Push-Up Challenge
I'm doing 2000 push-ups in three weeks
Honestly, 2000 push-ups in three weeks didn’t sound like a lot. When I was a teenager push-ups and even sit-ups were easy. I could do a hundred in a row. So when a group of friends signed up to do this month’s global Push-Up Challenge, I thought it was a no-brainer.
I guess I’m getting old, because after 1189 push-ups I’m starting to struggle. I’ve kept up with the daily quotas and even had a surplus going (until today), but it’s a strain on my muscles and in particular my shoulder. It doesn’t help to have my kids climb on top of me every time I try to fit a few more push-ups in during our pre-bedtime dance parties…
How does this relate to anything of importance? Where’s the Franz Kafka quote or the diatribe about American neo-imperialism? What does this have to do with writing? Well, today will be a short one, but…
On the one hand, health and fitness are on my mind. In addition to push-ups, Shelaine and I have been going to F45 four times a week here in Wellington, New Zealand. But on the other hand, I do believe in the old Greco-Roman ideal of the “healthy mind in a healthy body”—that these two aspects of the self are not only interdependent, but inseparable.
William Wordsworth said that poetry is “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings… recollected in tranquillity”. We often think of art as emerging from and requiring human suffering, but it is the tranquility—the mind and thought and reflection that comes after—which transforms the raw material of feelings and memories into the finished good of art.
Fitness often gives me that tranquility. That physical peace from which I can work and make something. It might just give me a few more years too. My dad has stayed extremely fit his whole life, and he has not only staved off illness and injury, but most people underestimate his age by around ten years. When I was 16, people regularly thought we were brothers. And remember: that’s when I could do all those push-ups in one go…
There is no fountain of youth, of course. But we can try to push back against the decay of our minds and bodies. Or, in this case, push up.
The Push-Up Challenge is raising money for mental health through the CMHA. I’m part of a team of people doing the challenge, mostly from Whitehorse, Yukon. If you’re interested, you can learn more and support me and my team.
Next week, if I’m lucky, I’ll hit the 2000 push-up mark. Maybe then I’ll catch my breath and tell you about New Zealand.
Did you enjoy this? What do you want to see more, or less of, in the future? Let me know!
Quote of the Week
“Our bodies are our gardens, to the which our wills are gardeners.”
— Othello by William Shakespeare
Way to go Ben!
Great post and looking forward to NZ deets.
Warren and I have been dedicated to weights and circuits three times a week here and we feel that we have to maintain it at our age!!!