WEEK 4
7 Apr
Warm up
Push ups – 15,19,15,15,24
I tried “palmer cooling” but if anything felt worse. I may have made my hands too cold, and on top of that I had to hold them still for the 90 seconds rest whereas getting the blood flowing and shaking the arms out tends to help recovery between sets.
9 Apr
Warm up
Push ups – 21,23,16,16,22+4
I moved the tempo from 50bpm to 52bpm, though the former was still training time under tension so has still been helpful up to this point. I should note that I was tired before I started. Again palmer cooling and feeling worse than I otherwise would, only able to hit 22 of the required 26 pushups before taking a 15 second rest and finishing the set.
11 Apr
Warm up
Push ups – 23,27,21,21,26+4
Cool down
I pushed my rest out to 2 mins between sets and 3 mins before the final set and scrapped the palmer cooling (for now). I felt better here and in sets 1-4 I could have gone on to 30 reps, but the cumulative fatigue meant I struggled in the final set. I could potentially keep increasing the rest periods but I feel some of the training effect comes from submaximal recovery if the goal is 100 consecutive reps.
The next two weeks includes an extension to 7 sets on some days, but otherwise (excluding the final set) the max reps I’ll be asked to do is 28 so it’s not hugely intimidating. When following the pull up version of this program I found the final set to also be unachievable, as those numbers are ramping up by 2-4 reps every session which would be crazy progress.