I'm doing the "hundred".

A couple of years ago, I traded a small freezer to my friend Jeremy for his weight bench. I worked out diligently for a while, and then the bench became a nice place to stack boxes and junk. Until a few weeks ago, I've let that be my excuse for not working out, and put off doing anything until we could clean that back room up and I could finally get back to the weight bench.

Then a few weeks ago, I decided this excuse was just foolishness. I don't need a weight bench to get into better shape, so I started thinking about exercises I can do without paying a gym subscription or devoting half a room to some piece of equipment. I found a bunch of other folks doing the Hundred Push up challenge, so I figured that was a good place to start.

Basically, you see how many push ups you can do in a row (no breaks!), and use that base number to judge your current level of fitness. (I did 13.) Then you do a 6 week program that should get you to 100 push ups. I think the program is actually a little too aggressive, and my goal is not to get to 100 consecutive push ups in 6 weeks. I just want to be able to do 100 total push ups in one sitting, with a few breaks in the middle.

After three weeks, I'm up to 75.

I also took the small dumbbells from the weight bench and added in bicep curls, and stomach crunches. I'm planning on finding a place in the back yard to install a pull up bar as well.

This seems like a good start, and I've definitely noticed the results already!

The best part is when I was doing the push ups in the living room, and Fox comes running in right in the middle of one and lays down underneath me and laughs at me.

So - lesson learned. You don't need an expensive gym membership or fancy equipment to get in shape. I wouldn't call this a full body workout by any means - there's a lot missing from this type of program. But, it's helping me to get back into shape, and that's what I needed.