Push-ups and Bach

They have nothing to do with each other, as far as I know, except that I'm going to mention them both in this post.

The push-ups part

I have done push-ups on a regular basis for most of life, since I was an adolescent. They work out a lot of muscle groups at once, and don't require much time, space, or any equipment. My limit has always been "about 60". That's how many I could do in a row when I was at my peak of fitness in college, that's how many I could do in high school, that's how many I can do now. It is interesting (and somewhat frustrating) to me that the number never goes up. To be fair, in college I think I could hit 67 in a good set, while now my top number is 64. Still, not much difference.

There is a website called One Hundred Pushups that lays out a plan to work up to doing 100 push-ups in a row. According to their schedule, if you can do 60 push-ups, you're on week 6, the final week. You will do multiple sets of push-ups, with prescribed rest periods in-between. No doubt this is the key to building up endurance. However, when I tried, I was unable to even come close to doing the prescribed workout, which is (again) instresting and frustrating.

Anyway, five sets is too time-consuming, so I've been doing three sets: as many as I can do (about 60), 30 seconds rest, as many as I can do (about 13), 30 seconds rest, as many as I can do (about 10). We'll see if it leads to increasing my maximum. I know it has to be possible. Look at all the records!

Another exercise I like is Burpees. Again, it works a lot of muscles at once, in a short time, and requires little space and no equipment.

The Bach part

We had our first vespers of the new season with the new, smaller (16 singers instead of 24) Bach Choir. It went well. We were situated on high risers so that our voices could carry over the orchestra. Having heard the recording made by KUHF, I have to say we sounded really good. So if you get a chance to come hear us, please do. Next service is Nov 1 (see the sidebar).