How did it go? Please share.
Rich is a NASM-CPT (Certified Personal Trainer),