How I did 3000 pushups in a day

Last time I wrote a blog a few days ago, I said that I planned on doing 3000 pushups that day. And, if I succeeded in doing so, that I will evaluate my experience in my next blog entry.

I completed my task, and a promise is a promise. Therefore, I will do my duty and chronicle my experience of how I completed such a monumental task. I do regret, that I didn't do this right after the experience. I was tired, not only because of the large amount of pushups, but I also had my hands full with kids the next couple of days...

First of all, when I woke up in the morning, I told myself that I will do 3000 pushups for the day. It's been a while since I've done so, and I have really slacked off since doing 511,000 pushups in 2009. It was a good way to get some of that mojo back, considering, that this was a bit of a slow year for me.

Last year when I did more than half-a-million pushups, I would usually have 500 pushups done before noon, and I would average about 1400 pushups a day. It didn't start off that way, when I woke up, I've done 100 pushups when I made the decision to accomplish this task, and 100 more after breakfast. Then I didn't do anymore pushups until lunch time. I got caught up in a bunch of other tasks, that I didn't start picking it back up until around the afternoon.

So, come around 4:00pm, I got a bunch of the stuff that I needed to do finished, and I could focus more on doing pushups. So from there, since I was focused, I've done 100 pushups every few minutes or so. I've done a lot in a span of an hour or so, but I had to try to keep my form and breathe right, so I had to focus and slow down a bit. By 5:30 pm, I reached the 1000 mark.

After reaching the 1000 mark, I didn't want to burn myself out too quickly, so I knocked off 300 more in the next hour and a half. So, at around 7:00pm, my pushup count was at 1300.

At 7:00pm, a Washington Capitals game came on in TV. Last year, I made it a habit, that when a Caps hockey game came on in TV, I will do 900 pushups during the course of every game. I would do 300 each period... 100 before the period starts, 100 during the under 10-minute television timeout, and 100 after the intermission horn sounded. That would lead to 900. If there was overtime, I would do 100 more pushups some time after the game is over (not immediately, if game ends in sudden death rather than shootout). So, in a course of one hockey game, I would up to 1000 pushups. This explained why I was able to do so many pushups last year.

But, after the hockey game (which in case you were wondering, the Capitals won), I had 800 more to do. It was around 9:30pm, I was tired, a bit sore, but I wasn't sure if I was going to do it. Then, I told myself, if I can get at least a couple hundred every hour before I go to bed, I should be able to get it done. I was watching reruns of Avatar: The Last Airbender on Nicktoons, Southpark, and sports highlights and if I did 100 during a course of a 30 minute episode, I should be okay.

I promised myself that I wouldn't go to bed until I reached my goal. Because that was the case, I ended up going to bed late. I actually dozed off on the couch before midnight, and was still 200 short of my goal. After midnight, I woke up knowing I didn't finish my goal yet. Therefore, I did 100 as soon as I woke back up, and roughly about 30 or so minutes later, around 12:45 am, I done my last 100.

(In case you don't believe me, I logged a lot of my progress on this pushup quest on Twitter. Check the October 13th tweets).

So, there you go... that's my journey for doing 3000 pushups. It wasn't hard, and the reason why it wasn't was because I had a decent system of when to do the pushups, and tie doing some of my reps to doing something I enjoy (such as watching hockey and cartoons). For the other reps, I just had to keep telling myself that I had a goal to accomplish, and I would set my mind on that goal until I accomplished it.

However, if you're reading this, I do recommend that you train yourself to do pushups first, and not take on such a monumental amount of 3000 pushups in a day to start off. It took me about a couple of years for me to attempt this feat. (I first and only other time I attempted it, was last year, when I accomplished my personal best of 3700 pushups). You have to habitually program yourself to do a lot of pushups and get it in your "muscle memory" before you can attempt an amount like this.

So, that's how I did 3000 pushups. I know that with a lot of hard work you can do it too...

However, believe it or not, if doing pushups isn't your forte, you can apply this to any goal you want to accomplish. If you have a monumental goal to accomplish, try to tie it to something that you like to do (or have to do), and set your mind to that goal until you accomplish it.

How's that for Out-of-the-Box Empowerment?

D4P...PD!!!

-OBE