100 Push-ups Challenge from an Engineer’s Perpective

Back in February 2020, I did 100 push-ups every day for 30 days. Being a software engineer myself, I’d like to demonstrate this challenge as an experiment. I didn’t get to write about my experience until now. So here we are. I will present the data first, then interpret the results.

Prelude

After years of a sedentary lifestyle, I started exercising in May 2017. During the first few months I ran regularly, 3–4 times a week. Then in December 2017, I started working out as well. Therefore when conducting this experiment I was already in good shape after 2.5 years of exercising.

Treptower Park, Berlin, Germany.

Experiment setup

I split 100 push-ups into multiple sets. Between each set I rested for 2 minutes. Within each set I did as many push-ups as I could until failure. In the last set that I reached 100, I did not stop but still continued until failure. Therefore I usually did 3 or 4 more than 100 push-ups daily. Here is a sample day:

Set 1: 30 push-ups
2 min rest
Set 2: 22 push-ups
2 min rest
Set 3: 16 push-ups
2 min rest
Set 4: 12 push-ups
2 min rest
Set 5: 11 push-ups
2 min rest
Set 6: 10 push-ups
Total: 101 push-ups