Pushups

I can do pushups.

Specifically, I can do four pushups in a row, all the way down, all the way back up. Four. Legs straight. Arms pretty wide, but whatever. All the way down, chin to the floor, all the way back up. 

Four.

A year ago, I was in the US, struggling to lift my suitcase onto the overhead compartment in the train. I sat myself down and said, "Self, you need to get some arm muscles." 

In retrospect, I am glad I didn't talk myself into buying a gym membership for gaining arm muscle, as gyms closed a few months later and only just reopened. Instead, I talked myself into spending just ten minutes a day trying to get some muscle. Just ten minutes per day. Ten.

Mondays = arms, Tuesdays = abs, Wednesdays = legs, then repeat. Sunday off. 

I've missed plenty of days -- probably at least one or two every week. But my average over each week has been pretty good. I typically do a bunch of exercise on Sunday to make up for all the days I've skipped. But ten minutes only, that's somehow psychologically ok, typically. 

Which brings us to pushups. A year ago, I couldn't do any pushups. Not the full ones. I found an app, to build up to doing 100 in a row! Start by doing two in a row a few times on Day-One.

I started on my knees, and built up to being able to do about ten pushups from my knees. Then I switched to pushups on a chair, and built up to doing about six. Then I managed to almost do one full pushup once. 

Anyhow, over some time, I managed to do one, then two in a row. After that, it took me at least a month to get myself to the point where I could do Day-One of the 100 pushups challenge. But I did it. I did Day-One! So I switched to Day-Two. 

Day-Two requires doing four pushups in a row, twice, plus some threes.

I have been trying to achieve Day-Two for a very long time now, and yesterday I managed that fourth pushup. At least one time. 

At this rate, in three years I will have progressed to Day-Ten, at which point I will be able to do eleven push ups. Eleven in a row. All the way down, all the way up.  

I am going to have meteoric strength. 

And then at some point, I'll start working on lifting suitcases again.