I am doing 50 pushups a day for August 2023. My goal is to do 50 pushups every day for the month of August 2023. My stretch goal is to do 50 quality pushups in a single set. Today I did two higher-quality sets of 25 pushups, for only 50 quality pushups in total! I think this is the best approach overall to do an actual set of 50 by the end of August.
I did a 5-minute breath work session between the two sets, which is available to view after the two sets of pushups. In this video, I do the basic 4-count in, 4-count hold, and 4-count exhale. Then when that feels comfortable I up it to 8-counts for all three. Normally I would do a 4 or 8-count hold after the exhale but having just done pushups and preparing to do more pushups I do not tend to hold on the exhale.
I have a new process where I publish my video to YoutTube.com and then wait for that amazing platform to generate a transcript. Then I copy that transcript, run it through another amazing platform called Grammarly, respell my name from Calmer or Cohlmer to Kolmer, and then paste the transcript to my blog post. (Wouldn’t it be cool if my last name was “Calmer”. Not sure I could live up to that…) You can toggle the transcript on this video or read below while the video plays, or just read below because that is probably the fastest.
Please help me reach my goal
I’m Doing more than 1,550 Pushups for St. Jude – Please donate to my fundraiser!
https://www.facebook.com/donate/1690575421423292/?fundraiser_source=external_url
Video Transcript
Set 1
this is Improvement Dave I’m David Kolmer thanks so much for tuning in you might notice that I have better things to say or I even say them better after the breath work and that might inspire you to give it a shot and it’s not rocket science you sit down you take some deep breaths if you have a thought you say oh I have a thought and then let it go down the river send it off it goes down the stream no serious meditator is going to never have had the thought that I can’t meditate I don’t know what I’m doing there’s a lot of stigma around it right but it’s a lot easier than we think it’s just about taking some deep breaths and being present and if you have the thought you let it go down the flow just don’t hold on to the thought and it’s that action or actually you could say that inaction that empowers you then to accept what’s happening react to it honestly and find a nice calm passive way to work with it I had been cutting back on carbs and then when I started these push-ups I added the carbs back in so I’ve been eating sugar and waffles and whatever I want before I do the push-ups and I really haven’t seen much better performance in the push-ups but I have seen some weight gain so I’m going to go back to more of the intermittent fasting not I haven’t eaten anything today except for a coffee I did add some cream into the coffee but that probably didn’t raise my glycemic index very much so I’m not that worried about the cream but if I really want to increase the weight loss I’ll probably cut that cream back out and then for the rest of the day I’m just going to eat fruits and vegetables high protein high fat I obviously will have some sugar some carbs at some point but really going to minimize that whenever possible also the microphone so I have a new microphone I couldn’t really tell the difference I put on my fancy headphones last night and it tasted I mean tasted tasted it when I put the microphone in my mouth it tasted the same the sound actually tastes sounded the sound actually was the same so I took the wind guard off the mic and I’m hoping that’s going to make a difference if it doesn’t I mean maybe I was just really excited um and expected more or maybe the microphone on my phone is just already really good either way I’m going to keep using the mic because it just makes sense I have the mic it plugs in um I should do a simple test to see if it’s actually working I think I’m going to do that on one of these recordings tap the phone and then tap the mic and make sure that it’s working anyway I’m here to do some push-ups so let’s go ahead and do the first 25 push-ups
Here we go, Oh another thing things I did some research on push-ups and I learned that I’m breathing wrong so I’ve been exhaling as I go down and then inhaling as I come up that’s actually backward it was easier for me to kind of say the number was I went down but apparently that’s wrong so I’m going to make an effort to save the number as I raise back up so I’m doing the exhale as I go up also I don’t know if I was doing this wrong but keeping the hands kind of closer to the body so what I’m on day 23 24 and I’m only now researching how to do push-ups laughs
but you know never stop improving right that’s how that’s my thing so I just wanted to share that wait maybe I’ve been doing this wrong okay is that one so breathe in as I go down what I think I have my hands in the right place there
1 2 This is pretty good isn’t it Three [Music]
Four I think it’s kind of like being up here and holding my breath and I could probably still do that [Music] but is that still a full sets
[Music]
[Music] soon
I’m living [Music] it is more difficult for me pretty soon as I go down [Music]
13.14.16.seventeen nineteen twenty 21. 22 23. 34 25.
Wow, so I definitely had some thoughts racing through my head while I was doing that. Honestly, this is where I am today I’m trying to do quality push-ups I definitely started doing much less quality. Right those first couple days weren’t push-ups those were me trying to do push-ups I felt like that was 25 solid push-ups and I had this goal where I wanted to do 50 push-ups in a set and I ran that through the AI when I was riding on my blog and the blog hey I have said well you should maybe share the significance why is doing 50 push-ups so significant to you and I thought about it and then I didn’t really have anything to write… and then it also said share the significance of why you’re doing breath work I had plenty to say around that because it’s obvious. Why do I have this arbitrary goal of doing 50 push-ups in one set when the actual goal is just 50 push-ups a day? Well, it’s I guess it’s more of a long-term goal and maybe I won’t make that by the end of August and that’s fine. What I am going to do is do 50 push-ups a day every day in August. That’s definitely gonna happen unless I have something you know maybe it would be something you know something happens. there’s a word I’m fishing for that I can’t find it less anything significant negatively happens it’s gonna try to say it was a more eloquent way to say that I think I’m gonna hit that goal but if I don’t hit the goal of hitting 50 push-ups every I mean 50 push-ups in a single set but what I would consider quality push-ups that’s okay that was a stretchful so just wanted to share those thoughts it was kind of discombobulated I haven’t eaten yet today and maybe that’s why but I can speak further on that you know I I last month I consistently didn’t eat any sugar in fact I would say this year I have consistently not eaten any raw sugar the past five months I have consistently not eaten any carbohydrates ever and by that I mean processed carbohydrates Bagels Donuts bread cake I wasn’t eating any of that I was only eating broccoli carrots cauliflower brussels sprouts those are my carbohydrates and when I moved over to that obviously it was a lot more fiber there my body had to adjust but I noticed I would get full really quick I just need a handful of broccoli and Brussels sprouts and I’d be good for hours and that led to upping the fat upping the protein to a point where I would only eat one time a day the rest of the day was intermittent fasting and as long as you’re doing a ketogenic diet I found that easy right I should say as long as I was doing for my experience a ketogenic diet that was simple I lost maybe 30 pounds in a couple months and felt really good about myself I feel like I’m using these push-ups maybe as a excuse or a crutch to get back into eating children’s cereal for breakfast and that paid the price right I have headaches I crash every day now I want coffee in the afternoon I’m irritable and I’ve kind of been blaming that back on the 50 push-ups oh I have extra testosterone in my system so I’m an irritable jerk really I mean you were working out before Dave why is it now just no it wasn’t the push-ups it’s not these push-ups it’s me eating junk food again that’s what made me backslide into the afternoon crash right wanting more sugar that’s the problem with sugar it’s not necessarily that sugar is bad for you it really is but once you start eating it you crave it you want more because it’s that short-term burst of energy your insulin just gets jacked up and then all of a sudden you’re hungry again
so more to come on that I think I’m going to start writing more about health benefits because I’ve been doing a lot of research listening to a lot of very smart people on podcasts reading some books and really trying to get a handle on this whole Health thing and I don’t think that there’s any one thing that’s going to solve it for everyone I really don’t believe that ketogenic might not work for everyone I didn’t see really good results with that and I’d like to get back into that so that’s just something that’s on my plate moving forward okay I’m gonna do the breath work now I probably kind of already did it talking to you right now and right next uh right next next up you’re going to see me doing set two of push-ups and then if you want to hang around after that you can watch me do my breath work because what’s more exciting than Improvement day of doing breath work
Set 2
This is Improvement Dave I’m David Kolmer and I’m going to do another 25 push-ups probably just saw set one right I just finished set one I was a little bit hurried a little bit flustered trying tand o figure out my technique and then I did a whole lot of talking after that I did some breath work which you can watch after this video segment and see how I’m trying to get into a better perspective better approach through breath work and meditation
going to continue to use the advice on how to do push-ups better
20 six 27. 40. 43. oh we’re ready nice
[Music]
50 all right that was 50. and I feel like it’s the best quality I’ve ever done so I’m really happy with that not going to say I’m not proud I’m pretty proud right now As I mentioned I waited 23 days to actually research how to do push-ups I’ve been doing them for 23 days now and I’m finally reading up wait maybe I’m doing them wrong and I and I was and that’s fine I was breathing wrong right so yeah breathe in on the way down breathe out on the way up keep your hands kind of close to you I don’t think I had my hands in the wrong spot or my feet I was trying to keep my body as straight as possible but something else I read I found a really good blog or post for boxers they’re like all boxers do push-ups all the time because it’s a really good way to keep your up your up Ear upper body strength going but not really a good way to add extra muscle so I found that to be really interesting I was thinking aren’t these push-ups getting much easier like why don’t I really feel like
your day-to-day they stated that you don’t really gain much muscle from just doing push-ups if you want to do that you got to hit the gym well I kind of stopped hitting the gym when I did this because it was just wearing me out I didn’t feel like I was you know able to do the gym and this so with that in mind I might start doing my my what is it the five four hour body for our body I think that’s it yeah the guy who wrote the the four hour work week he also wrote the four hour body and think of his name right now Dan Harris I just had to ask my subconscious and there it came Dan Harris wrote this book and he has really good calisthenics either way either way I’m gonna get back into that I’m also going to start going back to the gym and we’ll see if I can build up the muscle mass to get back up to 50 quality push-ups I say get back up to to actually be able to do 50 quality push-ups and what I would call a single set all right this is David Comer with Improvement Dave thanks so much I am Improvement Dave and this is David Comer I need to get a rhythm for that don’t I don’t have a plug yet but these are kind of preparation videos if you haven’t noticed right I’m still getting my microphone together I’m still kind of I don’t have a logo really for real but I’m using my old logo from when I was a painter I still paint but not not like I like to and now I’m rambling so if you’d like to stay tuned watch some of the breath work I definitely encourage you to do so thanks so much for watching
don’t wanna leave without having my cup right you need this coffee cup
[Music]
Preparation – Breath Work
All right so taking some time uh five minutes to be specific to intentionally do some breath work in an intentional manner using a lot of meditation verbiage here just to allude to the fact that actually, this is a form of meditation I was running away from that before so I’m trying to embrace that now and just say yeah I meditate
not as much as I’d like and I’m not where I’d like to be on it but that’s I think that’s the whole point It’s like learning how to play golf OR garden an acre of land which I’m pointing to my yard I can show you that in a minute it just never ends there’s always room for improvement you just have to take that first step to what choose to improve yeah that’s a good plug I like that all right here we go
so I do a four-count in I hold for four and then exhale for four and then when that becomes comfortable I raise the count so I can count here with my hands so you kind of know what I’m doing and therefore I don’t have to talk while I’m doing the active breath
all right so that was about five minutes I do like using the microwave as a timer because then when it’s done it just turns off whereas um my laptop just beeps indefinitely I also don’t like the sound of the Google online timer because it’s obnoxious so take that to your algorithm Google I hope you find the transcript that I’m now adding to this blog and notating that a little bit your alarm is very obnoxious so I understand that you probably won’t get anything out of just watching me do my breath work or just viewing some improvement Dave online guy meditating or doing his breath work in between sets of push-ups but what I hope you might get out of it is the idea you might notice that I have better things to say or I even say them better after the breath work and that might inspire you to give it a shot and it’s not rocket science you sit down you take some deep breaths if you have a thought you say oh I have a thought and then let it go down the river send it off it goes down the stream it’s not complicated it is time consuming it does take time right and I think you don’t understand the value of it unless you’ve done it so there’s kind of a catch-22 there and a lot of people think that they’ve tried to do it but then didn’t do it but if you’ve tried to do it you’ve done it
it’s that simple I was listening to a podcast 10 happier Dan Harris I believe I probably got butchered his name I’m really bad with names I’m going to own that and he was interviewing a local Democratic senator who just lost how to how to fail with Grace was the title of the podcast if you want to look it up and something really resonated with me they said well you know I have these thoughts that I’ve tried to meditate and I don’t know how to meditate and the reaction from the other person was well that’s that’s a sign that you meditate no serious meditator is going to never have had the thought that I can’t meditate I don’t know what I’m doing there’s a lot of stigma around it right but it’s a lot easier than we think it’s just about taking some deep breaths and being present and if you have a thought you let it go down the flow just don’t hold on to the thought and it’s that action or actually you could say that inaction that empowers you then to accept what’s happening react to it honestly and find a nice calm passive way to work with it it’s not reactionary it’s not this happened we’re in crisis mode Let’s yell at the kids which happens and I’m not proud of it but if we can find a calm way to approach our life and approach it with gratitude humbleness acceptance then every time we reach a better outcome every time
Okay now this is just a quick test I’m going to tap the phone a little bit [Music] tap the phone on the other side and now I’m going to tap the mic tapping the mic so I just kind of want to test here that the mic is actually working….
I’m Doing more than 1,550 Pushups for St. Jude – Please donate to my fundraiser!
https://www.facebook.com/donate/1690575421423292/?fundraiser_source=external_url
Music by RoyaltyFreeMusic Nver Avetyan from Pixabay Technology Dubstep
Music by John_Kensy_Music from Pixabay Mindfulness Relaxation & Meditation Music
Music by To Hot to Play, Lobo Loco, Free Music Archive (CC)
Improvement Dave 