100,000 Push-Ups

In 2021, two friends and I agreed to complete 100,000 push-ups each over the course of the year. If you do the math, that equates to 274 push-ups a day (as a side note, that year, I’d also committed to walking/running 50 10Ks).

By the end of January, one of the the other guys dropped out. By early March, the other one did as well.

I was staring at approximately ten months of push-ups with no one to cheer for/cheer me on, no one to hold me accountable, and no one to commiserate with on the tough days.

You’ve probably heard the expression, “Character is what you do when no one is watching.”

So I kept going.

By June 1st, I was ahead of the pace for the year. I’d also already hit the 50 10K mark, so I upped that to 100 10Ks.

But when I hurt my back a few days later, I knew I was in trouble.

I missed three weeks and completely fell off the pace.

I wanted to give up. It would have been so easy as, by then, the people who, in February, were equal parts fascinated by and confused as to why someone would do 100,000 push-ups in a year, had stopped asking questions about it.

No one cared anymore.

Except me.

When I healed up, I had six months to complete well over 50,000 push-ups.

I began doing push-ups everywhere. In airports, in train stations, waiting for Ubers, and one time, waiting for my table to be ready at a restaurant (on the sidewalk not in the restaurant).

By the middle of December, I was completing between 1,000 and 1,500 push-ups a day.

I finished my last set on the morning of Christmas Eve to zero fanfare. I asked my daughter to record me on my phone, but she actually wound up just recording her face instead by mistake.

Here’s my point: I had no idea that I could do this. Before it, I was nowhere near maximizing my potential.

What about you? Are you maximizing your potential? Or, are you leaving so much of it on the table?

The other night, I had dinner with a friend and someone I used to work out with often.

Our warmup, less than ten years ago, was a burpee ladder down from ten.

Meaning, I would do ten burpees then rest while he did his ten. Right as he was finishing his tenth, I’d begin a set of nine while he rested. Then eight. Then seven. All the way down to one. On some days, we’d ladder back up to ten after we got to one.

That’s right. We’d do 110 burpees, as fast as we could, as the warmup for our workout.

After dinner, I asked him if he could do that right now. He said, “No.”

He then asked me, and I said, “No.”

We didn’t talk about that afterward, but I know he was just as pissed off as me to have to admit that about ourselves.

It’s early April as I’m writing this. By my next The Driven installment, I’ll share my mid-April to the end of the year goal. Not because I want to. Because I need to. I hope you’ll join me in whatever you can. Because leaving potential on the table doesn’t work for me. I know it doesn’t work for you either.