When I was 12 or 13 years old, my uncle, Blaine, offered me a push-up challenge. Had I known what I do now, I might have successfully completed it. Well, maybe not. But who knows?!? Either way, that day in my grandma’s kitchen I didn’t stand a chance.
The challenge, strategy, and result
I have no recollection of what prompted the challenge, but the details were simple enough: He’d give me the crisp $20 bill from his wallet if I could do 100 push-ups in 5 minutes.
To my young mind, five minutes sounded like an eternity. A hundred push-ups also seemed like a lot. But I figured I’d just knock out as many as I could do—certainly more than half(!)—in as little time as possible, rest for a little bit, and then finish the remainder in whatever time was left.
As it turns out, that was a terrible strategy. And probably the one he was expecting me to take.
I don’t remember how many push-ups I actually ended up completing, but I do have a few distinct memories of the experience:
The first is how cool the linoleum floor felt on the palms of my hands as I set up to totally crush his challenge and take his money.
The second is how my arms and chest felt like they were filled with lead for far too long into my first rest period as the precious seconds slipped away.
And the third is of him laughing and gloating (in a loving uncle sort of way) when I didn’t finish anywhere close to the agreed-upon reps as the time expired.
How to actually pass the challenge
What I didn’t understand at the time was that it takes a long time to recover from an effort in which you smoke yourself but a reasonably short time to recover from a brief effort, even if that effort is somewhat intense.
That’s due to the way the body produces energy and replenishes its “fuel tanks”. For a highly-simplified overview, consider the activity of running:
Assuming that you wouldn’t pull a hamstring (if you’re over the age of about 25), you can sprint at top velocity for only about 8–12 seconds. Think: the 100m in track & field. In a prolonged, maximal or near-max effort, that’s where the body’s first energy production system tapers off. It recovers to about two-thirds capacity after roughly 30 seconds of rest but not to full capacity until about 10 minutes later.
After those first 8–12 seconds, you’d slow down but could continue running at a relatively fast pace for another 30 seconds to 2 minutes (with a lot of muscle-burning sensation). Think: the 200m to 800m in track & field. Around 45–60 seconds into very intense effort is where the body’s second energy production system tapers off. It recovers to about two-thirds capacity after 10–30 minutes of rest but not to full capacity until after 30–90 minutes of rest.
Finally, after 1.5–2.5 minutes you’d slow down even more but could continue at that pace or slower for hours to days. Think: 1-mile, 5k, marathons, all-day hikes. This energy production system produces energy very slowly but has virtually unlimited fuel (unless you ran out of body fat stores, a rather improbable scenario for even the leanest of people).
If your eyes glazed over about two and a half paragraphs ago, here’s the main thing to remember: our bodies’ energy production systems—and, subsequently, our general interest and ability to move—recover fairly quickly when we don’t push ourselves to our maximal capacity but recover fairly slowly when we do.
In other words, to pass my uncle’s push-up challenge all those years ago, I’d have been better off doing a set of 5 push-ups every 15 seconds for the entire five minutes than the way I actually went about it.
Putting it into practice
Unless you’re planning to undertake a 100-rep-in-5-minute push-up challenge sometime in the near future, you might think this info isn’t all that practical.
I’d disagree, of course, and offer the following challenge to prove it:
Pick a couple exercises out of your current program each time you go to the gym over the next few weeks. For those exercises, choose a weight that is 10–20% higher than the weight you normally lift.
Instead of doing your normal sets and reps, transpose the numbers. That is, for example, do 10 sets of 3 reps (i.e. 10×3) instead of 3 sets of 10 reps (i.e. 3×10).
Finally, try to complete the reps in the same amount of time as you normally do. For example, if you normally complete 3×10 in 7 minutes (420 seconds), aim to complete the 10×3 in the same time (one set every 42 seconds).
Even with the increased weight, I’ll bet that you’ll be able to complete all the reps within the allotted time. And I’ll also bet that you’ll be pleasantly surprised with the changes your body will experience after a few weeks of doing so.