Exercises I Enjoy...

So, almost every person has an exercise they prefer. My favorite exercise (by far) is Ultimate Frisbee. I enjoy almost any sport, though... So I'm not going to start listing those off. I'll just list a few exercises I enjoy that the average person may consider terribly unenjoyable. For example: the pull-up. I love the pull-up. It's fun because it helps your ability to climb and it requires fitness, not just strength. I must admit, when I was terrible at pull-ups (in comparison to where I am now) I didn't like them all that much. Only being able to do 2 or 3 wasn't very fun. The nice thing about that was it was very easy to gain in numbers. I could double my pull-up number in a few months. Now, I can only add one or two per month... if I keep up with it. They are still enjoyable though, because I can beat all my friends in a contest with them.

You may think because I enjoy pull-ups, I enjoy pushups. I don't really. They get boring, and don't feel as productive. They are a great exercise, but I prefer the pull-up.

I enjoy biking and running as well. I mainly like running because it makes me better at my sports, and it's just kind of fun in the summer! As for biking, I really want to get places with my fitness... biking is the way to do that! Also biking will give me stronger quads, which I really want for all my sports.

I enjoy ab exercises, but not the 'hold-still-as-long-as-you-can' ones. I like movement in my exercise. The reason I like ab exercise is because the abdominal burn is actually pretty fun... it's like a challenge: 'how long will you last?' Though, ab exercises have to vary, otherwise it's like: 'how long until you get bored?'

I enjoy weight lift in general. Some exercises I like and some I don't. I like it best for results, because you can see them pretty fast when weight lifting.

There are tons of other exercises I enjoy, but I won't list them all.. that'd be just a plain out boring post. What kind of exercise do you enjoy?

Six Pack Promise

Because I'm very active and exercise all the time, some of my friends assume I have a six pack. That's not true. In my opinion it has to be pretty defined to be a six pack. Only 4 of my abdominal sections are pretty defined, thus giving me a 4 pack. My lower packs is coated in fat, while my upper packs aren't big enough. I kind of want to get those defined...So yesterday I started a workout plan called the 6 Pack Promise. Its pretty short 5-10 minutes of intense ab exercise, 5 days a weeks for like two months. It also has a meal plan, but I'm not following that to the letter because I already eat pretty well and I don't need to lose much weight.

I will be keeping with my other weight training, so I won't lose muscle mass or have an unbalance in my core. Also I want to build up leg strength and endurance for running (track), biking, soccer, and frisbee. To build up leg endurance I need to work my cardio, thus helping me burn fat giving me my lower pack. Should be fun!

On a side note, I've been exercising less the past 3 weeks because SMASH was eating up my time and I didn't want to risk getting sick easier. For those three weeks I ate much less sugar, ate more fruit, more protein, about the same fat and maybe a little less carbs. Now, I only had two cardio days in those 3 weeks, yet from eating healthier I lost about 5 pounds. Thinking I lost muscle mass, I flexed a few muscles. Nothing seemed smaller, but my abs were a bit more defined. I've also killed colds much faster from eating healthier. I'm really liking this eating healthy(ish) thing!

This reminded me that weight lifting, running, and over all exercise is not the only thing to fitness. In actuality, resting and eating right is probably more important than exercise. That doesn't mean go all healthy eating, sleep a lot and not exercise. Exercise is still very, very important for fitness!

Much Ado About Nothing

Last weekend was SMASH's performances of Much Ado About Nothing! I played the part of Don John: the lead villain. I wasn't the villain with the most lines, that was Borachio played by Anna. I was just the evilest one, and in charge.

I had tons of fun with the performances! I guess I was pretty scary as well: I scared a little boy so bad he peed his pants. Yeah, so I guess I made a good villain! I also got plenty of 'compliments' about how good at being evil I was. One of the best things about preforming was seeing a bunch of good friends after the performances! Some of which I haven't seen for months! Thank you all for coming!

I'll put up a few pictures later. I got some Sharpie tattoos. They're pretty awesome! For now I'll wait until all the pictures are up so you can see the better pictures!

I'm really going to miss SMASH. I loved the great fellowship I had with the guys and girls! So much fun. Sadly, I'm not in the second weekend of performances, so I'll just be watching Cast B do their amazing work!

You know what? Having all these friends pretty far away, not having my drivers license and seeing gas pricing rise (thus when I get my license it'll be hard to afford visiting all my SMASH friends) makes me a bit sad... but it also encourages me to work on my biking more. Most of the people I'd like to visit are within 50 miles from my house. So, I was thinking I could stop at the closer SMASHers houses on the way and visit them (and rest), and then eventually get to the farther friends' houses!

After all, getting fit, seeing friends, all while not spending much money sounds good. While driving sucks up money, and doesn't get you fit, but you'll still see friends. Only problem with biking is the time and the restrictions during winter time.

Opening Night and my First Crossfit Workout

So, last night was opening night! It went very well! Only a few minor mistakes made! And most of them turned out to be humorous! I got plenty of comments saying I was 'very good at being evil', or 'you creeped me out!' and one 'I'm gonna have nightmares!'... I'd say those are pretty good compliments! Great job everyone!

This morning to burn some stress/nervousness, so I decided to workout. I wanted to do something fun and challenging... and I just saw a video last night about a Crossfit workout. It looked fun and challenging! The workout is called 'Cindy'. What you do is: do 5 pullups, 10 pushups, and 15 squats as many times as you can in 20 minutes. I did 22 sets. So that 110 pullups, 220 pushups, and 330 squats... let's just say I ended up being extremely sweaty.

This is it.

Tonight is opening night. That means no more rehearsals, and no more time to prepare! Yesterday we had a dress rehearsal. It went very well! I'm extremely excited about this play! I'm really evil looking, just come to the play and you'll see! Be in Cumston Hall at 6pm!!!

There we go...

So, I after SMASH today (I got Sharpie tattoos!) I tested my pushup max. After SMASH I'm kind of tired, so I didn't except to do that well, especially because I was doing dips on peoples shoulders today... but I did better than I did without any food in my stomach. I tested myself yesterday before breakfast and got 85. Today I tested myself after supper and I got 93. That's only 8 more, but if I can do that again, I can reach 100; my goal.

Only 85

So, I'm not sure if I tested at a bad time (or at a bad speed) or if I did the pushup push wrong, but I only got 85 pushed. I'll test myself next week and/or on Wednesday at a different pace and time and see what happens. 85 is a good improvement for 2 weeks though. It's actually 1 per day. I went from 71 to 85 in 14 days. If don't reach 100 by next week, I guess I'll have a greater desire to do pushups and then reach 100, which would be a good thing!

This weeks is crunch week. SMASH will become my life starting today, so I may not blog much this week!

Completion, Bikes, and Hair

Yesterday was the last day of the pushup push. I did 2 sets of 75 pushups, and 3 sets of 50 pushups. I've gotten pretty used to doing pushups everyday. It's going to be kind of weird stopping! It's also going to be a good weird. I could tell a few of my muscles were getting achy with all the pushups. So it's good I can rest! This Monday I plan to test myself. If I pass 100, I'll be a very happy man. If not? I'll be happy with any increase over 30%.

So, as some of you may have noticed, it was really, really nice out yesterday. It got up to around 47 degrees. That's balmy if you live in Maine guys! So, what did I do with this balmy weather? I went biking. I didn't have a ton of time, so I only went around Greene. Probably a total of about 5 miles in about 25 minutes. My legs were kind of numb afterward. I bikes a bunch of hills... But it felt great. The trip (even though it was short) was so much fun! I can't wait until spring and summer now!

So, Pastor Sam said my hair wasn't red enough. So we dyed it again last night. We put the dye in for twice as long this time... and man, my hair is red. It looks really weird. Oh well, I'll buzz it off after cast B is done performing...

SMASHing Time.

It's that time of the season! SMASH is picking up! Yesterday we had a planned rehearsal of 4 and 1/2 hours. It ended up being 5 and 1/2 hours. Luckily for me, I have today off. Today is only cast B, so I'm going to do a lot of extra school today so next week (crunch week) I won't end up WAY behind in school. I'll only be: way behind.

A few things that may be new updates to you, the reader: I now have a sword in the play... and I use it. Be afraid. Be very afraid, because I'm a villain!

Now, I haven't said much about the pushup push recently. That's because I've been busy and forgetful. So today I'll just let you know that today is the last day of the pushup push! It's a rest day, so I can do them throughout the day. Because of that I wanted to try a set of 75 on my third set. It was rough, but I did it. Before the pushup push I could only do 71 or 72. Now I just did a set of 75. I'm liking this. Though, I think I did the pushup push slightly wrong. I think I should have had higher reps and less sets on work days. It seemed too easy this week, and I'm not sure if I'll get maximum results from doing what I did. Oh well, there always is next time! Six months from now I'll probably do it again!

It is All Part of the Plan... and a bit About Weight Loss

So, I realized that some of my friends probably workout without a plan. I used to, but now I use a plan. It's a pretty loose plan, because some days I can go to the gym, other days I can't, so I have to just work with whatever I have.

Having a plan is always a good thing. In anything in life, actually. But just like in life, your workout(or life, or anything) plan is subject to change. For example, you could get sick ('head' colds don't always count!), you might have to workout less. You could become really busy and have minimal time, thus requiring short, but intense workouts. Sometimes you need to change your plan just because you aren't getting any results. There are tons of reasons your plan might have to change, but you should still have a plan.

How does a plan help? Well, it makes you more time efficient, and get better results. Try building a house without a plan. It will take a long time and it won't be very strong. Just like working out.

You may go to the gym and workout constantly while you are there...but if you don't have a plan, you might over train some muscles, under train others, and eventually get bored.

Your plan will have to go with your goals. Let's say you're trying to lose weight. Your main focus should be cardio. You still should weight train some, because muscle mass burns more calories at rest than no muscle at rest. So your plan should be something like: 4-6 days of cardio and 2-3 days of weight training per week.

Now, if you're trying to gain mass, you should do like 3-6 days of weight training and 2-4 days of cardio. Each day should be focused on different muscle groups (as in pulling muscles, pushing muscles, leg muscles, core muscles, etc). You should only work one muscles group 1-3 times per week. This is for mass gaining, when you're mass gaining you work one muscle group really hard, thus it needs a lot of recovery time. Some plans vary on this. If you look up body building plans, there are latterly hundreds or thousands of plans.

Now, if you just want to get fit and stay fit, you could probably do 3-5 days of cardio, and like 2-5 days of weight lifting. Depending on your goals you should do more cardio or more weight training. You should still leave your muscle groups at least a full days rest after weight training them. When I say rest, I don't mean to say don't do cardio the day after a leg weight workout. Maybe do less, but you still need to do cardio. Weight lifting mainly targets your fast twitch muscles fibers, while running (jogging actually), skiing, swimming, and biking concentrate on more on slow twitch muscle fibers.

Always remember to listen to your body. If you're body is tell you you work too hard too often, take it down a notch. If you never get sore, go harder. If you aren't burning fat, trying mixing up work cardio and lifting. Some peoples' bodies react differently to different kinds of exercises!

Another thing involving planning: eating. Yup, did you know, probably about 75% your fitness is from eating and resting? If you want to gain mass, eat tons of protein and carbs... and sleep at least 8 hours. After all, when you're resting that's actually when you're building.

Now, if you're trying lose weight, eat less, right? First off: quality beat quantity. You could cut down your eating, but if you're eating cake and McDonalds, you're probably not going to lose weight. So the first thing you should do is eat better. Things like salad, fruit, veggies, nuts and lean (as in not really fatty) protein are what you want to eat. Another thing is you want more water. Water can fill you up, and it keeps you hydrated.

One thing that bugs my guts out is the idea that eating 1-2 meals a day is good for fat loss. Maybe, but you're probably going to lose muscle mass too. That's bad. Remember that muscles burns calories while resting? You will also eventually get weak and tired (and eventually, sick). All that assumes you eat small amounts during those meals. But what if you ate two big meals a day? Well, that's like over loading your metabolism with food. Over loading food will most likely give you fat. Thus, defeating the purpose.

So, how many meals per-day? Well, AT LEAST 3. I recommend 4-6. You may think that's a lot of food. No, it's not. Eat less per meal. My meals are still huge, but my metabolism is very fast. Yours don't need to be huge. Like a bowl of oat meal and yogurt for breakfast, a banana or some fruit for a snack, for lunch have a salad with something with protein (ham and cheese sandwich, maybe?), have a high protein and potassium snack after your workout, like a(n) apple/banana/grapes with a protein shake or peanut butter with something, maybe even on your banana or apple. As for supper, have something good... like a salad and some steak or chicken. Remember to drink water throughout the day as well. That's 5 meals.

I usually have 5 meals a day, granted, mine are bigger. If you can't quite eat that much per day, start off with 3 meals a day. Remember to make them small so you aren't stuffing yourself and not wanting your next meal. If you eat 5 meals a day, your metabolism with become faster (it takes time, don't rush it). Why will it become faster? Well if it's constantly working on small amounts, it becomes better at what it does. If you over load it with two huge meals, it works at the same pace, but with a ton more food. Some of the extra food will become fat (fat is unwanted stored up energy, kinda) because your body can't use it yet. Two meals a day might even slow down your metabolism. Thus giving you more fat for everything you eat. Two meals a day is bad.

Now, if your metabolism is faster, you'll probably have more energy, but you'll need more food. Don't worry, that food will more likely be used for your muscles, not your fat! You'll also be able to workout harder, and burn more fat. Which is what you want to do!

Now remember, change your eating plan slowly. Don't suddenly go from eating junk food to healthy food. You'll hate it and give up. Don't go from eating 2 meals a day right to 5 a day either. Your metabolism won't be able to handle it, maybe add a meal every month. Remember, keep them small enough so you can the stomach to eat your next meal... oh and if you're never hungry in the morning? Eat anyway. Not a lot... but you're body hasn't eaten for about 12 hours. You're muscles are starving. Give them something to eat or you may lose muscle mass.

I never tried hard on losing weight, so I'm not that knowable on the subject... but from what I read and studied: eating more (small) meals, eating healthier, a little weight training, a lot of cardio and at least 8 hours of sleep every night is the way to go!

New Goals

So... I've been thinking about what I want to do for my fitness this summer. Usually I just do some random workouts, sports and run. This year I want to do less running and more biking. Running is probably the better workout, but joints can suffer from too much running. The constant pounding isn't that good for you. Also I have flat feet due to a soccer and running injury. Flat feet aren't very good for long distance running. It can cause problems if I do too much of it.

So what will I do? Bike. I really want to bike. Last year I barely biked at all. I did one big biking adventure though: I biked 10 miles, ran 5 miles, played some soccer, and then biked back (10 more miles). Granted, I slept 13 hours that night...but that was with nearly no biking training and a back back. If I can get a water bottle clamp on the bike, I won't need a back pack. If I train for longer distances, I could probably bike to a lot of my friends' houses. Maybe if I'm lucky (no injuries), and train enough I could go 40 miles by the end of the summer!

So, now I have some cardio goals, besides being able to run forever (also know as 10 miles) and being able to run a 5 minute mile. I now can't wait for spring and summer! I want to run and bike!

Week Two

I had a pretty full weekend, mainly with SMASH and church activities. Those aren't the most exciting things to read about, and I can't go into too much detail about the play. It's supposed to be s surprise. I'll just say one thing: Pastor Sam wants my hair even more red. We'll probably dye it again this week sometime. Should be interesting...

Now, why is this post called "Week Two"? Because it's week two of the pushup push. If I was to follow the pushup push to letter, I'd have to workout on Sunday. I don't workout on Sundays. So instead I decided to take it off and start week two of the pushup push today. The pushup push plan said to do 10 days in a row of doing 250-300 pushups everyday. Instead I'm doing 6 days, a rest day, and then 4 more days. After this week's days are over (Monday-Thursday), I'm going to rest my pushing muscles until Monday. On Monday I'm going to test my pushup max. Hopefully it'll be more than 100!

So far the pushup push has been going well. The first 3 days left me extremely sore. Then the past 3 days my muscles got used to the pushup number and are barely even sore. Today is another 'workday'. That means I have to do all my pushups in one workout. Because today is relatively 'not busy', I'm going to make it hard. Not sure what I'm going go do yet, but I'm thinking a circuit!

Ginger!

Yesterday morning Colleen dyed my hair. It didn't work the first time. Either my shower was too hot or I just have 'strong' blonde hair. So the second time around we left the dye in for twice as long and rinsed it with cold water. Really cold water. Like, I didn't know our sink could get that cold.

Anyway, the second time worked. It was more of a strawberry blonde. Which is ok with me because my hair will look more natural when it grows in after I buzz it.

I got quite a few few funny reactions at SMASH today, also my family members said I looked like my Uncle David!

Yesterday I changed my rest day. I made it so that I did 6 sets of 45 pushups, and then a set of 30 pushups to finish. Wasn't too tough. Then again, that was my rest day. Should be harder today!

Muscular Endurance

Some of you may not know what muscular endurance is. You might think it's strength... but it's not exactly that.

When I think of strength, I think of heavy objects and arm wrestling. Strength doesn't mean fitness, although it sure does help. After all, muscle burns more calories at a resting state, rather than no muscle mass. To me fitness is being able to do things with your body, like run, bike, swim, pullups, pushups, free running, etc... Not lifting huge weights. It's pretty awesome to lift huge weights, don't get me wrong, but I usually prefer fitness over strength.

Anyway, the best way to get fit (not buff) is to eat healthy (extra protein can't hurt!), have good sleeping habits, and do body weight workouts. To get buff you need to eat a ton more, lift heavy weights, and do less cardio work.

I'm a tad off subject, so I'm going to get back to muscular endurance. As you might have guessed, muscular endurance is more like fitness than strength. Running, biking, swimming, pullups, pushups, and many more exercises use muscular endurance. Some of them work your cardio, but they still use endurance. At first pushups and pullups may not seem like muscular endurance (especially pullups), because you can only do a few. When you're at that stage it's more strength building. It will eventually become muscular endurance to you... but maybe not pullups. I worked really hard for a few years to get where I am now. Not many people get past 10-15 pullups, and that's where the endurance kicks in.

I highly recommend doing bodyweight workouts! Not just weight lifting, or just running. Those are the two extremes. Weight lifting doesn't get you very fit, but gets you strong, running doesn't make you very strong, but makes you fit. Mix them up and add bodyweight lifting!

Now, why am I writing about this? It's because I can feel my muscular endurance building up. Doing this pushup push, it's actually becoming easier as I go. My first day extremely challenging. I worked a little harder than yesterday, but I could barely finish Monday's. Yesterday I finished pretty easily. I think I'm going to decrease my sets and increase my reps on my rest days. I could do a set of 30 every 4 minutes pretty easily yesterday, so I think doing 45 every 30 minutes should be pretty easy on my rest days! Also it'll take less time if I do higher reps.

Oh yes, yesterday I said I would let guy know how I did on my workout because I was really busy. I finished my school a little early by cramming, then did 30 pushups every 4 minutes. During my 4 minute rest breaks I did the chores I had to do before SMASH. I completed it just in time for a small lunch and a 3 minute shower before SMASH. But only the last two sets were challenging, so I'm going to increase my reps or shorten my breaks between sets on my workdays as well. 900 done, 2100 to go!

The Play

In case you are one of the few readers that is not in SMASH, I'm in a play at the end of the month. The play is Much Ado About Nothing. I'd say it's one of Shakespeare's funnier plays. The dates this month are the 23rd, 24th and the 25th. It's at Cumston Hall in Monmonth. On the 23rd and 24th the play is at is at 6pm, while on the 25th (Saturday) it's at 2pm.

The second week of the play is the week after (March 1st-3rd). I'm not in that play. We have a double cast and cast B will be performing then. I'm in cast A. So if you're reading this (and you want to see me act), you'd probably want to go to the first week of performance (Feb. 23rd-25th).

I'm playing the lead villain. I'm not the villain with the most lines, I'm just the evilest. I'm also probably going to dye my hair red for the play (even my beard). So that's another reason to go!

Now for my little blurb about pushups.
Yesterday was my rest day. I could do my 300 pushups throughout the day. It wasn't that hard. I tried to do 30 every 30 minutes. I missed a few sets because of meals, but it worked out pretty well because I could just catch up on the sets later that day. Because it was pretty easy (even though I was very sore) I did some variations. The variations made them slightly harder, but at least it mixed things up.

Today I'm doing another work day. All 300 in one workout. I'm pretty busy today, so I might have to split it up into 2 or 3 workouts. I'll let you know how I did tomorrow!

The Superbowl

In my opinion, the Superbowl is pretty lame. It's quite boring. I almost fell asleep watching it, even when I was at someone else's house. Probably one of the biggest reasons is because I don't like football. It's just boring to me. I'd rather watch soccer, track or frisbee... and I'd rather play those sports than watch them. Another reason I don't really like the Superbowl is because in actuality, they are only playing the sport for about 20 minutes. The rest is the refs talking, team huddles, and ton of commercials.

Some people say they watch the Superbowl for the commercials... I agree that it's more entertaining, but a bunch of them bug me. A lot of them are quite inappropriate. Also, many car commercials are just boring, and there are tons of them.

Oh... and why must half time shows be so boring? Or weird? And sometimes creepy? They also need to get some good singers, like Red, Linkin Park, and other bands that don't only use that high pitched (annoying) techno voice. I mean, you sound like a emotional robot... isn't that what Siri is for?

Probably the best thing about the Superbowl is the food. I ate a ton of food. Most of it was really good! Most of it was also really bad for you, but I tried to avoid all the desserts... so I balanced it out by having nearly no sugar.

Along with the food, the other good thing about the Superbowl (this only sometimes happens) is when someone your age doesn't care who wins (just like me), and you can play card games and talk about slightly more logical things than about how terrible one team is, yet they're just getting lucky and are winning.

At the end of every post I'm going to try and say something about how the pushup push is going... so here it is!

Day one made realize this is going to be real hard. My first few sets of 30 made me think: "Pah! I should increase my reps per set! This is easy!"
Yeah. So come set number 6, I fell down on my last pushup. That's only 180 pushups, I still have 120 left! I realized if I wanted to actually complete my 300, I'd have to cut my reps down to 15. I did that. It still was extremely challenging, but I finally reached 300 within 45 minutes. I think another reason it was so challenging was the fact that I put my pushups into a circuit so that I was getting cardio out of it as well.

Today is my rest day... If you can call it that. 300 pushups, but throughout the day. But this time, I'm already quite sore.

SMASH and Treadmill

Last week, from Wednesday to Saturday I had SMASH rehearsals. On those days I did all my scenes. It was so much fun! I love hanging out with my SMASH friends, and it was great to rehearse! I would write more about my acting, but I want to leave it as a surprise for my non-SMASH friends, and all my SMASH friends have already seen me act. So why write about it right now?

Another thing that happened last week was that Anna spent the night Friday night so she could go to SMASH with us on Saturday. Saturday morning Mr. Donahue stopped by to pick up our treadmill. We're letting the Donahues have it until we (if we do) get rid of our Planet Fitness memberships. They don't really have much cardio equipment, while I have my membership and some creativity I can use to get cardio out of my other workouts in the winter.

It took a bit of work to get the treadmill out of my room, but it actually wasn't that bad, because I knew what I was getting into this time. I even took off my door, making things 10 times easier, and it gave my am excuse to fix my door. My door couldn't close for the past few years. All it needed was a little sawing and filing, and it was good!

Overall, I think it was a fun and productive week(end)!

Circuits and Cardio

So, do you know why running, biking, skiing, and swimming are considered cardio? Well, it's mainly because they use the bigger muscles groups, thus need more blood when used. More blood pumping=harder cardio.

Now, it's winter. Running, biking and swimming are hard to do. If you do outside to run, bike or swim (swimming would be a horrible idea) you could sick, injured or just really cold. Winter is a good time to do cross country skiing. Don't have skiing equipment or the knowledge of how to ski? Me neither. But I do have a treadmill, and the cardio machines are Planet Fitness. Honestly, running on a treadmill is very boring. Now matter how loud your music is, you'll get bored pretty quickly. Also, what if you don't have a treadmill, and still want to do some cardio? Well, you could do circuit training. Circuit training is pretty awesome. I highly recommend it. Here's a few reasons why: it strengthens your muscles, tones, burns fat, builds some muscluar endurance and is just pretty fun!

So how do you do a circuit that involves cardio? Well, mix it up with lower body workouts and lower body workouts. If you can use weights, use light ones. You want to perform each exercise for one minute, then switch to another exercise. You should alternate between upper and lower body to get the best results. Why do you switch between upper and lower body exercises? Well, you need to rest the muscles a little to use them again and again... but the cool thing is, your heart isn't resting, thus giving you a great cardio workout!

If you don't have any idea what to do for lower body exercises in your circuit, look at my last post. I re-posted my plyometrics post. Do some of the exercises in there for leg work. For upper body, just do dips, pushups, pullups, light weight lifts (if you have any weights), and maybe some ab or core.

Do about five sets on upper body and five sets on your lower body. So that you do five minutes on each. If that seems a bit too easy, go faster, or do more sets. Remember not to rest between sets!

Progress

It's the first of February! Beginning of a new month! So time to do quick a fitness test. I usually do a pull-up and pushup test, but because I'm still not feeling 100%, I'm splitting those up into two days: today (pushups) and tomorrow (pull-ups). This morning I rolled out of bed and cranked out my pushups. I don't really like working out early in the morning (I like to have food in me to use), but only doing one set of pushups isn't that much. I did 71. I probably could have done 72 or 73, but I didn't count two of them because they didn't seem deep enough to me. That's still an improvement from last month. Although, last month I did the test after my pull-up test, and I still got 68.

I'm pumped for next week: The pushup push! Going to burn! I looked up a ton of pushup variations so I won't get bored of pushups, and I'll get a better workout!