Harlem Quijano

Just to clarify somethings, when I say day two, I mean the second exercise day of the program.  Essentially, the program is divide up into seven weeks and within each week are three exercise days.  In other words, each week participants will be doing pushups three days of that particular week preferably with a rest day in between pushup days and two days of rest between the last pushup day of the week and the first pushup day of the next week.

Day 2 consists of:

1. Set 1 : 10 pushups
2. Set 2 : 12 pushups
3. Set 3 :   8 pushups
4. Set 4 :   8 pushups
5. Set 5 :   Max # no less than 9

I can fully say that this day was quite a bit easier than the first day and I was somewhat pleased by this.  Muscles can adapt fairly quickly when it is afforded plenty of time to rest and a decent amount of nutrients not to mention being mindfull not to overtrain which is virtually impossible to do with this program.  I am still working on the nutrient part, i.e., trying to maintain a properly balanced eating plan with plenty of the “good stuff” and less of the “bad stuff” (more on that later).  But I do have the rest part pretty much handled, in fact, I consider myself and expert.Well, that is all, keep pushing!

I just did day one of the hundred pushups program and boy are my arms tired!  Sounds like a joke but trust me its a lot more than that.  It took a lot out of me and my son as you shall soon read.

I started out innocently enough, but first, I should post what day 1 includes: for my strength and age group (coincidently my sons group as well)

1. Set 1 – 10 pushups
2. Set 2 – 12 pushups
3. Set 3 -  7 pushups
4. set 4 -  7 pushups
5. Set 5 – Max # w/ minimum of 9

As I said, it started innocently enough.  I first did my initial set without complication, I’m pretty sure you will (or have) too.  My son faired just as well as I did with his first set.  Then came the second set.  This set included 12 pushups.  Two more than the first set and two less than my initial test.  Easier said than done because I quickly pumped out 5 good pushups and being the forgetful gent that I am, I stopped mid-pushup in the up position.  Thus, losing all my momentum that I had been relying upon for pushups 3 though 5.  Why did I do this I asked myself? I should know better, I was a fitness trainer for goodness sakes.  I saw it all too often, folks stopping midway in the up postion which I knew still sucked precious ATP. Better to just trudge along than to stop. But I did. So every pushup after was beginning to drain me even more.  Muscles pulled on tendon and tendon  stretched  to its physical and spiritual limits shouted back with great annoyance and sadness as if to say “but Harlem, I thought you loved me?”.  I do. I do. You will see.  But, I digress….To make things worse, my son started laughing and making fun of me straining which just made me that much more determined.  Shortly after I regained my composure it was his turn, and you know what they say about paybacks.  He started out fine but began to struggle early and then the laughter started.  Not from me but from him!  I reckon that even though laughter is contagious, it must first reach a critical mass in the body for it to have deleterious affects on others.  So, he continued to laugh and snicker and slowly eaking out a pushup here and there.  And so begins my laughter.  It is contagious! It was like that the rest of the time.  We had a great time doing pushups and feeling pain and laughing for the next few sets.  And of course afterwards, when we finished, we shared an experience and looked at ourselves in the mirror just watching our bodies transform right in front of us.  I think this is where the joke begins.  Stay tuned for Day 2.

I can’t remember when was the last time I actually did an exercise much less a complete workout.  I think it may have been the last time I was in California, which was about four years ago.  Four years is much too long to be intermittently sedentary, meaning, I wasn’t a complete lazy bum.  I still lived an active lifestyle filled with the frenetic coming and going of taking kids here and there  (sometimes on my back and sometimes with more than one on it at a time), fixing things up around the house and “whatnot”.  I occasionally play some basketball and when I am feeling especially good I consider doing a few calisthenics.  Usually the feeling passes before I get seriously hurt.  All this preamble to say that I am not as fit as I used to be and to also lead you into how the initial pushup test went.

But, first, why a pushup?  I first heard of the 100 pushup exercise regimen when some famous running back (can’t remember his name at the moment) was advised to do it as a way to get bigger during the off season.  As the story goes, he worked his way up tp  100 pushups and earned a spot on his high school roster a year after he was cut for being too small (I think, but makes a nice Disney movie nonetheless).  Then my son who is all of twelve years old challenged me to do the program with him about a year ago and I did it for about a week and then kept giving him excuses for being unable to do the program.  Excuses like, “the next episode of Heroes is on.”  I know what you’re thinking because I was thinking it at the time as well, ” I am so LAME!!!!”  Then my friend Peter mentioned it to me again last week and I gave it some serious thought, then asked my son, who abandoned the program a month after I did, if he wanted to start up again.  And, he looked at me with a grave look in his eye and said, “don’t whimp out on me” and waited for my reply.  I said I wouldn’t and we set a date to start the program.

Well, that date has come and gone.  And I eeked out 14 really good pushups  [Insert sad trombone sound here].  Mind you they were really good ones, that is; body was plank straight, arms planted in a natural position, fully extended all the way up, and chest about a fists width from the ground on the down position.  I might have been able to squeeze out a dozen or so more, but I would have sacrificed form.  So, I stopped as soon as I felt that my head and upper body was beginning to propel the rest of my body upwards.  My son, his name is Meshach, did quite a bit more but i was a bit more lenient on his form.  So there you have it, 14 is my starting point and on to the meat of the program today.  For more info on the program head over to hundredpushups.com.  Til then.

Hello there, I thought it might be better to re-brand myself from an opensource advocate (which I wholeheartedly still am) into something that reflects more of my well rounded tastes and personality.  Thus, the advent of my new blog harlemquijano.com which will be a little more than just opens source and quite possibly not have anything about open source at all since I have freshubuntu.org!  So, here it is and here I go.  See you around:)