One Million Pushups!! So What! Lots of people have done One Million Pushups in their lives. In fact, a guy named Paddy Doyle did 1,500,230 in one year! I don't care. I just want to do One Million Pushups before I die.

Here's the original My Story from 2002.

My Story - Updated May 2007

I'm Back !!!!

I had to take some time off from pushups because I hurt my right shoulder. I'm pretty sure I did it doing an exercise called dips. I'm able to do dips with my bodyweight pretty easily, so I started doing them adding weight to my body. The correct way to do this is by using a dip belt where you attach weight to a chain hanging from the belt. I do not own a dip belt and my gym does not have one, so I crossed my legs at my feet and held a dumbbell with my crossed feet. The problem with this is that in order to place the weight at my crossed feet I had to start with my feet on the floor so I had to start my first dip from too low of a position which put a lot of strain on my shoulder. Over time it started hurting more and more. I finally stopped doing dips, but it hurt to do pushups, so I stopped pushups to let it get better.

It's still not 100%, but it's much better, so I'm starting my pushups again. I've continued lifting weights all along. I had some pain during my Bench Press and Military Press, but not as bad as when I dipped and did pushups.

My Story - Updated March 2007

It's been a while since I updated what's going on. I'm still doing the full-body workout (squats, deadlifts, etc.) that I started in January 2007. Something I learned along the way is how important it is to not over do it when working out. I'm focusing on being the best I can be on lifting days to maximize my workouts. And the way to do that is with the proper diet and by allowing the muscles to recover on non-lifting days. As a result, I've cut back on my pushups. I've also cut back on the cardio. The lifting seems to be burning enough calories that cardio is not as necessary as it was while I was losing weight. I still do HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) twice a week, but more for cardiovascular fitness rather than to burn calories.

I'm still pursuing my goal of 1,000,000 pushups, but not so aggressively right now. I'm now doing low repetition sets of pushups, but nothing that challenges me. I do plan on doing a lot of pushups again, but not while I'm in "getting stronger" mode.

My Story - Updated January 2007

Since my initial goal when I started going to the gym in July 2006 was to lose weight, I concentrated mainly on my cardio workouts, but also dabbled with lifting weights. Now that I've lost a bunch of weight (35 pounds now), I find myself getting more serious about the weight lifting. My goal is not to have bulging muscles, but to be strong and lean. And of course, to do a Million Pushups before I die.

For the past 6 months I was just lifting the way I saw everyone else lift, and I had no real plan or goal. Then I figured since I'm doing it anyway, why not try to do it right. So I did some research and decided to start a lifting program that uses what is called "compound exercises", or exercises that use and work the entire body. Examples are squats, deadlifts, standing military press, barbell row, etc. (I also throw in chin-ups and dips to hit the arms too) I'm also keeping track of my workouts and trying to keep to a schedule that should produce results.

I've been doing the compound lifts for a few weeks now and I'm still getting accustom to using the right techniques and building up to challenging weights. It's not like sitting on a machine and just pushing or pulling weight. It's all free weights and pretty heavy weight, so technique is very important for safety and progress. I get a great workout and feel really good when I'm done.

I also changed my cardio workouts. Instead of long steady slow paced workouts, I do shorter workouts with alternating paces of slow and fast. It's called "High Intensity Interval Training" or HIIT. Less time spent and a better workout.

My Story - Updated October 2006

Couple of things to update. First, I have really slacked off for about a year, I know it, and I'm going to do something about it. I have no excuses for he first half of the year. Just lazy. I'd put off doing pushups for a day, then another day. Then do a few, then put them off. Pretty soon I got in the habit of not doing pushups instead of being in the habit of doing pushups. But the second half of this year is a different story...

I joined a gym this summer, about 3 months ago. I'm not going to go into too much detail, but I found a weight loss method that works for me. The method is I'm burning the fat, not starving the fat. As of today, I've lost over 20 pounds [EDIT: Now up to over 30 pounds lost] (I started at 207 when I joined the gym).

I've settled into a routine where I go to the gym everyday. I lift 4 days a week (For the lifters out there, I do a two day push-pull split routine) with 20 minutes of cardio work after each session. The other 3 days I do 45 minutes of cardio, preferably first thing in the morning, before eating anything. I know going everyday seems like a lot, but I'm used to it, so it's not bad. I look forward to every workout because I know I'm burning fat.

The hardest part about the gym, for me, is trying to figure out how to incorporate my pushups into my routine (For weightlifting to be effective, your muscles need to recover on the days following your lifting workouts, so doing a couple hundred pushups on my resting days seemed to not be the right approach). But I recently decided that I'm not going to care about muscle recovery. I'm not trying to be a big muscle guy, I just want to be strong and healthy. [EDIT: I figured out how to include pushups in my weightlifting. I've been supersetting every exercise, except arms, with 15 pushups. I have to do less weight for some exercises, but so far I like it]

One last thing, I did adjust my diet too. Again, without getting into too much detail, I use a philosophy called Volumetrics, which is eating to feel full on fewer calories. And I also try to eat every three hours or so to help keep my metabolism up. Metabolism is the key. In my opinion, if you want to seriously lose weight, metabolism should be your main focus.

I noticed my personal description has changed quite a bit since 2002. I have to believe that this quest of doing a million pushups has something to do with that.

My Story - Sometime in 2002

One Million Pushups!! So What! Lots of people have done One Million Pushups in their lives. In fact, a guy named Paddy Doyle did 1,500,230 in one year! I don't care. I just want to do One Million Pushups before I die.

The big difference between me and most others who have done One Million Pushups is that I am just a normal, out of shape, overweight guy. I'm not an exercise fanatic, but I am goal oriented. When I started, I weighed almost 220 lbs and was very inactive. I'm still overweight and very inactive.....except I do a lot of pushups.

The thought of doing One Million Pushups before I die had crossed my mind many times before I started, but I never took myself seriously. Then all of a sudden the year 2000 was coming. I figured instead of having a New Year's Resolution, I would have a New Millennium Resolution. One Million Pushups Before I Die.

So I started on January 1, 2000. I went into the room my wife and son were in and declared that I was officially starting my One Million Pushups. I did one pushup to ceremoniously start my quest. I was 42 at the time (I'm 50 now by the way) and knew enough about myself to resist the temptation to start too fast and end up hurting myself. So I started real slow, 20 or 30 a day, using reps of 10 or 15, and took days off. To quote the common saying, "It's a marathon, not a sprint." I was underway.

Currently, I usually do anywhere from 100 to 400 pushups a day, and 20 to 40 pushups a set. I also take a day or two off every now and then. I just go with how I feel or if I have the opportunity. At one point, I took almost a whole month off, just due to laziness. But I started feeling bad about going in the wrong direction, so I got going again. Sometimes I take a whole week off, but chunks of time off like that really hurt my average per day. Since I didn't do too many pushups in 2000 and 2001, my average per day is pretty low. But in 2002, I did over 81,000, which is an average of almost 225 a day, so the average per day is slowly raising.

By the way, I do real pushups. Meaning body straight, nose and chest touch the floor on the down, and arms fully extended on the up. The only one I'd be cheating is myself if I didn't do them properly. The official Guinness World Record rule says "The body must remain straight throughout, i.e., no bending at knees or waist. The body must be lowered until at least 90 degree-angle is attained at the elbow. The body must then be raised until the arms are straight. This equals one push-up." Close enough for me.

This web site came about because I wanted a way to track my progress toward my goal. At first, I used a new 2000 calendar that I got for Christmas as my log book. But all I could easily get from the calendar was daily numbers and weekly totals, if I did the math. And I had to keep a running total going. If I wanted to figure out my average per day for example, I had to do the calculation each time I wanted it. After I couldn't find a computer program to do the tracking and calculating I wanted, I decided to make my own program. It's not actually a program, it's a PHP programmed website that uses a MySQL database. Each time a page is called, the database is queried, everything is calculated, and the page displayed. There is also a separate password protected input page.

So here's my website. I started it for my own use, but I thought maybe others might be interested in what I'm doing and would want to periodically check my progress. Welcome and please visit again.

Phil B.