Pushups

[pegkerr]

Mr. Betlach, uncharacteristically, ran out of things to do in the last class Thursday. He glanced at the clock and said, "I have an idea. I want each of you to do one hundred pushups."

We all stared at him, but nobody said, "Surely you jest, sir."

"Pair up. Do push ups until your arms give out. Tag off. When your partner's arms give out, tag out and start again. Keep tagging off until you reach one hundred." He waved a hand airily. "Get started."

Before I started karate, I did from-the-knees pushups, and I had to struggle to get through the twelve or so done with each rep on my weight-lifting tapes. Once I started karate, I switched to toe pushups, out of sheer determination not to look like a wimp, but we generally do only ten pushups during the warmup session.

One hundred pushups? Was he insane?

Well, how many pushups could I do, anyway?

Standing right beside me and ready to pair off with me, wouldn't you know, was Jeba, godly of body and generally silent of speech--partly because, I think, he is a bit shy, and partly because his command of English is perhaps a tad uncertain. Jeba, unlike me, has respectable pecs, and abs that won't quit. Mine couldn't wait to quit, before I even started. "I'll start," I said, smiling through gritted teeth and got down and assumed the position. On the toes. Might as well get the humiliation over with. I lowered myself, and pumped up, blowing out. I always exhale pretty noisily during pushups, and it embarrasses me, but I don't think I could do them without doing so. I fear I don't go down quite far enough, but nobody has ever reprimanded me about it, so I keep doing them that way and feeling guilty.

I finally tagged out at fifteen and got up and watched Jeba as he went down. He lowered himself down all the way and pumped fast. Damn testosterone.

I managed fifteen on the next round, too, but not the next. I got up and watched Jeba and wished he would keep lowering himself up and down like a piston so I wouldn't have to get back down there right away, but no, Jeba was tiring, too.

But he was still way ahead of me. I collapsed at forty-seven and thought, I'm not going to be able to do this. I got up and tagged off and tried stretching out my triceps. When we tagged off again, I realized that it hadn't helped. Not enough.

My last round, I collapsed, and lay there for a minute, and then got back up on my hands and toes, furious. I'm not going to make it to one hundred, but dammit, I'm not quitting, either. I risked a glance over to my left, where two women were paired up. They were quite red in the face. They were doing their pushups faster than me, but then, they were doing them from their knees.

I collapsed again. Jeba, I could see, was expecting me to tag out, but I clenched my jaw and assumed the position again.

I managed five more, up to sixty-five. I screamed as I pushed up the last one, and then my belly hit the floor again. I put my head down on the mat, dazedly, and hoped I wasn't drooling.

"Line up for the end of class," Mr. Betlach called, mercifully, and the torture was over. We bowed out, and I caught Jeba's grin toward me in the mirror.

My triceps are still burning, two whole days later, as well as my abs and obliques. Still . . . sixty-five pushups. I didn't know I had that many in me.

Maybe I'll reach one hundred next time.

Comments

[kijjohnson.livejournal.com]

65? You are a push-up machine! I'm so proud of you.

Last week, I was complaining to someone that I couldn't do backbends. "Which sort of backbend"? he asked. "You know, like this," I said, getting my arms and legs in position and pushing a little, just to show how impossible they were.

...


and I was in a backbend.

[diatryma.livejournal.com]

Wow. I can't do one-- I was chastised back when I was in karate that I should be able to do that by now, 'that' being twenty really fast pushups when I could barely manage holding myself up. It seems like a really good way to pace yourself, like handing off a heavy thing to carry it a thousand miles. I like hearing about you and karate.

[callunav.livejournal.com]

You have, it seems to me, the perfet martial arts mind, in that story. I don't know if I'll succeed or not, but I'll damn well go down trying. The 65 push-ups is fabulous. That you did them hands-and-toes is overwhelming. That you just kept going is what's important. Not to the point of self-injury. Not to any destructive degree. Just keeping on.

If you set a goal - or have one set for you - and reach it, you've learned that you can achieve a fixed goal. If you simply keep working as long and far as you can, whether or not you'll ever reach the goal, then you've learned that you can persevere, no matter how success is defined. Both are good, but I know which one I think is the more important experience.

(And I have to say it: you do /know/, right, that push-ups from that position are significantly more difficult for women than for men? There are some differences, I believe, in how the shoulder is constructed, but mostly it has to do with the different location of your center of balance. And if you've never seen the chair test* in action to demonstrate this physiological difference, I recommend it highly - especially with young men in your dojo.)



* Chair test. Put a standard upright chair - it can be quite light - with the back to a wall. The person performing the test stands in front of it, and leans over until the top of his or her head is resting against the wall. He or she should then reach straight down to grip the chair by the seat, and attempt to lift it. Women, whose center of gravity/balance is generally in their lower belly, will mostly not understand the point of this easy exercise. Men, whose center of balance is generally in the chest, will mostly be completely unable to lift the chair. This makes a good party game, and can also be used in dojos where 20-year-old men are getting a little carried away in their enjoyment of the gifts which nature hath bestowed.

[darius.livejournal.com]

That's an interesting point about the different centers of gravity -- shouldn't that mean pushups take less work for women, though, with the center of gravity closer to the fulcrum at the toes? (I'm not questioning the difficulty, I just don't understand your explanation of why.)

I'll have to try out that chair exercise -- sounds like the man ends up trying to support the chair with his head instead of his feet.

[callunav.livejournal.com]

Well, I didn't really explain why, so your not understanding is quite reasonable. All done with mirrors and a lot of hand-waving. :)

I wasn't given an explanation about the push-ups, it was just one of those bits of sourceless knowledge that get handed around; I'd suspect it of being folklore, except that A: the people I got this from really were very knowledgeable (as in, say, my Sensei), and B: the evidence seems to bear it out.

So, I speculate: If men's center of gravity really is in their chests, then in doing pushups, it's very close to being directly over their arms. That means that the pushing motion goes directly (or almost directly) into the heaviest part of the load. If women's center of gravity is further away, then she has to keep her entire torso and hips absolutely rigid, under strain, in order for the pushing motion over here to raise a weight over there. So my guess is that the sense of women having less strength in their arms to do push-ups with comes from the differences in the skeleto-muscular configuration right there in the shoulder and upper arms - triceps, in particular, I would think - or may be a matter of custom rather than physiology. But the center of gravity business means that women have to do a lot more work with their abs, lats, back, and hips in order to achieve the same effects in that particular exercise.

(Also, I think, the necessity of keeping part of the body very rigid probably hinders the free movement of the arms. One can learn isolation of muscle groups, but it doesn't come naturally - if you try to tense your upper arm but leave your lower arm loose, for instance, unless you've done some very specific kinds of training or are just wicked gifted, you'll probably have a hard time of it. And as anyone who's done martial arts (and probably most other athletic activities) knows, you can't move effectively and powerfully with a muscle that you're keeping tight. That's why, for instance, when you punch, your arm needs to be fluid for the movement, and tighten at the last moment when you make contact. So if women are having to keep a great deal of their musculature locked, it's probably making it much more difficult to use their arms to best advantage.)

What do you think? Make any sense?

[darius.livejournal.com]

Yes, that fits together -- I was thinking "hm, lower center of gravity does mean more stress on the back", but didn't appreciate how that could affect the arm motion. Thanks.

I never do pushups anymore since they always eventually aggravate an elbow tendon or ligament or something I injured in a fall. It's a shame since it seems like a really effective exercise needing no equipment at all.

[nahkasiipi.livejournal.com]

Wow, that is a really respectable number of pushups! :)

[vass]

That is so impressive! Go you!

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

You didn't quit. That's probably what your instructor was after.

[aome.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure I could do any not-from-knees pushups anymore. *weeps for lost muscle tone* My best feature these days is my arms, from hauling children around. :P Congrats to you!

[http://users.livejournal.com/_lindsay_/]

that is an awesome accomplishment, peg. Aren't things like this why you're doing karate in the first place? That's such a sense of ability and the miraculousness of our bodies. So many many kudos!

[wildflower150.livejournal.com]

Way to GO!!!! That is awesome! I bet Jeba was thinking that you were suprisingly strong!

[kokopoko.livejournal.com]

You go girl!