Achievements over three and a half years

I once did a 30 day exercise challenge where I completed a minimum of 100 push ups per day, every day, for 30 days.  After completing that challenge I was in less pain.  Once it ended, without having a rest day I started another 30 day challenge, then another when that ended, and another.  

During those challenges there are no rest days.  There were no days off between challenges.  This continued for over three and a half years!  

I think back to my first challenge.  Back then, simply getting to/from the ground to do push ups was difficult.  Back then, walking from my house up the driveway and getting into my car was difficult and painful.  Back then sitting at my desk at work was painful and difficult.  

Since then I have achieved a lot of milestones, some achievements are more impressive than others: 

• 100 push ups every day for 30 consecutive days
• 1,000 push ups in one day
• 250 push ups in one set
• 1,000 push ups in one hour
• 1,000 push ups every day for 62 consecutive days 
• Dead hang for 100 seconds
• Dead hang for 2 minutes
• Elbow lever
• Human flag
• Turkish Get up using 15kg (this is probably the least impressive thing on this list, but it almost killed me)
• 100 strict pull ups in one day
• 27 strict pull ups in one set
• 100+ pull ups every day for ten consecutive days
• 10 weighted pull ups (7.5kg additional weight) in a set
• 20 weighted pull ups (7.5kg additional weight) in a set
• 100+ weighted pull ups (7.5kg additional weight) in one day
• 100 pull ups in under twenty minutes

Some of those things took me months to train towards.  Others were achieved a lot faster.  Some I can no longer do as I have not been training for them, while others I do regularly.  

Training for back lever - I still can't do that yet

I am going to mention some statistics.  While the following statistics are concerning, they provide perspective to my achievements:

• Being able to do a single push up puts me in the top 50% of strength in the country 
• Being able to do one strict pull up puts me in the top 25% 
• Being able to do 10 strict pull ups puts me in the top 5% 
• Being able to do over 20 pull ups in one set puts me in the top fraction of one percent 

I can't find any reliable stats for the following, but I know that very few people in this country have done any of the following: 

• Elbow lever
• Human flag  
• 1,000 push ups in a day
• 100 strict pull ups in under an hour 
• Weighted pull ups - any number 

Considering my age, the limited time I have to dedicate to training, my body composition, the long term chronic injuries I have, combined with the alarming statistics above, my achievements aren't bad.

Pull ups per day - modulated and increasing

I put my achievements down to how I train.  I do prochnost' training every day, and it works for me.  I train every single day, no rest days, no days off.  The human body is made to be able to do full body exercise every single day.  When you train that way, it responds well.  

The human body is not made to push to failure regularly, it is not made to push to failure and then do one more rep, this is a dreadfully inefficient way to train.  It is not made to train one set of muscles one day, another set another day, cardio on other days, all with rest days interspersed.  While the smug arrogance of motivational quotes may help you, it doesn't work for everyone.  Training every day, multiple times a day, keeping well below failure, does work for everyone.  

Western style training is probably good for hypertrophy, but inefficient at building strength.  

If western style training was effective at building strength, the alarming stats above would not be a reality.  If it was effective, then being able to do a single push up would not make you above average.  If it was effective, there would be almost no one who is into strength and fitness that is unable to do a strict pull up.  Western training failed me when I was younger, and I would never have achieved the above if I was still training that way.

If you have read this far, my advice to you is to stop training like a westerner.  Western training will make you fail and you will not reach your potential.  Do prochnost' training, and be more.  

Body Fat Calculator not worth doing

If you could wave a magic wand so you would weigh the same, but have less fat, would you do it?  Of course you would, very few people wouldn't.  

What about if you could wave a magic wand that would make you lose weight, but have more fat, would you do that?  Of course not!  No healthy person would.  

Regardless of what we are told, no one, or at least no normal person, wants to lose 'weight'.  What people actually want is to lose 'fat'.  

Being overfat causes a huge number of illnesses for individuals, and is a massive burden on society.  Being overfat, regardless of your weight, is unhealthy.  Similarly being under fat, regardless of your weight, is also extremely unhealthy.  

For some time I have kept an eye on my weight.  Mostly because my weight kept getting too low, which was worrying.  

As well as keeping track of my weight in kilograms, I have kept an eye on my Body Mass Index (BMI).  BMI is a better metric than just weight, but it's not perfect.  

I wondered if knowing my percentage of body fat would be useful.  Recently I measured my neck, hips, waist etc.  I entered these numbers along with my height and weight into a few online calculators that are meant to estimate my percentage of body fat.  Even though I entered exactly the same numbers, the results from different calculators were vastly different.  

Depending on the calculator I used, my body fat estimate came back as low as 5.5% (which is drastically low and close to death) up to a far healthier 10.8%.  To give these numbers some perspective, the 'Healthy' range of body fat for a male of my age is 11% to 20% body fat.  

image from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cells_of_the_human_body_by_mass.svg

My results from various online body fat calculators:

https://www.precisionnutrition.com/body-fat-calculator 
My result: 10.8%

This US Navy body fat calculator https://www.omnicalculator.com/health/navy-body-fat
My result: 6%

A different navy calculator https://www.bizcalcs.com/body-fat-navy/
My result: 9%

The US Army body fat calculator https://www.omnicalculator.com/health/army-body-fat
My result: 5.5%

You may be asking yourself, if I entered exactly the same data into different calculators how can the results vary this much.  The answer is simple: online body fat calculators are not accurate!  

If you want a number that will either make you feel good or make you feel bad, then use online body fat calculators.  When you get a result that you don't like, look around, sooner or later you will find a body fat calculator that gives the result you are after.  This sounds pointless, probably because it is pointless.  

Instead of measurements and online calculators, you could try to use skin fold calipers.  These are meant to be reasonably accurate at estimating subcutaneous fat (ie fat under the skin) if used correctly.  They do not measure or estimate visceral fat (ie much more dangerous fat around the organs).  If you are skinny fat, you will have little subcutaneous fat, and a higher amount of visceral fat.  For most people, fat calipers are probably somewhat useful and relatively accurate.  For skinny fat people, these calipers are not very useful.

Another way to estimate your body fat is to use body fat scales.  I have never used them, but everything I read says that they are ragingly inaccurate.  

If you want a true measure of your body fat, you would need to do a water displacement test, or a Dual-Energy X-Ray Absorptiometry scan, or even use an Air-Displacement Plethysmography pod (and even then I am not sure how accurate this last one is).  

If (like me) you lack the money or ability to access to these tests, then stick with BMI.  While BMI is far from perfect, it is better than just using raw weight, and you can measure this at home for free.  All you need are bathroom scales.    

How many push ups can the average Australian do?

I hate push ups, they are far too difficult.  I do them anyway, and (if you are not doing them every day) so should you.  

I wish they were easier because they are such a great strength building exercise.  They are free to do, they take next to no time, and they work almost your entire body.  I do push ups even though I dislike doing them.  I felt I wasn't doing enough of them, and I began to wonder how many would be considered average.

I have been looking on the internet to try and find the average number of push ups that the average person can do.  This is a strangely difficult question to answer because there are many definitions of what constitutes an 'average' person.  

I have found multiple graphs and tables, and none of them seem to agree with each other.  Most of these results are based on very fit people who obsessively go to the gym, whereas I am curious about what the average able bodied person aged 19-39 can do.  

The other week I was talking to a personal trainer.  Over the course of his career he has seen fit people as well as hundreds of people who are trying to get fit.  He hasn't worked with morbidly obese people, or people with various disabilities that make doing exercise rather difficult without modifications.  I figured his customer base is probably the type of people I was curious about, people with a general level of health and strength but are not elite athletes.

I asked how many push ups and other body weigh exercises that an average person can do.  I specifically asked what the average adult male can do, because that means more to me because I am an adult male.  

I didn't ask about the averages for females, I just didn't think of it at the time because I was curious about myself.  Sorry.  

The fitness trainer clarified the type of push ups I was asking about, he spoke a bit about how obese people tend not to be able to do any push ups or any other body weight exercises, how overfat people tend not to be able to do more than one or two of any exercise, how people can train up to being able to do quite a lot of push ups, and we discussed that I was merely after the average number that the average guy could do.  

As this is the observation of a personal trainer, he is basing these numbers on people who go to the gym as well as people who are paying for a personal trainer, so the numbers are probably a little higher than average.  These numbers are for people are either fit or are on there way to being fit.  

So how many chin ups and pull ups can the Average Australian do?

According to the personal trainer, based on his experience with clients over the years, the average man who is neither ultra-fit nor obese and has no major injury or disability can do about ten push ups.  He also said if you include overweight people in these stats, then the average would likely be about one push up.  

I was surprised by that, I would have thought the average Australian man could do a lot more push ups than ten.  

I started doing 2 minutes of training per day a few years ago, I was able to do about 25 push ups at the time which sounded like nothing but is apparently more than the average guy.  It didn't take me long before I worked up to being able to do about 75 push ups.  It was difficult building up to this number, it took a lot of effort but it didn't take too long because I was doing push ups every day.  

How many chin ups and pull ups can the Average Australian do?

While I was there I also asked about how many chin ups and pull ups the average man can do.  I was told that most people can do less of these than push ups, and obese people and overweight people often struggle to do a single one unassisted.  

That makes sense, I can do a lot more push ups than chin ups.  Most people can do more chin ups than pull ups as they are utilising their biceps more with pull ups.  I agree with that too, I certainly find pull ups to be more difficult than chin ups.

According to the personal trainer, the average man who regularly goes to the gym and/or is paying for a personal trainer, can usually do about 5 chin ups, or about 3 pull ups.  He also said if you include overweight people, then the average would be zero unassisted chin ups or pull ups.

I find chin ups and pull ups really difficult, so these low numbers seem reasonable to me.  That being said, even on a bad day I can do considerably more than both of those numbers, and so can my kids.  I can also do significantly more than those numbers wearing a weighted dip belt, so claiming hat I am lifting less weight is no longer an excuse they can make.

How many average Australians can do other body weight exercises?

I then asked about some of the more impressive body weight exercises such as human flag, planche, etc.  

According to the fitness trainer these are usually considered too difficult for the average person to bother training towards doing them.  They can't do these exercises, nor are they usually willing to work towards them.  Hmmm, that seems odd, but makes sense when I look around at all the overfat people in Australia.

It appears even though I am scrawny I am apparently a lot stronger than the average male.  I can do considerably more push ups, more chin ups, and more pull ups than people bigger than me.  On top of this I can do human flag, elbow lever, bent arm planche, and am working towards some more impressive body weight exercises such as back lever and front lever.  This all started with 2 minutes per day of exercise as part of my prochnost' training.  

You should do some push ups and other body weight exercise.  You should do this every day.  It is free and it will make you stronger.  If you are skinny you should train for strength, not size.  Start with a personal challenge where you complete 100 push ups a day for 30 consecutive days and go from there.  If one hundred is too many, set a smaller challenge.  If you can only do ten push ups, try to do five sets of them throughout the day to reach fifty each day, and build from there.  It is surprising how quickly you make progress when you can be bothered to do this every day.

It is impressive when a skinny person can do substantially more body weight exercises than a larger person.  Admittedly they are lifting less weight, but they are also using considerably less muscle.  When you use a weighted dip belt, then you are using less muscle to lift the same weight, which is even more impressive.  

Do prochnost' training.  Be more!