{"id":195,"date":"2019-06-19T08:48:35","date_gmt":"2019-06-19T08:48:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/robdix.com\/?p=195"},"modified":"2020-04-21T15:27:26","modified_gmt":"2020-04-21T15:27:26","slug":"more-pushups","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/robdix.com\/more-pushups\/","title":{"rendered":"Mental limits, physical limits (Or: How I increased my maximum number of pushups by 33% overnight)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
For the last few months, I’ve been doing 30 pushups every morning. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I didn’t settle on the number 30 for any good reason, except with proper form it should take about a minute. It’s hard to be lazy enough to try wriggling out of doing one minute of exercise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What I found weird, though, is it never got easier. Without fail, the final five would be tough and I’d barely be able to complete the final one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you do something every day, isn’t it supposed to get easier?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then, the other day, I read an article about how being able to do 40 pushups is associated with better cardiac health. This is probably nonsense, but no matter: I decided I’d start working up from 30 to 40, by just doing my absolute best to add an extra one whenever I could.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Today, I did my first set up pushups with the target of 40 in mind…and I achieved all 40 with the same perceived effort as I was previously using for 30<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n How did that happen?<\/p>\n\n\n\n It seems that my previous limit of 30 wasn’t physical at all: it was mental. As soon as I shifted the target in my mind, my body could do it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n