I read a quote the other day by Nido Quebin, “Success comes to most truly successful people as a series of little successes, rather than as one big break”. And then I remembered a video I watched by Brian Tracy (watch it here), who asks if we could improve our productivity of tomorrow by .001% from that of today. The answer is: of course we can, because .001% is such a small increment. And if we improve .001% every day, in one year we will be 26% more productive than we were when we started. This is called the law of incremental improvement.

Using both these examples, and since I had recently started working out, I wondered if I could demonstrate this with an exercise, specifically: push-ups. I thought, certainly I can do one more tomorrow that I did today, and the day after should that be no different. And what if I did this everyday? Starting at 25, in two months I’d be at 75! Not many people can do 75 pushups without breaking the stance and resting, but what if it’s as easy to achieve as adding one a day? If people saw this work, maybe they’d try it! So I’m going to try it, and track my progress. I started unintentionally 2 days ago when I did 25 as part of my workout, and when I thought of this idea yesterday I did 26. Today I already did my 27 Just to clarify, when doing the push-ups, I will allow myself to stop and hold the position at the top with arms locked out and back straight, but will not allow myself to break the stance or rest my body on the ground. Also, some days I will intentionally skip to rest. I’m excited!

*I will keep track of 2 numbers. The first one is the number I can do continuously without having to hold myself at the top of the stance. The second one is the total number, which should be one more than the day before.

*Starting on 8/10, after the last push-up I hold the top of the stance as long as I can.

8/5/11 25/25     8/6/11 25/26     8/7/11 25/27     8/8/11 28/28     8/9/11 Rest     8/10/11 25/29     8/11/11 26/30     8/12/11 29/31     8/13/11 32/32     8/14/11 33/33     8/15/11 29/34     8/16/11 Rest     8/17/11 35/35     8/18/11 36/36     8/19/11 34/37     8/20/11 38/38     8/21/11 39/39     8/22/11 35/40     8/23/11 Rest     8/24/11 34/41     8/25/11 39/42     8/26/11 43/43     8/27/11 44/44     8/28/11 45/45     8/29/11 34/46     8/30/11 40/47     8/31/11 Rest     9/1/11 47/48     9/2/11 49/49     9/3/11 44/50     9/4/11 51/51     9/5/11 48/52     9/6/11 42/53     9/7/11 Rest     9/8/11 39/54     9/9/11 48/55     9/10/11 51/56     9/11/11 47/57     9/12/11 48/58     9/13/11 46/59     9/14/11 47/60     9/15/11 Rest     9/16/11 51/61     9/17/11 47/62     9/18/11 48/63     9/19/11 46/64     9/20/11 47/65     9/21/11 48/66     9/22/11 49/67     9/23/11 48/68     9/24/11 Rest     9/25/11 49/69     9/26/11 47/70     9/27/11 52/71     9/28/11 52/72     9/29/11 53/73     9/30/11 49/74     10/1/11 Rest     10/2/11 41/75     10/3/11 45/76     10/4/11 49/77     10/5/11 43/78     10/6/11 51/79     10/7/11 46/80     10/8/11 Rest     10/9/11 45/81     10/10/11 45/82     10/11/11 46/83     10/12/11 44/84     10/13/11 48/85     10/14/11 49/86     10/15/11 Rest     10/16/11 50/87     10/17/11 48/88     10/18/11 49/89     10/19/11 53/90     10/20/11 51/91     10/21/11 Rest     10/22/11 48/92     10/23/11 49/93     10/24/11 48/94     10/25/11 51/95     10/26/11 52/96     10/27/11 52/97     10/28/11 Rest     10/29/11 53/98     10/30/11 53/99     10/31/11 50/99     11/1/11 Rest     11/2/11 50/117

I’m done!! I was supposed to finish on the 31st, but miscounted and only did 99, so I took a day off and then did it again.  Since it was the last day, I figured I’d go until muscle failure, which came at 117 push-ups! Video below!