Just as August was ending, I challenged D, my brother, and two other friends to do 100 pushups daily for September. Only the first two committed.
I’ve done a 100 pushups challenge before, but I’ve forgotten if I finished 30 days of it. And if I did, what were the results? So, here I am writing about this challenge, and the things I learned from it.
1. Having an accountability partner will make you show up every day.
“No video, no challenge” – That was the rule I gave my brother. Every day, he and I would send videos of us doing pushups. D and I, on the other hand, would ask each other “How many pushups have you done?” or “Have you done your pushups for today?” Sometimes D and I would do pushups one after the other. I’ll do a few reps while D plays with Little O in our tita’s bedroom-slash-playroom-slash-gym.
My brother stopped doing the challenge on the third week because of a clickbaity YouTube video of Athlean-X. Its title was “Pushups are KILLING Your Gains.” He didn’t watch it, but I did. I tried to explain to him that the YouTuber was explaining how to make pushups count, and that it’s not really killing the gains. But I couldn’t stop him from leaving the challenge.
2. Kids do what they see.
I’ve always been the fitness-minded sister or friend. I’m happy when I inspire people to exercise or priortitize their health, but I realized it’s a better feeling when the person you’re inspiring is your offspring.
Little O started imitating us on Day 1. Pushup for her is doing a downward dog while laying her head flat on the pushup board for 10 seconds before pushing up. It’s different from how we do pushups, but she gets the idea that in pushups you go up and down.
By Day 16, she was pushing her head at a rate of 100 downs per second (okay, that’s an exaggeration!) but the best part is, even if she was banging her head fast she didn’t hit the ground. She had control of how low she should put her head down.
3. Overrated, but consistency is key.
If you want to improve something, show up every day. The effort you give daily doesn’t have to be as intense as the previous days, just show up. The little things we do, if done daily will compound.
On Day 1, I can only do 10 reps in one go, by Day 30, I was able to do 30 reps straight.
Takeaway
The 100 pushups daily challenge was a success for D and I, but if you ask me if I’ll do it again, the answer would be no! No because some days were hard, some days were okay. Plus, doing 100 pushups can only do so much. I would need do other pushup variations for it to work.
