My muscles felt mildly achy most of the week (maybe my immune system is fighting something, I don’t know) so while I did maintain, I didn’t break any new ground.
I have been thinking about the relationship between my physical strength and mental strength. In the beginning, four pushups were the max of my muscles’ ability, there was no going beyond that, I would simply collapse. Mentally it was not a challenge though, I was able to make myself go to the point of exhaustion every time.
Today I did a set of thirty pushups and it was almost the opposite. When I had completed thirty pushups, enough to maintain last week’s numbers, my brain stopped me, “Alright, you did what you needed to do, you weren’t feeling 100% this week anyway, just be happy that you reached thirty.” So I let my knees hit the floor and that set was over.
But the funny thing I had not done my best, speaking from a physical standpoint. My muscles were capable of more. I could have pushed on. I hadn’t reached my collapsing point. I have realized that the number of pushups I accomplished the week before is a double-edged sword.
On one hand it is good because it challenges me to maintain or go slightly above the previous week’s number.
But on the other hand? It gives my brain a stopping point that my muscles may be able to go beyond.
So my goal for this week is to ignore the numbers and just go all out.
The next time i am at the gym I am going to see how many consecutive pushups I can do. I suspect it will be nowhere near 30. Well done.
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Well, I am hoping you can do more then thirty because that will make me work super hard to beat you 🙂
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I’ll let you know. I think it may take work on my part.
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I can do 30 😉 But I understand your mental/physical issue, I have the same and I wonder if I could avoid counting and record the effort by some other means (video perhaps) and compare the difference, or maybe look at the clock before and after, since one can do slower or quicker push-ups. I like to reach my physical limit, stretch out for a couple of seconds and then put in another 5.
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Videotaping is a really good idea, I might put that suggestion to use this week.
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