Part of My Staying Healthy Ritual

Often I hear literal directions and typically try not to read into things to redefine. I usually literally do as I’m asked…to a degree.

Do 50,000 push-ups and 50,000 sit-ups! I do 50,000 push-ups and 50,000 sit-ups. However, I also hear progress wisely, consistent action, stay engaged, adapt, forward momentum, technique before speed. I also know that Kung fu is a tool to enhance my life (my mind and body). Hearing differently and putting that all together has me doing my own thing, doing what it takes for me as an individual to advance and still “honestly” meeting the challenge expectation and hidden guided messages.

Previous years in the I Ho Chuan I completed all my push-ups and sit-ups as defined, without injury. This year I’m hearing things a bit differently. I’m hearing, continue to move forward, stay engaged, complete your commitments, be smarter, be true to yourself, change this up to suite your body and capacity, but remain true to the challenge. In 2025, I started out with the push-up, and played with shoulder, arm and hand positions to get the most out of the push up, with respect to muscle building, longevity and not taxing one muscle area alone, so that I could go through this challenge injury free and gain from the experience…and feel comfortable with this as a lifestyle commitment.

The sit-up has never done my left hip any favors. So the sit-up has become a lot of plank, but not just the stationary plank, it has become a 5+ minute long continuous plank of about 10 variations; working my entire core and obliques as well as back muscles through included grappling exercises.

I have also included extra muscle balancing exercises to ensure that the push-up muscle groups are being balanced out and I’m not deforming my body posture and setting myself up for unexpected injury due to the onset of skeletal misalignment from odd muscle pull and imbalance.

I shouldn’t say I remained injury free through the previous push up years as I did develop two tendon tears in my right shoulder and one in my left. Leaving me at one point of not being able to lift my arms vertically over my head without extreme pain. I thought that was more so the result of a crazy amount of snow shoveling…it may have been both, likely was. Lesson learned.

I have recaptured full use of my shoulders through small weight workouts and slowly building up in weight. To this day, I continue to start my upper body workouts with small weights.

I want for my efforts and these challenges to have positive outcomes, so I try to focus on balanced “full” workouts, timely rest days and listen to my body and my mind. But I need to be careful with my mind as my ego has gotten in the way many times. 

Can’t forget about the stretching, as it has been crucial for me. I also stretch for longer durations than I did when I was younger. At my age I hold stretches for a minimum of 45 seconds as the elasticity of my muscles is likely not as good as it was when I was younger.

With respect to my stretching regime; dynamic stretching is my thing prior to running and my HITT work outs and static, longer hold stretches after workouts when my muscles are warm. I have to add the inclusion of mentally and physically isolating muscles, however, I also stretch to broaden the isolated areas, with hopes of stretching a broader bandwidth of each isolated muscle.

Hydration is a key thing for me "at all times". I have been on an instant two cups of water at the time I wake up for at least the last 20 years. My daily water intake, excluding fruits and vegetables is 14-16 cups per day. When I run my water intake is higher. Important for me, is to always ensure my electrolyte intake reflects my water intake, especially on hard workout days.

March 14 (day 45)

Acts of Kindness recorded - 90,

Push-ups - 6860,

Sit-ups and or equivalents - 7360,

Kilometers (intentional extra mileage) - 322.1,

Meditation/ inversion table  (min.) - 86,

Stretching/ rolling (min.) - 177, 

Sparring/ grappling (min.) - 68

# of forms re-familiarized - 6.7,

Form reps - 70, 

Form time (min.) - 355,

“Mastery” recite (min.) - 75,

Blogs - 9