My arm strength is so pathetic a former co-worker actually printed out this picture and hung it at my desk. We may or may not have had a pushup contest (that I lost) in the middle of the office (although I kicked butt in the handstand contest!).
My arm strength has gotten slightly better with all the yoga I’ve been doing…
…no way I could have held a chaturanga in such good form a year ago!
Now if you’ve been reading this blog for awhile you may be thinking, “but wait, I remember Danielle rocked some awesome pushups with the green army dude in the middle of the Disney marathon!”
Like how I snuck this picture onto the blog again?!?
Yup, I managed 5 pushups in the middle of a marathon!
No idea how.
It may have been the adrenaline. Or it may have been that my arms were so glad to have something to do after my legs had been getting all the attention for the past 20 miles. Whatever it was I think that may be the most consecutive pushups I’ve ever done (yeah, it’s that bad).
So, I’ve decided to take matters into my own arms hands and do a pushup challenge I found on Pinterest during the month of August!
To be honest, this plan looks a little aggressive to me (40 pushups by the end of the month, really??!), but whether I make it to 40 or not I’m sure I’ll improve from where I am now (which as of 5 minutes ago is 5 consecutive pushups…barely).
I’ll keep my daily pushup totals in my weekly training logs and hopefully by the end of the month I’ll be able to shed my “T-Rex” nickname!
Has anyone ever challenged themselves to something like this?
If anyone wants to join me in the “No More T-Rex” Challenge let me know!
Live, Run, Grow 
My coaches used to make fun of my upper body strength all the time. I had to challenge myself to meet their physical requirements… it wasn’t easy.
haha that picture is awesome (and totally me). It’s so funny, I was just at the gym doing push-ups and a guy there was trying to tell me that I should do the modified ones instead of the “real ones” because I wasn’t going far enough down. I tried to explain to him (ok school him) that I was doing that on purpose because I was trying to focus on my triceps. When you go all the way down like that, it works your chest more. I don’t think he believed me. Point of this rant? Count me in for the challenge!
Ok, first, I can’t believe someone at the gym had the nerve to tell you that – dude, mind your own business! (Although, as we both know that’s a lot to ask of some New Yorkers…)
And second YEAH! I LOVE that you’re going to try the challenge with me – I immediately thought we HAVE to take a picture of us doing pushups together in California for the end of the challenge! : ) Good Luck, I’m going to go to my whopping 5 pushups now!
Thanks! Good Luck to you too! We DEFINITELY need to take a push-ups picture at the end. If you can do it in the middle of a marathon, this should be a piece of cake for you! 🙂 Although, I admit, I’m already a day behind. I accidentally forgot to do them one day…but I did my 10 yesterday!
Go Danielle!! I am sure with your core strength already so good with yoga, you will rock the pushups in no time. When I first started doing them I couldn’t do even five, but now I can do sets of 20 and I’m talking real pushups too, not the girlie ones, so if I can do it, so can you! Go get ’em tiger! Grooooooooowwwwwwwwllllllll!!!! 😀
Good for you! I’d be thrilled with 20 consecutive eventually!
You got this!
I should try something like this. Pushups seem less intimidating than planks!
I keep meaning to do a plank challenge too…maybe I should just do them at the same time and follow my pushups with a plank everyday, hmmm…
Great idea! My arms have gotten so weak too as I’ve been running more over the years. I used to be able to bang out 25+ push ups in my college rowing days, back when i actually did push ups. Now I can only eke out about 7-8 good ones and 10 bad ones. T-Rex be gone!
That looks like a great challenge. I think Yoga class has given me more arm strength, but not sure how many push ups I am capable of doing!
Hey Dani…
try the following iPhone app called 100 pushups. Pretty good app for building your upper strength. I have been doing it for a while… dad
Thanks, I’ll have to check it out!
Wish you all the luck in the world. I always hated push ups. When I was little my brother would do 50 push ups every day with me on his back. Never could understand it. Again good luck I am so proud of all you have accomplished with your running and yoga & then school too. You go . Also you have Jason running too so cool.
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Someone asked me to carry something heavy, which prompted me to say, “You don’t understand, I’m a runner, I have no upper body strength.” I also can’t do chaturanga but I must conquer my push up fear, though. I will try this challenge.
Yeah! Glad to have you joining, I’d love to hear how it goes!
It’s funny, my husband is always like “you’d be in trouble if someone tried to hit you” and I always say, “I may not be able to throw a punch but I’ll just start kicking!”
Yes, they will feel the full force of a runner’s quads and be sorry!
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