Catching a Break

Okay so I haven't evolved; aside from pushups I get virtually no exercise unless you count when I have to run dragging my kid to his bus stop so he doesn't miss the bus again.

I have adjusted the schedule. This should count for something in the planning & management department.

After doing the math again it occurred to me that doing 1,000 pushups every three days gets me to 10,000 for the month, which is the ongoing goal. So do 350 a day and I'm covered right? Well yes, but I recently also realized how cool it is to be dragging my butt down the stairs to the kitchen to try to get my son fed and readied in time for the bus and suddenly think 'Hey, no pushups today!'

If you can't relate to this, substitute the word pushups with 'work' or 'wife'.

So now I make it a point to crank out 500 or more pushups two days in a row, then take a day off. The results have been unbelievable! With regular days of rest and recovery my pecs are now busting out of my shirt, and because of this people come up and give me free stuff on the street, chicks dig me (even more), book sales are up, I've got more friends and followers than ever and I just won Powerball.

Okay maybe not. But the days off are still nice.

Efficient or Escapist?

With 300 pushups under my belt today and thirty minutes left before midnight (not that I'm afraid my bicycle will turn into a pumpkin if I'm not tucked in - though I'll hit the sack right now if it means my pregnant wife will morph into Cinderella) I decided I wanted to do 100 more. This led me to my quandary of the moment: do I try to do them in three sets or four?

What's the big deal, you ask? Maybe nothing, but here's what I'm wondering.

So far I've been doing sets of 30. Right now, after 300 on the day, cranking out thirty at a time starts getting tough, particularly for those last 5 reps, which, if completed, are as much of a workout as the first 25 when your muscles still have some twitch in them.

Doing four sets of 25 will likely be much easier than two 33's and a 34 or whatever. And there's my conundrum of conscience. Do I serve myself a little extra punishment or just get those last 100 out of the way and chalk them up? Is the goal just a number or should this endeavor aim to incorporate more rather than less physical effort? And what does my answer mean as it relates to the inescapable inquiry into the soul that this whole stupid idea will ultimately comprise?

Ah, screw it, I'll do what I can until my shoulder tells me to go find my glass slipper.