Working those muscles

I have a friend who runs a business/FB page as a fitness instructor for mothers with small kids. Recently she posted a 5-minute workout challenge: One minute of push-ups followed by one minute of squats, repeating the cycle and dropping 15 seconds each time. She had a picture of herself to go with it, doing a push-up from her toes and looking like the ripped athlete that she is. Ordinarily I'd look at something like that and say "Great idea for Other People who measure up to Standards Like Hers, too hard for me", and move right on. But something niggled at me long enough to think it was worth a go. I knew I'd have to do the push-ups from my knees; I struggle to even hold my own weight from my toes with my arms locked, but I figured, meh. You don't have to be great to start, but you do have to start to be great, or something like that, right?

So I did it. It turned out to be more like a 15-minute workout once I factored in all the pauses for huffing and puffing and trying hard not to die, but I did it. My muscles all turned to jelly straight away, and I knew I wasn't going to be able to move the following day. (Indeed I could hardly move by that evening.) I was so wiped out by the end of the workout that I could literally feel my blood sugar crashing and needed an energy boost immediately. So I drank a 330mL bottle of soft drink, something we  just happened to have in the fridge that day. (Really.)

Epic fail? Not at all. I laughed at myself and chose not to feel guilty. And when I was finally ready to try the exercise again five days later, it was easier and I didn't experience any muscle soreness later. (This time I got smart and did some warm-up and cool-down stretches.) I didn't improve my results in terms of numbers, but the couple of times I've done the exercise since then I've not experienced anywhere near the same muscle soreness. That's improvement in my books! I feel surprisingly motivated by this; whereas in the past I'd just be discouraged by how far I've got to go to reach that level (whatever that level actually is, who knows?) and not even bother to try, now I feel as though progress is possible and that's all that matters. Maybe one day I'll even manage to do a push-up from my toes! :D