Tag Archives: fitness

Pushup update

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The goal was 3,000 pushups in February. My buddy Dave and I decided we’d do 120 a day over 25 of the month’s 28 days. However, when we were 15 days in and hadn’t missed a day, I upped the ante and said let’s do 3,500. Only a couple days later I missed my 120-a-day goal, and then missed it again the next 2 days as well. So I made up the deficit all in one day by doing 9 sets of 30.

Here is the final tally:

  1. 25+25+25+25+20 = 120
  2. 30+30+30+20+10 = 120
  3. 30+30+30+15+15 = 120
  4. 4*30 = 120
  5. 4*30 = 120
  6. 20+25+25+25+25 = 120
  7. 3*40 = 120
  8. 3*40 = 120
  9. 20+20+20+30+30 = 120
  10. 50+35+35 = 120
  11. 20+50+25+25 = 120
  12. 40+40+20+20 = 120
  13. 4*30 = 120
  14. 50+20+50 = 120
  15. 3*40 = 120
  16. 3*40 = 120
  17. 2*30 = 60
  18. 3*30 = 90
  19. 2*30 = 60
  20. 9*30 = 270
  21. 40+30+25+25 = 120
  22. 2*60 = 120
  23. 3*40 = 120
  24. 3*40 = 120
  25. 6*30 = 180
  26. 5*30 = 150
  27. 5*30 = 150
  28. 35+3*25+30 = 140

3,500 pushups in 28 days.

My goal this morning was to do 4 sets of 35 to get my last 140 done. (Since 28*120 is only 3,360, I had a few more than 120 to do the last few days). However, I did the first 35 in the gym after doing my warmup and stretching, then Dave and I did a heavy chest workout. I hit a PB (personal best) on bench press. Then we did heavy incline press, and finished with a superset of chest fly machine and push-ups, and the 3 sets of 25 that I did today were easily the hardest sets I did for the entire month. The last 30 were easy again, I only just did them with a nice long break after my workout.

It’s great to have small goals like this in addition to regular workouts. This is especially rewarding when I’ve had to put training for ‘Everesting the Crunch’ on hold due to sciatica pain in my leg. I’m doing my physio, taking painkillers, and following up with doctor visits, but standing for more than 3 minutes triggers the pain, and it’s hard to go through a day not standing. That said, pushups don’t require standing and so they have been a great goal, fully achieved with no pain.

I’m not sure what our next small goal will be, but if I don’t come up with one, I know my buddy Dave will.

More health data tracking

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A while ago my wife bought a Hume scale. You pull a handle with sensors up from the base, stand on the scale while holding the handle, and it gives health data far beyond what a simple weight scale does. That said, I’ve questioned the accuracy, and it definitely took some time to adjust, or should I say acclimate, to what it was reading about me.

The thing that really didn’t seem right at first was the heart rate, now with my Garmin watch to compare, I think it is about a heartbeat or two per minute above accurate, but that isn’t a drastic difference. The other thing I wasn’t sure about was body fat percentage, but I just did a scan at my gym that tends to be more accurate and it was pretty close there too.

One stat that all 3 sensors, the Hume, my watch, and this gym scale, all tell me seems to be accurate but the information is useless, and that’s BMI – Body Mass Index. The stats shared with me are 25.3, 26.0, and 25.2 BMI respectively and the Hume app says,

“25.3

High

A ratio of weight to height squared, widely used as a general health screening tool. It is generally regarded as an outdated measurement for health as it does not differentiate between muscle and fat. We have included it here for users which find it useful.

ⓘ Your rating is scored against medical and scientific benchmarks established for people your same age, sex at birth and height.”

And my watch bluntly says,

“Average BMI 26.0

Reducing your BMI to 21.9 can help lower your Fitness Age.

To help achieve this goal:

• Focus on both diet and exercise.

Cutting calories has been shown to be most effective for weight loss, but both regular exercise and calorie maintenance are important for keeping the weight off.”

However, further down in the description of BMI my watch also says,

“Keep in mind that BMI may not be a useful metric for everyone. Highly trained and muscular athletes, for example, may report high BMI numbers even though they are very fit.”

I don’t know if I’d call myself a ‘highly trained and muscular athlete’, but when my Hume app tells me that my body fat percentage is 14.8% and the fancy gym scale says it’s 14.6%, I’m definitely not cutting calories and trying to keep weight off… in fact I’m hoping to gain another 8-10 pounds this year.

All that said, I’ve learned that BMI is not a measure I plan on concerning myself with. And while it’s flattering to have such a low body fat percentage, I wouldn’t mind if that went up a bit while I focused on gaining more muscle. And so it’s good to have data to track but I’m not fixated on the numbers as much as the trends I’m seeing, as these numbers fluctuate.

I’ve learned that my diet does affect my weight and when I’m active I need to maintain my calories and especially my protein. I’ve learned that sleep affects my ‘health score’ and that sleep really is important for my strength, recovery, and overall health. And finally, as mentioned, trends matter more than concerning myself with daily numbers.

I’ve enjoyed tracking these and more data points on my Hume scale and Garmin watch, I do wish theses apps spoke to each other and shared data, but both put product loyalty (buy our watch AND our scale) over customer convenience. What I like is that I can see how my stats are trending, and while I do pay some attention to the numbers regularly, I’m not preoccupied or worried about them… which I think is healthy.

3,000 pushup February

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My buddy Dave and I have done the February 2,000 push up challenge for a couple years now and this year I suggested bumping it up. The actual challenge is 2,000 push in 20 days, but we were doing it over the full month. Last year I did 75-80 push ups daily in sets, sometimes just doing 4 sets of 20 or 3 sets of 25, sometimes less sets with more reps… With rest days.

This year I plan to do 120 a day. I only need to do that 25 days to hit 3k, so I’ve got 3 rest days if I need them. Yesterday I did 4 sets of 25 and one set of 20. Today I plan to do 4 sets of 30. This isn’t hard, it’s a fun challenge, and my buddy and I keep each other motivated to do them. Having small, fun goals like this keeps me focused, and gives me small incremental goals to do a few more per set as the month progresses.

I think challenges like this are great. Even if you struggle to do 5 pushups, you can spread sets out throughout the day and shoot for 1,000 pushups in the month. That would be 7-8 sets of 5 in a day, but the thing is that within a week your new maximum will be close to 10 and you’ll need less than 4 sets a day at that point. In fact, if you struggle with pushups, you’ll see more gains than someone who already does them easily.

It’s a fun challenge, find an accountability partner or just track your progress quietly… either way, go for it. You’ll love the gains and have nothing to lose.

Cardio time

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Last year I wanted to do one Max VO2 training session a week, but I really did it only every 2-3 weeks. This year I’m committed. My activity of choice right now is 8 one-minute sprint intervals. My interval timer is actually set to 1:15 high intensity followed by 1:10 low intensity. The reason for the additional time is that it takes about 13 seconds to get the treadmill from my low intensity walk, at a 3.4 pace, to my high intensity pace starting at 8.6 and progressing to 9.4 on the final one (I skip 8.7 for those that are math inclined).

I thought I’d share the stats from my watch for the last 3 runs, and then I can see how I compare closer to the end of the year.

January 11, 2025

January 14, 2025

January 20, 2025

I’m actually not trending well, with my average and overall heart rate going up, but fluctuations are to be expected and that’s why I decided to share the last 3. There are two big challenges ahead. The one I have control over is dedicating to doing this at least once a week. The one I have less control over is seeing how quickly I can get my heart rate to recover and if I can decrease my overall peak heart rate doing the same activity… this challenge should be achieved just from the commitment to do this weekly.

Time will tell, and the data doesn’t lie.

Leg day

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One of my health goals this year is to increase the size of my legs, specifically my quadriceps. I think that for their size, they are pretty strong, but that’s relative because they are pretty skinny.

Proportionally I look like a guy who chooses to skip leg day. That’s not fully true, I work my legs almost daily, but that’s usually a weighted walk on the treadmill, or once-a-week sprints, and of course, mentioned many times here, the Coquitlam Crunch walks weekly.

Basically, I exercise my legs more than any other part of my body… but almost always walking, and for cardio rather than explicitly to strengthen and grow them. If I look back at last year, I’d guess I did about 40 or so leg days, barely over once a week for only 75% of the weeks in 2025. Then to start this year, I did legs on the 1st, then today, on the 11th.

My goal, which I will be tracking, is to get at least 78 dedicated leg days in this year. That’s an average of 1.5 times per week. This is harder that it would seem because I need at least 2 days rest after a leg day before my training to Everest the Crunch, because climbing the Crunch progressively more times to train is by no means fun after a leg day.

One thing I hate about leg day is that I find of all my body parts legs hurt the most for the next two day. That means over 150 days this year that I’m going to feel sore legs. Yuk. But if I’m going to gain another 10 pounds, another goal I have for the year, most of it will need to be on my legs. I’m not going to get much bulkier in my upper body, so legs are the place I have the most potential to grow.

So there it is, I’ve put my goals out into the universe, now I’ve got to make them real. Leg day #2 done for the year… I’ll link back here at the end of December.

Healthy Living Goals – 2025 Reflection

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It’s that time of year again where I go to my big tracking calendar and add up my totals for the year.

Once again I was very consistent with my workouts and meditation, and I’ve yet again maintained my daily writing for another year. I’ll break a few things down as I reflect on the year.

Workouts: After taking a look at my 2024 calendar, I realize that I haven’t missed 2 days in a row in over 2 years. This year I was a little less strict in my definition of a workout, sometimes only doing 15 minutes of cardio, and sometimes not doing both weights and cardio, but still committing to a workout 326/365 days in 2025.

In my 2024 post I said regarding one of two goals, “Gain 7-8 pounds of muscle… Now I fluctuate around 167-169 pounds and would like to bring that to 175 pounds.”

For the last couple weeks I’ve been bouncing around 173-175 but I hit 178 a couple months ago and I’ll get back there after the holiday break. So, I totally achieved this goal, and couldn’t be happier. For 2026 I hope to be in the 183-185 range. I think this is a huge challenge, my body seems to like the 174-176 range and I’ll have to work more on a consistent diet rather than just focusing on weights and training.

Meditation: This is something I need to improve. While statistically I did well with frequency of meditations, about 85-90% of these were done when walking on my treadmill. Although I listened to a guided meditation, I was almost always distracted and allowed my monkey brain to wander instead of truly meditating.

I’m actually not going to try to change this at all in the next 6 months, but once I retire I’ll attempt to meditate for longer, and be more dedicated to meditation. This will include a more formal setup and a setting other than on the treadmill. For now I’ll stick with the status quo.

Daily-Ink: I’ll continue to write every single day for 2026. This started in July 2019, and I have no plans to change this in the short term.

Creativity: This was a failed goal but I’m still happy to track it. I wanted this to increase, but it decreased. Essentially, the only thing I tracked this year was meetings with my uncle where we discuss our Book of Codes project and just as importantly, life, the universe, and everything. Again, I’ll have new goals after retirement, but for now I’m in maintenance mode and just want to keep going as-is.

So, my main goals this year are calorie tracking and building muscle mass. I only want to get to 185lbs, this isn’t a plan to keep gaining weight after that. I actually like the weight I’m at right now, but at 58 with a not-so-great back, I realize that I’m one injury away from having to take a few months off and potentially dropping 8-10 pounds. Hopefully such an incident is a couple decades away, but even if it’s only 5 years away I’m keenly aware that I will have a much harder time regaining weight in my older years. So if I can sit at 185lbs as my normal weight, I know that I likely won’t drop below 175… which again is a weight I’m quite happy to be at.

185lbs by the end of 2026 is my goal, and to get there I will focus on hypertrophy in the gym and a higher protein and calorie intake than I have normally consumed.

Fitness, meditation, and writing are things I no longer need to track to ensure that I’m on track. For this reason, I think I might be retiring my large calendar and stickers. I recently got a Garmin watch with Lifestyle Tracking and I’ll still record these daily, but it’s time to put an end to the calendar. It has served me well but having joined a gym, I no longer go to my basement every day and tracking this month has been less diligent since I could go a full week without adding stickers. That said, if you are starting a new goal, I can’t recommend this strategy enough.

2026 is going to be a great year of continued progress… Gradual at first, but picking up speed after my mid-year retirement.

Tracking training

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I’ve got to say that I love my new watch, the Garmin Venu 4. I’ve been very interested in tracking my training, but have only been tracking my number of training days until getting the watch. Now I get to see what my speed and heart rate are during my workouts, among other things.

I try to do most of my workouts in Zone 2, but my watch says I’m actually in Zone 3. My next bit of research is determining if I’m going harder than I should or if I am just in good condition for my age. More data needed before I decide.

Today was my second time with my watch on an interval run. I do a warm up walk then 8 intervals, high intensity for 1:15 and low intensity for 1:10 eight times, then a cool down walk. The high intensity is really just for a minute and about 3 seconds because it takes 12 seconds to get the treadmill from 3.4 at low intensity to a range between 8.6 to 9.4 for my progressively faster high intensity intervals.

What’s really awesome is getting the data about my workouts from my watch. Here is just some of the data:

This is just my second data point for intervals so I’m creating a baseline from which I can hopefully see progress. Until now my only data has been how tired I feel. Now I can dig a lot deeper and actually see gains. I can also make sure that I’m training at the right pace. High intensity intervals aren’t exactly fun. Collecting data on them and getting results to compare over time will make them just a little bit more enjoyable.

Completely unaware

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I recently joined a gym and got a few sessions with a trainer. It’s interesting being taught by a guy younger than my daughters, although I have to say he has an impressive amount of knowledge. The first time I met with him he asked me to track my food, and suggested the app MyFitnessPal, which I dutifully downloaded that night and started using it.

I know how important food is in taking care of myself. I saw the impact of supplementing my protein with a morning shake and paying attention to how much protein I take in. The results have been impressive. And yet I have been blissfully unaware of both the nutritional value and portion sizes of my meals until I had to track what I ate in an app.

I had no idea what 2 cups of pasta looked like on a plate? Not a clue what 2oz of pistachios looks like? Not a hint what the calorie or protein amount is in a Booster Juice Açai Avalanche Smoothie?

I was clueless.

Today I finally figured out how to connect my new Garmin watch data to MyFitnessPal. I had some issues with signing into both accounts to get them to speak. And now that I’ve figured it out I can identify if my calorie expenditure is more or less than what I’m burning. Again, something I know very little about.

So I’m actively doing something about my cluelessness, and hopefully heading in an even healthier direction. I have already been on a good path… yet I still have a lot to learn, and I think diet and tracking of my food has been the missing ingredient in my health journey.

Light but right

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I just joined a gym and they had a great promotion on 5 sessions with a personal trainer, so I took advantage of the deal. Today I met my trainer, but not until after I’d already done the Coquitlam Crunch (3x up, once down – 9 kilometres with 3/4 of the time going up hill).

So I wasn’t exactly fresh and ready, but I was excited to get started.

My trainer asked what I wanted to work on. I definitely didn’t want to do legs after the crunch, and my buddy and I did a hard chest and back workout yesterday, so I chose shoulders. He had me doing some exercises with 2.5lb weights, and some face pulls that I’d normally do with 60 or 80lbs, but he had me working with 20lbs doing a technique I’d never tried before.

Here’s the thing, I definitely got a good shoulder workout in. I don’t need to go heavy, I just needed to focus on technique and to work my muscles in a way that I’m really not used to. It was hard to get a full set in with these light weights and both my form and technique definitely faltered as I progressed.

It’s a nice, humbling reminder that it’s better to go light, and do it right, than it is to slap more weight on and have crappy technique. I’d say, ‘lesson learned’, but I know that’s actually just an observation rather than a shift in practice. It’s going to take a few more sessions for me to really understand how to push my body properly with lighter weight rather than muscling through workouts sloppily, with heavier weights.

To be ever better you better never…

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In his book Atomic Habits, James Clear shares the idea of getting 1% better. What’s fascinating about this is that the evidence of improvement is not something you see early on.

Going to the gym 6 days a week for 2 weeks will not have your muscles bulging out of your previously loose shirt, but 2 years later you might need a new wardrobe. Reading just 10 minutes a day doesn’t make you an avid reader in 2 weeks, but 2 years later you’ve read a couple dozen books.

The idea of working to be just 1% better is fantastic, and it has some great long term benefits, with no downside. However, there is one thing to consider and that is avoiding pitfalls that set you backwards. The simple example is that you are making great progress in the gym then you push too hard and get an injury. Now it takes months of rehab before you can get back to where you were before the injury. That’s a lot of days not getting 1% better. Sometimes these injuries are from pushing too hard, sometimes it’s from a simple movement that your body wasn’t expecting. These are understandable, and not always avoidable.

On the other hand, sometimes these injuries fall in the ‘you better never’ category, fully avoidable and preventable.

You better never pick up a football and throw it to almost your maximum distance without warming up with a dozen or so short passes first.

You better never challenge someone half your age to a race and go from zero to full speed in 12 seconds.

You better never do that Instagram challenge where you contort your body and try to pick something up off the floor with your teeth.

Essentially, you better never do dumb shit that your body used to do easily when you were half your age, letting your ego get ahead of your current abilities.

On a journey to be ever better, you better never choose to do something where 10 seconds of misguided effort sets you back months of consistent progress.