Taking up press ups for lent on 26th February 2020 meant that I didn’t have to give up sugar or cake (as I have done in the past)! It was something to aim for each day that was positive. When we got to Easter Sunday, we had gone into national lockdown, the gyms had had to shut, so it seemed a good idea to carry on! I knew I needed something to keep me going and aim towards – a good practice to keep me accountable to something.
Most days I could tie 30 push ups into my home workouts, but for those days where I couldn’t, they seemed like a real chore. Our before bed catchphrase became “have you done all your push ups?”…
When I hit 6 months I was surprised at myself for some reason, and without being able to find a reason to stop I decided to continue!
I roped a few people in along the way to do them with me, and tried to get some friends to commit in October for lockdown number 2.0, and named it “push-up-tober” instead of stoptober. The rules were that people chose a number and completed that number of their scale of press ups every single day in October. This was where a close friend challenged me to up from 30 to 35 (and couldn’t quite resist the challenge!). But it was a nice feeling to spread the joy of how much these team mates felt they had improved in just one month! Unlimited lockdown over winter has been hard, not knowing when we would be able to get back into working out with our friends again, spending time relaxing with others and laughing (not through a screen!).
See ya later 2020!
When we had seen the back of 2020, and welcomed a new more optimistic year, I worked out a realistic milestone to aim for by 365 days. This took me to at least 45 push ups each day. By this point I knew I could bash out sets of 15 even when I really CBA!
Upping the reps made me do them earlier in the day, and finally I would get to bed time knowing I had done them all, if not a few more than my daily quota!
The Physical Effects
About 8 months in, someone asked me what daily press ups had done to my body, whether it had helped anything, and I couldn’t answer immediately. When I think about it I can tell you lots of ways it has maintained my muscle mass, my heart strength and my general core. Without doing CrossFit and without doing hardly any pulling motions, press ups have maintained the muscle bulk of my lats (latissimus dorsi) to a degree (big shoulder stabiliser I suppose).My arms are definitely toned around my shoulders/deltoids, and of course my triceps are probably now the bulkiest muscle in my body (!!). I’ve been surprised at how it’s kept my core strength and abdominal muscle tone – not just aesthetically but when I’m running, rowing, or lifting anything I can tell. I’m better at burpees! This is something I’ve always died a death on, but I’m much better at keeping going, peeling my body back up off the floor!
Push ups vs Mental health
A big driver for my personal anxiety has always been unrealistic expectations for myself. At times this has set me off in cycles of failure, days upon days of constantly being cross with myself for not doing better or for not performing the way that I knew I could. Or for things not going according to plan, and blaming myself. It’s like having someone on your shoulder constantly reminding you that you haven’t done as well as you could have done, trained as hard as you could have, or that you haven’t controlled your eating as well as you could have done. It got to a point where I constantly felt “on edge”, which in hindsight was just adrenaline (“fight or flight”) and it was exhausting.
I remember one particular session at the gym where I was doing overhead squats and I couldn’t control my breathing, tears streaming down my face. I had forgotten the reasons why I was exercising, that’s for sure!
I reluctantly referred myself to a local mental health service and had an “assessment” with a chap called Paul. I’ll never forget him. Despite being a bit of an odd character, he definitely spent longer with me than the time that the NHS had assigned. He passed me a tissue to slobber into, and listened intently. He showed me what I was doing to myself on a piece of paper! “Have you heard of the term perfectionism?” he asked me. I wasn’t after a label that day, but he recommended a “self help” book (warning me to ignore the awful front cover!) that quite possibly changed my life.
Some days when I haven’t “trained” or moved around as much as I would have done in the past, it’s very easy to feel disappointed with myself, and I slip and slide back into that perfectionism thinking! The push ups have given me a small achievement, and something to pump my heart muscle a little harder that day.
I recently saw a post from someone to say that people who are fit and healthy are not motivated every day, it’s about the “mundane consistency”. That’s how I see fitness sometimes, and how I’ve definitely seen these push ups at times. Yes of course you have to enjoy exercise and activity, but believe me there are plenty of tough times and mixed feelings. Dragging myself back out of bed on a winters night at 10.30pm when you’re really tired or feeling low in mood just because you remember you haven’t done what you’ve told yourself you were going to do. “Just do sets of 5” I would tell myself. Shut my eyes and got on with them, then got back into bed. For the greater good!
But every single day I completed the reps I said I would.
Why accountability is important
For me, if I have said I’m going to complete something, and told others around me, then I just can’t give up. Maybe that is the part of me that has always been involved in a team sport or a close knit team environment. They say that you need to learn to treat yourself as if you were your own best friend, but it’s much easier to let yourself down.
When I see people posting things on social media about exercise, I try to always “like” it or give them some “kudos”. They are not doing it to show off (most people anyway!). I recognise that for them, that is their accountability, and using anything that works for them to be active and healthy (to me) should be celebrated!
I had a diary pretty much solely to write how many push ups I had done before I went to bed every night… buying a new 2021 diary meant I had to keep going!
When I hit 365 days (thursday 25th February 2021) I had completed 15,000 push ups exactly.
Why I’m going to keep going.
Well… I thought about stopping, but again, I couldn’t find a reason to stop!
Ali Crewesmith – Senior Physiotherapist and CrossFit Coach @crossfit-lacemakers
Photo credit: HBA Photography
You can find Ali on Twitter – she is a great source of really well considered and evidence based physio information.
Add Comment