I tried to mix in a little exercise among the multitude of holiday responsibilities of the past few days.  On Christmas Eve I took my first crack at the push up mode of this month’s BB challenge.

I went into it with a loose goal of pulling off 10 layers.  Since my left wrist injury I have been laying off most pushing exercises for the past two or three months.  I only started doing them again regularly within the last couple weeks.

For my attempt I tried to utilize solid form, making sure my chest was hitting the grass below with full extension at the top.  I surprised myself a bit, getting 11 full layers plus 10 reps for a total of 142 push ups.  If I wanted to push the limits of my plank endurance, I may have been able to squeeze out that 12th layer.

On Christmas afternoon I headed out to the pull up bar, hoping to set a new personal best in pull up reps.  In my head, I thought it would be awesome if I could somehow manage 32 reps which would beat the 31 rep video Mariusz from Poland posted a few days prior.

The attempt started strong, a little too strong.  I had so much upward pull that my body started to swing badly.  I had to pause at rep 7 for a bit to slow down, something that probably killed my chances of breaking 30 reps.  I struggled to a 28 rep effort which is the second best number I ever posted.  I was a bit bummed I missed my mental goal.