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.  

1200 days of exercise ten things I learned

A few years ago I completed my first 30-day exercise challenge.  At that stage, just getting to and from the floor was hard, and doing any push ups was surprisingly difficult.  Back then I found sitting at my desk at work to be difficult, and just getting around the house was harder than it ought to be. 

During that challenge I had to complete a minimum of 100 push ups each day, and no less than 25 push ups per set.  No rest days, and no excuses.  I could exceed the minimums if I wanted, but this didn’t reduce the number I had to do the following day.  This was incredibly difficult, and was a great exercise challenge.

While I was unaware of it at the time, this was the start of something big for me.  

At the end of the challenge, I immediately began another 30-day challenge.  When that one finished I started another.  When that finished, another was started, I kept doing this, and I haven't stopped.

Push up handles

I kept notes of all my challenges, a while ago I realised that I reached day 1,200.  Considering that before I completed my first challenge I rarely did 2 consecutive days of exercise, this is momentous for me.  

I wrote the following list of ten things I learned from doing 1,200 consecutive days of exercise.  I considered writing a list of 1,200 things that I learned, but that seemed excessive, so I whittled it down.

Ten things I learned from 1,200 days of exercise:

1. Push ups are hard and boring, they never get easier 
2. Pull ups are hard, they never get easier 
3. Planking is hard and stupid and boring, and so are squats 
4. If I don’t have daily minimums, I will find an excuse not to do any exercise – ever 
5. Most days are too cold, or too hot, or I have a headache, or I am in pain, or I am too busy, or I am too ill, or I am too tired from doing something else, or I don’t have time, or I am simply not in the mood for doing any exercise 
6. Completing any short-term challenge (eg 1,000 push ups a day for two months) is both pointless and highly motivational 
7. I have nothing for number seven 
8. Most people in this country can’t do the minimums that I can do (because they don't train)  
9. Most people could do vastly more than my minimums, and more than my maximum, if they could be bothered to train properly  
10. Since starting these challenges, most days I am in far less pain than I used to be in, so even though the challenges are hard and boring and the exercises are stupid and I don’t want to do them, it is still worth doing them

I have a few injuries from years go that make me not want to do any exercise.  Given the amount of pain I was in every day prior to doing 30 day exercise challenges, and how much less pain I am in now, once I started these 30 day challenges I haven’t stopped.  

Once one challenge ends I immediately begin another.  Not all challenges work the same muscle groups.  Sometimes challenges are exactly the same as the precious challenge, other times they are entirely different.  There are no days when I do no exercise.

Two of my giri

These challenges are very different from Western training.  Western training is ineffective, and you would need rest days.  I am not going to failure, I am not pushing out one more rep, I am not feeling the burn, I am not having rest days, I am not aiming for heterotrophy or any other form of aesthetics.  

This is prochnost' training.  I am training for strength and am getting a lot stronger.  Stronger muscles hold my body in a better position and reduce my pain.  Being in less pain means I push through doing these on the days when I don’t want to.  

I hope the ten things I learned from 1,200 days of exercise is helpful in motivating someone else to give it a try.  

If this is you, start small.  Pick an exercise, decide on daily minimums, then meet and exceed those minimums every day for 30 days.  Don't go to failure, and don't have rest days.  See how you feel at the end, perhaps you will want to do another 30 day challenge, and another, and one day you will look back at all you have achieved.  

May pull up challenge

I am a big fan of 30-day exercise challenges.  They are not so long that you get bored, but they are long enough to notice a result from your hard work.  

My son wanted me to do a minimum of 30 pull ups a day, for 30 days.  I didn’t want to, but I love 30-day challenges and couldn’t say no.  I increased that to 31 days so it could line up smoothly with the calendar month of May.   

These are strict unweighted pull ups.  No swinging, none of that kipping nonsense, from dead hang until my collar bone is level or above the bar.  I have a weighted belt that I sometimes use for pull ups.  I decided not to add any extra weight for this challenge.  

As with any challenge, you have minimums that must be met each day.  No cheating, no rest days.  You can and should exceed your minimums, but that does not count towards the following day, you still have to meet your minimums the following day.  

I recorded the number of pull ups I did each day over the month of May.  As you can see, most days I exceeded my minimums.  Some days I exceeded my minimums by quite a lot.  

Pull ups per day over the month of May

It felt like the longest 30-day challenge ever (and not just because it was 31 days).  Some days the weather was bitterly cold, or windy, or rainy, or frosty, or I left home in the dark and returned home in the dark. 

Doing pull ups in the dark in the rain after a long day of work, or doing pull ups in the dark when the bars are frosty in the morning before going to work, was not heaps of fun.  I didn't enjoy it.  

Completing this challenge felt like drudgery.  I committed to doing them, so I did them, and I did extra.  It really is that simple.  

This is partly why I like 30 day challenges, they are only 30 days so I know I can push through to the end not matter how much I am disliking it at the time.  At the end of the challenge, I am stronger.

Monkey bars under shade cloth are great for pull ups

During this challenge I completed a total of 1,410 pull ups, with an average of just over 45 per day.  Not too shabby for someone of my age.  I did strict pull ups: chest to bar, doesn't count unless my clavicle was above the bar, all the way down to dead hang, no swinging and no nonsense.  

My daily minimum was 30 pull ups.  I did this the first day, and exceeded this minimum every other day.  This was intentional, I wanted to exceed my minimums every day.  The first day I wanted to check and see that I had not chosen minimums that were too high or too low, that's why I didn't exceed my minimums on the first day.  

You will probably notice that I progressively did more daily pull ups as the challenge progressed, but the increase was not linear.  This was deliberate, as well as being convenient.  As I had to go to work, most days I didn't have much spare time to complete many extra, so I only did a few extras.  I also tried to modulate my increase.  As I was not having any rest days, modulating gives my body a chance to rest and repair without having a day off.  It is only 30 days, so there is no time for a rest day.  

Pull ups on a sunny day without a jumper 

Something you can't see from the graph is the number I completed per set, and you can't see how many I can do in a set, but this is important.  I can do over 20 pull ups with good form, but it wears me down.  Doing 20+ feels like "working out", and I don't want to do that.  Never do a 'work out', if you want to get strong you should train.  At most I do 50% to 75% of my maximum in each set, never more than that.  

I want to train efficiently and effectively.  I want to get stronger.  During this challenge I mostly only completed 10 to 15 per set as they are easy for me to complete.  Doing multiple sets of small numbers means that your body doesn't need a rest day.  This meant my technique stayed good, it meant I never felt the burn, it meant I was never in danger of injury, and it meant that I gained strength efficiently.  This is almost the exact opposite of Western training, and it works.  

According to inspire usa foundation the average man will be unable to perform more than a single pull-up once they reach the age of over twenty-five years old.  If you can do more than one pull up, you are above average!?!  Apparently, less than 5% of men can do ten strict pull ups.  This gives some perspective to the results of my little pull up challenge.  

The fact that a skinny person of my age can do ten pull ups without feeling it, demonstrates that prochnost' training is working for me.  I put in a few non-consecutive minutes of training every day and can do more pull ups than over 95% of men.  Western style training is failing these 95% of people, it failed me when I used to do it, and it is failing you.  

If you have read this far through my post, set yourself a 30 day exercise challenge.  Make it something you can do at home, for free.  Something like push ups, or pull ups, or sit ups, or some other body weight exercise is perfect.  Make it something you can do in a few minutes at a time.  Make it something that you can do no matter what the weather and no matter what happens at work.  Do several sets throughout the day, never feel the burn, and never push to your maximum during your challenge.  Aim to only do about 50% to 75% of your maximum each set.  As you get stronger, do more sets across the day, and try to modulate this increase.  

Do you maximum once before your challenge, then do it again the day after your challenge ends.  You will probably be surprised at how much you have improved.  

Give it a go, you have nothing to lose.  Be stronger.  

1,000 Pull Up Challenge - Before and After

My son and I have been doing some pull ups using our monkey bars.  I do sets of ten, he does sets of... actually I don't know how many he does per set.  

We don't go to failure, we aim to do about 50% to 70% of our maximum in each set.  We do a few sets each day and do them most days, and are not really dedicated to it as they are not part of my exercise minimums.  

On the days I work from home my son comes into my room from time to time during the day and asks me to go do pull ups with him.  A set of ten takes me about 15 to 20 seconds to complete, plus walking to/from the back yard, so probably less than a two minute break.  Time well spent.

One day my son came in 8 times, meaning I did 80 pull ups that day.  It was easy enough and I felt fine the following day as I was only doing small numbers.  I didn't 'feel the burn', the next day I felt normal, there was no muscle soreness.  

To build strength, the aim is to train as often as possible while being as fresh as possible.

This got me thinking.  If I had a day at home I could do ten sets of ten and complete 100 pull ups in that day.  If I had a few consecutive days, these numbers would add up fast.  

I had ten days off work over Xmas/New Year, and we were not planning on going anywhere, so I would have access to our monkey bars.  This was an excellent opportunity to do ten days of 100 pull ups every day, which would add up to an enormous one thousand pull ups over the ten day challenge.

Given that most people in this country would not do one thousand pull ups in their life (or even one hundred pull ups in their life) this sounded like an opportunity that was too good to miss!

To keep track of my pull ups I wrote down how many I did after each set on a post-it note.  I had planned on modulating the numbers somewhat, but ended up mostly doing sets of ten.  

Some days my son convinced me to do extra with him after I had reached my daily goal.  That's ok, I would rather do too many than too few.  At the start I did a few sets of 15,  that was too many and I would have been better off keeping the numbers lower.  

Each row were the numbers I completed in each set

I also decided to take some before and after photos of my back.  Some of these I was just standing relaxed, and others where I was flexing.  I was curious to see if there would be any difference after such a short amount of time.

Perhaps ten days is too short to notice any difference, or perhaps the difference would be easily noticeable.  You can find out below.

 

Before the ten day 1,000 pull up challenge: 

My back relaxed - notice the imbalances

My back flexed - before doing 1,000 pull ups over ten days

My back flexed - ignore the weird little scars

After the ten day 1,000 pull up challenge:

Relaxed - imbalances are noticeably reduced

My back flexed - after doing 1,000 pull ups over ten days

After the ten day challenge my lats feel firmer, my forearms feel firmer, my shoulders feel more stable, and I am far stronger, but you can't really see any of that.  

It appears that ten days is not long enough to see a great deal of change.  That's ok with me, I wasn't doing this for visual change, I wanted to get stronger and am glad I completed my challenge.  

Other than being slightly more tanned from having ten days not in an office, you can't see much difference at all.  This challenge was only ten days, so this is not unexpected.

There are some slight differences that can be seen in the photos.  

In the 'before' relaxed photo you may notice that I do not stand straight, I stand slightly twisted to one side.  The 'after' photo I stand slightly straighter.  I didn't know I was doing this until I looked at the photos side by side.  

  

In the 'before' photos my left shoulder is higher than the right due to an old injury.  This causes me a lot of headaches, neck aches, and other pain.  If you look closely at the 'after' photos you may notice that (when relaxed) my left shoulder is now lower, almost the same height as my right shoulder.  Being more balanced means that I am in less pain.  

Less pain is a great result, I'm happy with that!

First 30 day challenge

After my success in completing the 100 push ups 30 day challenge, my son wanted to do his own 30-day exercise challenge.  

My son wanted to build strength.  The best way to do this for a thin person (or for anyone else) is to choose a strength building exercise, decide on some minimums, and meet those minimums every day for at least thirty days.  The more time you put in the better, but decent improvements can be seen after thirty days.

I asked him to decide on an exercise and a daily minimum.  He can exceed these minimums if he wishes, and he had to reach those minimums each and every day for 30 days.  

Being young I did not want him to do too much, I did not want him to get an overuse injury, so I made sure it was something I thought he could do reasonably easily.

My son decided on a minimum of 20 strict pull ups per day.  I figured he would safely be able to achieve this number.  This amount of exercise was not completed in one session, it was spread across the entire day, every day for thirty consecutive days.  

This isn't western style training, this is prochnost' style training, and it works.  

Spoiler alert: pull ups are hard. 

Before the Challenge

At the start of his challenge my son was struggling to do 3 or 4 strict pull ups in a set.  He probably could have done a few more pull ups with sloppy form, but he could only do 3 to 4 with good form.

For the first few days reaching 20 pull ups over the day was killing him, partly because it is a lot, and partly because he needed to do a lot of sets throughout the day when you are only doing at most 2 or 3 pullups per set!

Pull ups, even when it's cold 

Thirty Day Challenges are Grueling

It was rainy on the second day of his challenge, and he had no choice but to go and do his minimums in the rain.  That wasn't heaps of fun.  

A couple of days in to the challenge he was tired and wanted to have a rest day.  He wanted to have a day off and just do more the following day.  Unfortunately it doesn't work that way with these challenges.  You have to reach your minimums each and every day, and you have to do them using proper form.  For these challenges to work you must be consistent.  This isn't western style training, this is different, this actually works. 

Other days he was tired, or not in the mood, or it was cold, or it was hot, or doing pull ups was the last thing he felt like doing.  To quote Pavel Tsatsouline "the Soviet training programs doesn't care about your feelings and neither should you".  My son still pushed through and got it done.  

My son had to reach his minimums every day.  So he persevered even when he didn't feel like it, and he did 20 pull ups minimum every day.  He never went until failure, but he got stronger and his numbers did increase significantly over the course of the thirty days.

Pull ups in the heat

Half Way There

After 15 days he was often doing sets of 8 to 10 pull ups, which is very impressive considering where he started!  This wasn't his maximum, he didn't even know how many he could do in one set because I didn't want him to train to failure.  He could do sets of however many he wanted, but had to stop once his form started to get sloppy.  

Sloppy form does not build strength, sloppy form often leads to injury, once his form degraded he had to stop and rest.  If his technique was starting to fail he would stop, if he felt tired he would stop, if he felt pain he was to stop immediately.  

The progress he made by doing multiple small sets every single day is just incredible.  This was far more efficient than the feel the burn, get pumped, no pain no gain, push to failure, no limits, type of workout nonsense that is far too common in western strength training.  Had he been training until failure he would not have made this kind of progress.

Other than once before the beginning of his challenge, and once after the challenge had ended, he was not striving to reach his maximum.  

Strict pull ups - they do get easier

Results of the challenge:  

My son successfully completed his challenge doing multiple sets of small numbers.  

Thirty days doing a minimum of twenty pull ups per day meant he completed a minimum of 600 pull ups that month.  Given the number of times he exceeded his minimums his total number over the thirty days would have been substantially higher!  

After the end of the challenge I asked him to do his maximum.  To his surprise, his maximum increased from a respectable 4 before his challenge to a whopping 15 at the end of the challenge.  Once again he probably could have done a few more pull ups with sloppy form, but he could only do 15 with good form.

That is a massive increase from just 30 days of doing sets of small numbers, stopping if he felt tired, never feeling the burn, not hurting the following day, and never ever training until failure.  You don't see this kind of progress in western style strength training.  

I wish I knew more about prochnost' strength training when I was young.  It is far more efficient and far more suitable for skinny people than any form of western strength training.  Had I trained like this when I was younger I would have been vastly stronger from putting in the same amount of (or less) effort.  

Over the thirty days of his challenge, my son completed more pull ups than most people in this country will complete in their entire lives.  He did this without ever doing more than ten in a row.  

Hopefully my son's success (and incredible progress) will inspire you to give something like this a try.  Decide on an exercise that you can do at home, set a daily minimum, write this down so you can't cheat, then reach or exceed this minimum every day for thirty days.    

Give it a try, you have everything to gain and nothing (other than fat, illness, and weakness) to lose.  Be stronger.

Push up fundraise challenge at work

Recently someone at work was doing a great thing. He was doing push ups to raise money for mental health. 

 

He joined some online challenge where he did a minimum number of push ups and people donated money, this sounded like a great thing. I have no idea which charity the money goes to, or if that place is doing anything useful with the money, or how much of the money is used compared to how much is spent on administration. I didn’t really look into it because after clicking on his link I got a bit annoyed.

Before I go on, I want to be clear, these sorts of money raising things can be great and some of the charities are excellent. I don’t want to discourage people from looking into if the money will be well spent, and then participating and/or donating. Look into the charity, and if they use the money well then go for it.

This is a fit and strong guy, he isn’t the usual overfat slob that tends to inhabit a corporate office. After looking at the link I was surprised at how few push ups were expected to be completed, as well as how few push ups he was completing each day.  

The website said the following:

Participants will take on 3,139 push-ups across 24 days in June, putting the spotlight on the tragic number of lives lost to suicide in Australia in 2020.

These numbers are too low and there are too many days in there to complete the challenge. Why would anyone donate money when someone is barely reaching mediocrity?

Again, let me be clear that I am not discouraging people from doing these challenges or donating money to people who are completing these challenges. The death rate from suicide is far too high, the number of people silently suffering from mental health issues is extraordinary, and the more we can do to help the better. I am not trying to minimise the effects of mental illness. I am purely commenting on how unimpressive this challenge is, and how I feel it should be more to achieve greater outcomes.

If you plan to complete 3,139 push-ups across 24 days, that is less than 131 per day. That is not many push ups across an entire day. It is only five sets of 26 or 27 push ups, which isn’t too difficult for most people to do each day. I don’t understand why doing such impressively low numbers would entice any one to donate any money. If this was conducted over ten days, or even fourteen days, then at least it would be vaguely impressive and require some effort. Twenty four days is far too long as it means so few push ups per day, I think it detracts from the challenge as it is too easy for most people to complete.

The link also had some graphs where this person logged the numbers of push ups he completed each day. To my surprise he even had rest days every week. To my even greater surprise, instead of smashing out the push ups, exceeding the minimums like mad, and then going on to do some more, he barely completed 3,139 on the final day. Other than the days were he did no push ups, he was only doing 100 to 223 push ups on any given day. In my mind that’s weak.

The numbers he completed each day

If you are new to push ups that is not weak, if you are doing personal challenges that is not weak, but if you are a strong and fit person who is publicising your push up prowess to encourage people to donate - then I think that this low number is pathetic. 

 

He should have been doing hugely more push ups! More each day, more each set, and more in total over the challenge. Why barely meet the minimums when he could have vastly exceeded them? He should have tried harder and done something impressive.

I am a skinny person who is not particularly fit or strong. I recently completed a personal challenge where I did a minimum of 1,000 push ups per day for 62 consecutive days. That means I was completing more than their 24 day minimum every three days, and I did this for two whole months without a break. Being skinny means I did this without bulking up, so you would never guess by looking at me that I was even capable of this let alone actually having achieved this.

Now that I have finished doing 1,000 push ups per day challenge I am currently doing a minimum of 250 per day, every day, no rest days. I am doing these in one grueling set, I find this very difficult, but I do it every day without fail. If I were not as strong I would do two or three sets to reach this number. 

I think I was largely irritated that a skinny unimpressive nothing guy like me was absolutely crushing his challenge, yet no one other than me was benefitting from it. Being skinny also means that I won’t bulk up, and if I entered this challenge no one would actually believe that I am completing the numbers that I am completing each day. So there is no point in me entering these challenges as no one would end up paying because they would assume I was lying.

If you are strong or ripped and you consider entering one of these challenges then I say go for it. Don’t just do the minimums though, absolutely crush the minimum.  

The same money will be donated, and you will get more benefit from it and maybe someone else doing the challenge will see your numbers and put in a little more effort themselves. Aim for a day minimum of 250, do more than your minimums, and complete over 6,000 push ups across the duration of the challenge. 

It is only 24 days, don’t bother with rest days. Try harder! Be more!

One Leg push up challenge

Push ups are an excellent body weight exercise that use a wide range of muscles throughout the whole body to some extent.  There are plenty of push up variations around to stress some muscles more or less than others.  Some variations I like and others I don’t like.  This post is about a push up variation that I like but I rarely see it being used: the one leg push ups. 

In any push up, the wider your arms or legs are the more stable your base of support and the less inclined your body is to tip or rotate.  Most people who do regular push ups do not think about maintaining stability as it is not usually an issue.  As such, these muscles that assist in core strength and back stability are often neglected unless you work on them in some other way.  

Lifting one leg decreases your stability and makes your body want to slightly rotate or tilt one way or another.  One leg push ups mostly work the upper body, but your core also gets strengthened as you need to work slightly harder to keep everything stable. 

One leg push ups 

Doing one leg push ups works stabiliser muscles, this builds core strength and provides a functional benefit that is useful in a range of other situations.  They also make regular push ups slightly easier.  It also works lower body muscles, the higher you lift your foot the more those muscles are worked.

The first few times you do one leg push ups you have to really think about remaining stable.  It doesn't take too long before your stabiliser muscles just do their job and you no  longer have to think about it at all.

To do a one leg push up, get in the regular push up (often called high plank) position.  Feet together, hands not overly far apart, back straight.  

Push up/high plank position 

From here lift one leg and try to keep it straight.  Everything else should remain where it was, only your leg should have moved.  Try to have your leg as high as you can make it go as you will get more benefit from this. 

Lift one leg, do some push ups 

Push ups with one leg in the air 

Do some push ups with your straight leg in the air, try not to tilt or roll in any direction, maintain control.  Try not to let your pelvis rotate, try to keep it in the same position it would be for regular push ups.  Only your wrists, elbows, and shoulders should be moving.  All other joints should be held as they are.

After you have finished that side you should be in the high plank position with one leg in the air.  Lower that leg with control and put your foot on the ground, nothing else should move.  

Now lift your other leg into the air, keep it straight.  Get your foot as high as you can.  Nothing else should move yet, just your leg.  

Now you do the same number of one leg push ups on that side.  You need to do the same number on both sides to ensure that you are working muscles on both sides evenly.  If you find you have a weaker side, always do that side first.

Other leg in the air 

Doing pushups with the other leg in the air - my elbows should be in more and my leg needs to be straighter

The one leg push up is only slightly more difficult than regular push ups.  As it is not overly more difficult but it does have added benefits it should be included in your normal routine.  My son has started a one leg push up challenge with me.  I don’t really remember agreeing to this, but somehow he has a lot of power in this challenge. 

One leg push up challenge: 

At various times throughout the day while I am at home my son will come and tell me it is time for push ups.  We then both do five (only five) one leg push ups on each side.  It’s only ten push ups in total.  Meaning it isn’t difficult to maintain control and maintain our form.  It also means the time needed for rest after each set is very short. 

Even though it is only ten push ups in total per set, the fact that my son pops in dozens of times throughout the day means we are doing a lot of one leg push ups over the course of a day.  The number we do in a day fluctuates.  If I am at work there are very few opportunities for us to do push ups so we don't get to do many.  If I work from home or on weekends we do a lot more sets.  

Maintaining good form, low numbers per set, and fluctuating numbers of sets in a day, has meant that we have both gained strength quickly and our form is rock solid.

You should do a similar challenge and see how quickly you improve.  One day do as many one leg push ups you can, go to failure.  Write that number somewhere.  Every day after this, no excuses, do sets of 5 per leg (10 in total) over the day.  If five is too many you can do three per side or even two per side.  Don’t go to failure again, only do 5 per leg, don’t go above this number no matter how simple it feels, but do many of these sets over the day.  Don’t have a ‘rest day’, but do have a day where you do less sets.  Maintain control, if your push ups start to get sloppy - stop.

Once per week, and only once per week, do as many one leg push ups as you can.  Go to failure, and write down that number.  Do this for one month (or at least four weeks).  You will find that you quickly increase the number of one leg push ups that you can do.  

If you have been doing push ups for some time and have plateaued in the number you can do, try this.  Do sets of no more than five, and do lots of sets through the day, and you will see an increase in the maximum that you can do.  You have nothing to lose, and you will increase strength beyond your previous personal best. 

This is the essence of prochnost training.  Be strong - byt' sil'nym (быть сильным).

1,000 push ups a day challenge

Not long after I began doing 30 day exercise challenges a friend told me about someone he knew who completed 1,000 push ups a day for an entire month.  What a monster!  I desperately wanted to do this myself, but was too weak so I set myself a goal to give this a go.  

I knew I wasn't ready then so planned to try some day.  At that time I was struggling to do 25 push ups in a set and 100 across an entire day, so completing one thousand push ups in a day seemed unimaginable to me at the time.  

Once I got a lot stronger I decided to see if I could complete 1,000 push ups in one day.  At the time I could do 50 to 75 in one set.  I decided to try on a day when I would have time, and I wrote on the blackboard the numbers I did in each set so I could add them up over the day.

I started doing push ups before breakfast, and started strong.  By lunch time I was pretty wrecked, and still had a lot to do to reach my goal that day.  While my sets started out as 75 this declined until the sets at the end were only 25, and towards the end I was struggling to even do that many in one go.

While I started before breakfast, I didn’t reach one thousand until after dinner that day.  I was in tremendous pain, and shaking so badly I struggled to bring a cup to my mouth so I could have a drink.  

The next day I could hardly see out of my left eye, I was trembling for days, and in big pain for a week or two afterwards.  I clearly wasn’t ready.

About a year later (of doing back to back 30 day two minute exercise challenges) I was much stronger and decided to give this another go.  I could not sleep one night, so I tried to do one thousand push ups.  Including rest time it took me just under an hour to complete one thousand push ups that night.  

I was hurting for days afterwards but I pulled up better and recovered much faster than the first time.  I am not sure if I was ready at that stage either.

Skinny fat before 1,000 push ups per day

About a year of back to back exercise challenges later,  about two years from the start, I was a lot stronger and I decided to commit to a personal challenge of an entire week of one thousand push ups per day.  

I decided on a start and end date that would give me a reasonably quiet week to do these, then for no particular reason I started a few days early.

Before starting the challenge I felt highly optimistic.  This was going to be great!  I was finally ready.  I could hardly wait to see the transformation that my body would go through.  I have seen the before and after photos of people who have done this and they are incredible, some even look like an entirely different person (there is a reason for this) and others look pretty impressive.

When I started my 1,000 push ups per day challenge I was in constant pain, the pain seemed to intensify over the first week of the challenge.  I started to dread doing push ups and began to think of excuses to end the challenge early.  This negative self-talk reached a point where I almost talked myself out of attempting the final day.  That's right, I had completed six days and almost talked myself out of even attempting day seven.  Motivation is key to doing anything like this.

I started to feel really tired and exhausted all day every day.  Being really tired, with a renewed hatred of push ups, experiencing endless/increasing pain, not really wanting to do this anymore, realising that no one other than me would know or even care if I gave up, and then fearing that I had already completed so many consecutive days and did not want to start again at zero, made the week more difficult than I had anticipated.  

No matter what happened I had to reach my minimum of one thousand push ups per day.  I struggled through the week and completed over 1,000 push ups each and every day.  Some days I completed significantly more.  

I am now one of the few people who have achieved one week of 1,000 push ups per day, and one of the even smaller number who have done such a thing for the first time when they were aged in their 40’s. 

You can see my 'before' photo above and my 'after' photo below.  They look much the same.  

Other than lighting, wearing different pants (same belt), and my arms being at a slightly different angle, the difference is only really noticeable if you look closely and convince yourself that you can find a difference.  I am skinny, doing 1,000 push ups every day did not make me bulk up, I did not get ripped, but it did help me get a lot stronger.  

It's frustrating how difficult it is for skinny fat people to bulk up.  I knew other people's before and after photos had mostly been photoshopped, but I had expected a lot more noticeable improvement than this.  I am stronger now, so it was well worth doing.

Here is the shocking twist: Successfully completing this challenge left me feeling really lame and pathetic. 

After 1,000 push ups per day for 50 consecutive days - looks much the same

This challenge, like all my previous exercise challenges, was pointless.  Most people are not as skinny as I am, if they put in half the effort I put in they would be able to complete this challenge.  I look much the same as before, and no one would ever believe that I achieved this.  I may as well claim I paddled a canoe to the moon or something!  See what I was saying about negative self-talk?  Negative self-talk didn’t end even when I had completed the challenge.

The morning after my week of one thousand was over I was really irritated that I still had to meet my regular push up minimums, I felt like I had earned a break.  It was incredible just how hard done by I felt, especially considering that no one made me do any part of this.  

I was doing this week on top of my usual thirty day exercise challenge.  I begrudgingly did my push up minimums that day, then went on to complete over 1,000 push ups that day.  For no particular reason I continued to complete 1,000+ push ups each day after that.  I toyed with the idea of reaching 2 weeks, or 3 weeks, or even 30 days, but none of this really seemed possible as it was so difficult just getting through one week. 

I kept going, and reached 30 days of one thousand push ups per day.  Then I did another day because some months have 31 days and I wanted to be able to say that I had completed an entire month of one thousand push ups per day.  

I am now one of the small number of people in their 40’s who have completed an entire month of 1,000 push ups per day.

Then for some reason I didn't want to stop, so I continued until I reached fifty consecutive days of one thousand push ups per day.  Very few people in their 40's can honestly say that they have achieved this.  I did a few more days on top of this and reached two months, 62 continuous days.  After two months I stopped, enough was enough.

Push ups are great for skinny fat people

One of the frustrating things about being skinny fat is that I have achieved something that few people can do, and am still not ripped.  I kept doing one thousand push ups per day, and eventually stopped after 62 days.  I figured this seemed like a natural stopping point as it was two grueling months.

No one would ever think by looking at me that I have done 1,000 push ups per day for 62 consecutive days, but I have, and you should do this too.  Or at least you should set a personal challenge to do one week of one thousand push ups per day.  Don't tell anyone you are doing this, just set the challenge and do it.

If I can do one thousand push ups per day then so can you.  I am skinny and weak, and I did sixty two consecutive days of one thousand push ups per day in my 40’s.  

I was involved in an accident years ago after which I was told by a doctor that I would never walk again.  I walk.  I was later told by a leading specialist that my body would degrade so badly that I would have to retire by age 50 due to pain.  I am putting in the effort to get strong now.  Prochnost' training is helping me be stronger and push back this date so I can lead a less painful and more enjoyable life for as long as possible.  

I put in a little training time each day, but make sure that it is every day (no lies, no excuses), and look what I have achieved.  Most people in this country will never do 1,000 push ups in a day, they will never do a week of one thousand push ups very day, and they will not do 62 consecutive days of one thousand push ups per day.  I certainly don't have hours to spend at the gym, and I doubt you do either.  If I can do this, then you should give it a try too.  Just aim for a week, and see where it takes you.

I may not look like I could ever do something like this, but  doing it increases my strength dramatically, so it has been worth the effort.  

A month after stopping 1,000 push ups per day

After ending my 1,000 push ups per day I then did about 250 per day.  After doing this for a month, the photo above shows that I still look pretty much the same.  Perhaps I have slimmed down a little, but that may just be the lighting.

This has made other things in everyday life easier and less painful.  Strangely enough I still struggle to walk upstairs, and if rain is coming or the weather is about to change I am in a world of hurt.  I am now a lot stronger and in less pain most of the time, so it really is worth it.

You should join me and do a personal challenge of one week of completing 1,000 push ups per day.  

Just start with one week and see how you go.  That seems difficult yet achievable.  If you get through that, perhaps aim for one month.  You will never know that you can do this until you give it a go.

If you do try to do one thousand push ups per day let me know how you go in the comments.  If you succeed, or even if you fail, perhaps your story will inspire someone.  If you are skinny fat then all the more reason to do something like this!  

Prochnost training - Try harder. (стараться), be more (более)!

100 Second Dead Hang Challenge

A while ago I saw a youtube video where a guy entered a dead hang competition.  He paid $10 to enter, he then had to hang off a chin up bar for 100 seconds to win $100.  One hundred dollars for one hundred seconds, this guy was young and ripped so thought it would be simple.  He failed.  

I looked around and found similar competitions, some were 100 seconds and others were 2 minutes.  Most people looked far stronger, younger, and more athletic than me, and most of them failed.  I found that surprising because I was pretty sure I could do it.

They all yelled and hooted and hollered and jumped about regardless of if they failed or succeeded.  The crowd always yelled and carried on like pork chops.

I wondered if a skinny fat guy like me could dead hang for 100 seconds.  I haven't tried something like this in decades, so it was time to give it a go.  If I failed then I decided I could work up to it.

We have a set of monkey bars in our yard that I had been using for chin ups and other exercises.  I could dead hang off them which made it a lot easier as I could do this in my yard without having anyone watch me fail.  The only way to improve is to try harder, and you usually aren't trying hard enough unless you sometimes fail.  

Dead hang using a skinny bar - I'm hurting

I got my 12 year old son, went to the monkey bars, and the two of us gave this a go with my son calling out the time.  

I learned a few things.

Firstly I need someone to call out the time every ten seconds.  Ten seconds feels like an eternity.  Without someone calling out the time it feels like I have hung there for hours and I want to give up.

Secondly I could complete 100 seconds of dead hang on either a fat bar or a skinny bar.  It was difficult, really difficult, but I did it.

Thirdly the showboating that I saw in all of the videos seems really off putting.  I know it is meant to pump up people and get them in the zone, but I hate it.  I could do this because it was quiet and I could focus.  Had people been yelling and cheering I would have found it far more difficult and am not sure if I would be able to do it.

Fourthly I was unable to do 2 minutes the first time I tried.  I kept trying each day and after a few days I was stronger and was able to do a little over 2 minutes.  It is incredibly difficult, but I can do this on either a fat bar or a thin bar.  If someone as skinny as me can do this, then most people should not find it impossible.  

Fifth and probably most importantly, my 12 year old son can dead hang for 2 minutes.  He struggles badly, I mean he is really feeling it and hurting badly, but he can do it.  If a skinny 12 year old can do this then you should be able to do it too.

Dead hang using a fat bar - struggling through

I need to keep my strength up, that way if I ever see a 100 seconds dead hang challenge I can enter and win some money.  Far more important than winning money, I would love to successfully complete this among more athletic people who were unable to complete it, that would be pretty sweet.

If you have access to a chin up bar, time yourself holding a dead hang and let me know in the comments how long you could hold.  It is harder than I thought, but I was still able to do it.  

Give it a go, if you can't do it then train.  If you can do it, then train even more.  Do prochnost strength training, try harder, and be more (более)!

Human Flag for skinny people

If you are skinny fat and building strength, one of the biggest hurdles you will face sill be motivation.  Even if you gain muscle and strength you will never bulk up, which makes it really difficult to stay motivated.

One of the greatest builders of motivation is doing something that most people can not do.  Another of the great motivation builders is to do something that looks really impressive.  The "human flag" is one such exercise that ticks both of these boxes.

When I was in my twenties I used to be able to do the human flag, it was easy enough and I thought everyone could do it.  Now that I am older, and weaker, I tried to do the human flag again and found it impossible to do.  It was so hard that I wondered if I would ever be able to do this again. 

I did a little research, and it appears that very few people can achieve human flag, and most who can are incredibly athletic monsters.  I had no idea, I used to think if someone skinny like me can do it then everyone could do it.  Turns out I was wrong.  

The fact that very few people can do this made me really want to do human flag again.  It is impressive to see an athletic person do this, it is mind boggling to see a scrawny bloke like me do it.  This made me want to train and do this again.  We got a set of monkey bars for the kids a few years ago, so I have somewhere to train without having to leave my yard.

I did some more research, and most of these athletic monsters trained for hours each day, for between six months to two years before they could achieve this.  Hmmm, I don't have hours each day to train, and I didn't want to wait two years to be able to do this again.  

I set a timeframe of six weeks to achieve this, and got stuck into training.  I only trained for a few minutes every day because I didn't have much spare time.  I just made sure to train every day.  Every single day.  No excuses.

Human flag - a bit wobbly and my feet are too low but I was getting there

Most people assume that lack of core strength is what stops them from being able to do human flag, but most people have enough core strength.  Most people lack the upper body/arm strength required for human flag.

I have been doing a lot of push ups so thought I had the upper body strength to pull this off, and I thought that I lacked the necessary core strength.  I was partly right.  

I lacked upper body strength AND I lacked core strength.  I also lacked leg strength for some reason.

This was going to be tricky when I don't have more than a few minutes each day to train.  My six week timeframe to achieve this was starting to feel overly optimistic... 

To increase my core strength I started to do side plank dips.  I used straight arms so my shoulders and arms would be in a similar position to where they would be in the human flag.  Doing a few of these each day, every day, and I built core strength pretty quickly.

Straight arm side dip planks helped tremendously, but my legs and my arms were still too weak.

I was already doing a lot of push ups, and I started doing chin ups each day.  I was only able to do five chin ups at the start.  After a few weeks was able to do ten and eventually got up to about twenty in one set.  I need to write a blog post on how to increase the number of chin ups, because it is different to building numbers of something like push ups.  I am told that you need to be able to do 10 chin ups with proper form to have enough strength to do human flag.  I am not sure if this is true or not but getting stronger upper body has to help.

Chin ups helped build my shoulder strength and bicep strength, but I also needed more triceps strength.  It is absurd how much your triceps are used in human flag.

I started to do diamond push ups.  These hurt my triceps a lot, so were clearly making them stronger.  Together with regular push ups and chin ups my arms gained the strength that was needed to do human flag.

Strangely enough my legs were also weak.  I have some leg weights from back when I used to do kung fu.  I put them on for a few hours each evening after work.  I even tried to do the human flag while wearing my leg weights and tried to do some chin ups while wearing the leg weights.  This made my legs strong enough to do human flag.  Chances are your legs are already strong enough, I am not sure why my legs are so weak, but they were weak so I made them stronger.

As well as all of that, I also got in and tried to do the human flag every day.  We have monkey bars for the kids so I would go down after work each day and quickly give it a go on each side.  As I got stronger I got closer and closer to being able to successfully pull off this exercise.  Sometimes I could hold it for 1 or 2 seconds.  

My aim was 3 seconds, which felt like a lot more than I was capable of.  I had set my timeframe and had to achieve it, so I kept training.

Human flag training - almost there!

After five weeks of training, I was almost there!  This video shows how close I was:

A few days later I successfully did the human flag!

It took me a little under six weeks of daily training, but I was eventually able to do the human flag on the pole of a street sign in front of some strangers.  

I overheard comments that were seemingly in awe.  I couldn't quite hear what they were saying as I was struggling not to pass out at the time.  Someone far larger than me and rather athletic looking saw what I did and then tried to do the human flag, he failed miserably, he couldn't even get his feet off the ground.  That's what I was after.  

If I can do this in just under six weeks, then you can do it too!  Don't feel bad when you first try and fail.  Without failure there can be no progress.  Try to remember that many (untrained) larger and more athletic people have also tried this and they have failed.  The difference between failure and success is training.

If you are skinny you should train to do the human flag. 

There is something nice about being able to complete an impressive exercise that few people can do.  There is something even nicer when people twice your size give it a go are unable to do it.

Do prochnost strength training, try harder, be more!