The Push-Up Challenge

Last night, a friend of mine (a personal trainer and fellow Zumba instructor) posted a push-up challenge on Facebook. Before really thinking about what I was committing to, I commented “I’m in!” Exclamation point and everything.

The goal: 100 push-ups a day
Approximate number of push-ups I can do at one time without collapsing: 3

Herein lies the problem.

Nevertheless, I’m going to stick with it. I’m not actually sure how long we’re doing this challenge—my guess is through October—but I’m going to do 100 push-ups a day for at least the next 22 days.

I actually started last night around 9:00. As soon as I pressed “send” on my comment, I was all, “You got this, A-Dawg (college nickname; don’t judge)! Your arms are gonna be so toned your legs are gonna be jealous! Let’s do this right now. Fifty push-ups…and go!”

After two push-ups, I was all, “Curse your over-ambitiousness, Ash! Dawn (challenge issuer) is a trainer. She probably tells Walmart cashiers to drop and give her twenty when they're moving too slow. What were you thinking?!” Multiple punctuation (otherwise known as an interrobang) necessary.

What I was thinking was that every time I shimmy in Zumba, I’m disgusted by how my “hello, good-bye” arms continue to wave even after I’ve moved on to the Wop.

And with that in mind, I cranked out my 50 push-ups last night (10 at a time) and 30 before work this morning.

And every routine task was made more difficult. I could barely hold my arms up to fix my hair today. Several times I even had to rest my arm on top of my head to give it a rest. Reaching my purse down from the shelf above my cubicle? Embarrassingly difficult.

And forget about stretching. While normally relaxing and calming, stretching today was a form of torture.

I just have to keep telling myself that super-sexy arms are worth a few days of pain.

So when I got home from work, I put my stuff away, greeted Deuce, and dropped to the floor to bang out another 10 push-ups. And I'm pretty sure I pulled a pectoral muscle on push-up numero uno.

This doesn't bode well for the rest of the challenge, but I won't let something like a possibly imagined muscle tear stop me from getting the arms of Michelle Obama.

Photo courtesy of gawker.com

Ooh...maybe then I'll be invited to do push-ups on stage with Ellen...