As I mentioned in my last non-workout post, I’ve relaunched 375CPFT in conjunction with using Beeminder.

I haven’t quite figured out my overarching strategy to get to my objective, but as they say, when in doubt attack.  So to get started I’m working on my pushups.  I am committing to using the Hundred Pushups app all the way through the program with the goal of being able to do 100 consecutive pushups.  Once I can do 100 consecutive pushups I’ll make sure I can do them within 2-minutes and then I’m off to the races.

Now, the Hundred Pushups program is supposed to be six weeks long, but during my diagnostic test (63 pushups, untimed) I placed into the third week of the program.  I’m still learning the ins and outs of the app but it also appears that you can repeat a particular day’s workout (or even a whole week) if it was too hard or if you weren’t able to complete it to standards.  I don’t know how this will go.  Frankly, if I’m up to 100 pushups in just four weeks I’ll be the most amazed person out there.  So I’m going to give myself six weeks, which leaves the room to repeat some of the weeks.

So here’s the deal: I have set up a Beeminder goal (linked in the sidebar if I did it right) where the standard is to execute three pushup workouts per week for the next six weeks.  The way Beeminder works is that if at any point during the course of that period I miss enough workouts to fall off the completion pace, they’ll charge me ten bucks to reset it and keep going.  To make things more interesting (i.e. painful i.e. motivating), I’ll give an equal amount to the current Beeminder pledge to anyone who catches me out of tolerance Beeminder and is the first person to post it the comments.

But wait, there’s more!  Because the only people who read this blog are my friends and family (okay, just my girlfriend and my mom) and because my friends and family are wonderful generous people, whoever catches me out of tolerance and wins the pledge, will also get to designate the charity of their choice and I’ll pledge an equal amount to them.

So, follow along as I do pushups, feel free to give me some tips or suggestions and keep your eyes peeled, because if I sham out you and a good cause could get paid.

Now, I haven’t thought this thing all the way through, so if you find any flaws in my system let me know and I’ll revise/update the terms and conditions to make it more effective.

This post is the public announcement of the relaunch of my tiny little fitness blog. I’m really excited about it though because unlike its previous iteration I really enjoy the interface on this one and have enjoyed posting to it.

Even more than that though (nice alliteration there, huh?) I’m excited because since the holidays and the migration of the blog to WordPress, I have found a couple of tools that I’m going to use to increase my personal accountability (one of my main goals with this thing) and simultaneously increase my engagement with anyone out there on the Interwebs who stops by (which will just be fun).  And maybe even give a little money to charity along the way.

The name of the blog is 375CPFT because that is the primary fitness goal I’m working towards right now.  I say primary, because part of what I learned over the three months leading up to my holiday hiatus was that concentrating solely and intensively on just CPFT training wasn’t going to work.  I got bored.  And it’s worse: I HATED the pushup training.  A lot.  Which led to a lot of skipping.  Turns out that in the absence of positive peer pressure I’m a bit of a welsher.   Even on promises to myself.  But I think I’ve got a solution for that.  Keep reading to find out.

What I’ve decided to do is go back to a little more varied routine like the one I was doing prior to setting my CPFT-related goal.  For now I’m going to do a varied cardio program of running, swimming and biking with a slightly run-heavy focus.  I’m also going to incorporate some other strength training and fitness activities that I enjoy and that will improve my overall fitness, helping me towards my goal.  I enjoy this type of training and it’s something that I can and will sustain for long periods.  Eventually I’ll tune it more and more towards the running and the 2-mile speed training that I need to do . . . but not yet.

First, the pushups.  The run is going to be the hardest part of the test for me to do physically.  Frankly, I’m not even sure if I my body is even capable of it (but I’m going to find out).  However, the PUSHUPS are the hardest part for me to make myself train for.  So I’m going to make training my pushups and being able to do the 100 pushups needed for my goal my first objective.

“But,” I hear you saying, “didn’t you just say that you failed miserably at making yourself do pushups?”

Yes, yes I did.

The solution?  Beeminder.  What?  Exactly.  I won’t go into detail in this post but Beeminder is a goal commitment website that combines data gathering and reporting, financial commitments and penalties, and cool graphical displays.  In a nutshell what happens is this: you create a goal and some parameters for it, you put it on Beeminder, and if you fail to achieve your stated parameters Beeminder charges you money.  Stay on track, achieve your goal, and no penalty.  So I’ve created a goal designed to make me follow my designated pushup training program.

It sounds a little crazy, but that’s how interested I am in making this happen.  To broaden the appeal of this and to intensify the consequences if I fall off the wagon I’m going to leverage the Beeminder penalties into some giveways to readers here at 375CPFT and also to charity donations.

The link to my Beeminder goal is in the sidebar (I hope – let me know in the comments if it doesn’t work) and I’ll post the details about how you can help me stay on track and do some good for the world in another post soon.

Here we go . . .