those of you doing 1000 challenges! (also, goal setting!)

[spezzy]

TO ALL OF YOU DOING 1000 CHALLENGES

Doing 1000 of something is most definitely a challenge, but unless you're constantly improving every day, it's not the best goal.

You all know I'm a fan of doing a certain number of things, so I'm not saying DONT do this.

What I'm saying is this:

We want to level up our lives every day, right?

So. If your goal is 1000 pushups (or burpees or squats or whatever) over the 6 week period, instead of looking at it as 24 per day, or 48 every other day, or 167 a week - why not look at it in a constant improvement method? as in, each day, do one more set or one more rep per set?

Because, really - if you do 42 pushups (or burpees or squats or whatever) a day every day for the next 6 weeks, you're not showing any improvements.

So, lets say you're doing pushups 3 times a week:

WEEK 1: (day 1)5 sets of 5 - 25 total. (day 2)6 sets of 5 - 30 (day 3)5 sets of 6 - 30 = 85 for the week

WEEK 2: (day 1)6 sets of 6 -36 total. (day 2)7 sets of 6 - 42 (day 3)6 sets of 7 - 42 = 113 for the week

WEEK 3: (day 1)7 sets of 7 - 49 total. (day 2)8 sets of 7 - 56 (day 3)7 sets of 8 - 56 = 161 for the week

WEEK 4: (day 1)8 sets of 8 - 64 total. (day 2)9 sets of 8 - 72 (day 3)8 sets of 9 - 72 = 209 for the week

WEEK 5: (day 1)9 sets of 9 - 81 total. (day 2)10 sets of 9 - 90 (day 3)9 sets of 10 - 90 = 261 for the week

WEEK 6: (day 1)10 sets of 10 - 100 total. (day 2)11 sets of 10 - 111 (day 3)11 sets of 11 - 121 = 332 for the week

that would give you a total of 1161 for the entire 6 weeks.

This is how I try to think when doing a bodyweight exercise - every time I do it, I need to do ONE MORE REP or ONE MORE SET, but not always both.

You see that you're not always going up in total numbers, but you're constantly changing it up - 7 sets of 6 is definitely different on your body than 6 sets of 7.

You could also just always add one rep to each set - and always do the same number of sets

WEEK 1: (day 1)5 sets of 5 -25 total. (day 2)5 sets of 6 - 30 (day 3)5 sets of 7 - 35 = 90 for the week

WEEK 2: (day 1)5 sets of 8 - 40 total. (day 2)5 sets of 9 - 45 (day 3)5 sets of 10 - 50 = 135 for the week

WEEK 3: (day 1)5 sets of 11 - 55 total. (day 2)5 sets of 12 - 60 (day 3)5 sets of 13 - 65 = 180 for the week

WEEK 4: (day 1)5 sets of 14 - 70 total. (day 2)5 sets of 15 - 75 (day 3)5 sets of 16 - 80 = 225 for the week

WEEK 5: (day 1)5 sets of 17 - 85 total. (day 2)5 sets of 18 - 90 (day 3)5 sets of 19 - 95 = 270 for the week

WEEK 6: (day 1)5 sets of 20 - 100 total. (day 2)5 sets of 21 - 105 (day 3)5 sets of 22 - 110 = 315 for the week

Now, this would put you at 1220 for the month, so that would leave room for having days where you just can't go up in reps on all 5 sets, etc.

The second option is definitely harder - but it builds more endurance than total strength. What you pick depends on your overall fitness goals.

also, when working with these numbers - please remember to train smart and let yourself recover between workouts.

['Roos]

This is totally my method of getting to 1000, as currently I can do about... 5 pushups. My original goal was going to be to do 100 in a single day, which is way beyond where I can push right now, but I think, well within my means. If I do five the first day, I'll do ten the third, and twenty the fifth... hopefully (Gross simplification of things). This means the pushup balance will be heavily weighted towards the end of the challenge, but that's the point!

Thanks for the thoughts Spezzy!

[bigm141414]

Spezzy, this is great. And you are right 1000 is quite a lot of anything and not done properly will end up hurting instead of helping.

It's all about doing more tomorrow than you did today.

[Loren Wade]

Mind = blown.

[Havock]

That is fracking epic Spezzy. You know what, I hate them but I'll attempt to do Burpee's using this method. Although I may never get passed the 5 sets of 5. I may have to start with 5 sets of 1 actually, LOL!

[Lowenna]

Awesome! Thank you, may be slightly re-structuring the burpees goal I have now, there will still be many of them though. Many, many, many burpees mmm... lovely burpees.

[Kristen]

I don't think there's any other way unless you're already banging out huge sets of exercises, which I'm certainly not.

My ultimate goal is a max set of 100 push ups (by November), and the plan is to work up to doing 100 every other day, breaking them into sets, then making the sets bigger each time. So I suppose that's how it will naturally play out. A little more each day.

[Jax_BabyJeep]

Seriously... you rock <3

[beepboop]

Gah, thank you for breaking it down into days and weeks. I've been following hundredpushups but wasn't sure if it would get me to 1000 by the end of the challenge.