Today I read an interview with Timothy Ferriss on Mixergy about his new book, “The Four-Hour Body”. He makes some pretty amazing claims, and the title is certainly misleading – just reading his 500-page book will take you longer than four hours, but you can always get a few useful tips from Mr. Ferriss.
This time, two important factors stood out to me – measurement and accountability. Timothy tells a story about the CEO of Evernote who lost weight just by rigorously charting his weight every morning. He didn’t have a particular diet or workout plan, but the reminder every morning helped him make small healthy choices throughout the day, and eventually he reached his target weight. Mr. Ferriss also talks about the founder of Icanteachyoutoberich.com who gained muscle by publishing his weight and letting his friends make fun of him if he didn’t reach his goal for the week. This way, he forced himself to keep working at it.
So, I’ve decided to try this out for myself. I have a goal for next year of being able to do 100 chin-to-the-floor pushups without pausing. Of course, I won’t work on just chest strength, but it’s a decent proxy for working out in general, so hopefully my overall fitness level will increase as well.
Every Monday morning, I will do a test and see how many pushups I can complete without pausing, starting today. Anyone is welcome to follow along and mercilessly mock me if I miss a week or if my number goes down. The page you can use to track my progress is hosted on Google Docs here: http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=0AmKLuIku784vdEY3VnlRaUVIQ3FPVEh6d0dFNFhSYXc&hl=en&single=true&gid=0&output=html Bookmark it!
Please write a comment to let me if know you plan to track my progress and hold me responsible. Thanks!
December 21, 2010 at 10:33 am
Try this: http://hundredpushups.com/. It totally rocked my world. :>) Seriously, you can hit your goal a month and a half into the new year, before the motivation wears off.
-Marshall Jones Jr.
December 21, 2010 at 10:43 am
Thanks, Marshall! I’ll definitely check it out. Can’t believe there’s a site dedicated to exactly the goal I set for myself…
December 21, 2010 at 12:49 pm
You do yoga now? I feel like I should make fun of you for that. Worry not Mike, as an economist, I would never miss an opportunity to help someone who set up an incentive system to help himself reach a goal. As an aside though, there’s a similar website where people can lock in a bunch of money first and if they reach their weight goal, they get the money back, but if not, then the money is donated to some organization/person they hate (opposing political party, a prochoice group if they’re prolife, etc) that they choose when they first sign up.
December 21, 2010 at 12:59 pm
Haha, now there’s a disincentive. Thanks, Chen!
Actually, I’m really inflexible, so I figured yoga would help with that. I considered having a numeric flexibility goal as well, but decided to just start with one goal and see how well this works. If it helps me develop a habit of exercising and pays off, I will probably add other goals as well.
December 22, 2010 at 2:52 am
Happy to join along (might change the day of the week to do mine as i usually do tricep weights work on a monday, but other than that)
The 100pushups app is harsh, but a great way to get up to doing 100 pushups with pauses, and it also brings up the number you can do in one go –
Might be worth following their plan, but modifying it so the 1st set on a Monday is how many you can do in 1 go ? (other sets making up the rep number for that day?)
January 5, 2011 at 11:20 am
[...] You can read about his goal — and see his Google Spreadsheet in real-time — on mpdaugherty.com [...]