Top-level athletes train differently than most of us, but it seems like they also have fun in an unusual way at times! Last August the famous crossfitter and youtuber Craig Richey accepted a somewhat bizarre challenge proposed by Khan Porter…. Performing a thousand push-ups. For time.
What followed was a painful journey for Craig Richey, who performed push-ups with a 1 hour timer set.
You can check out his madness in TeamRichey's YouTube video below:
What started out as a casual training in a hotel room quickly turned into a visibly bitter experience for the crossfitter.
At a certain point in the video we see the athlete taking off his shirt and putting a pillow under his knees to reduce the discomfort as much as possible.
Despite all the agony, Craig Richey finished with a smile on his face, recording an incredible time of one hour, nine minutes and 56 seconds.
This equates to approximately 14,5 push-ups every minute!
Index
How to perform 1.000 push-ups
La The prospect of doing 1.000 reps of anything in a day is probably terrifying for most people, but some may find it a challenging challenge.
If this random morning workout from Richey was a call to action for you to try something like this, now let's see in detail how to succeed in such a feat.
Disclaimer: You probably shouldn't try this challenge at home. The CrossFittCompetitors like Richey are known for their stamina, whether it's running, swimming, barbell cycling or rhythmic gymnastics.
The science of fatigue
Repeated muscle contractions generate waste products in the body; these products (i.e. lactic acid and various phosphates), they accumulate in muscle tissue and contribute to the painful burning sensation we all know at the end of a difficult series.
While these muscle waste products naturally drain over time, repetitions of additional stimuli (think forced repetitions or an AMRAP set) aggravate the effect.
Rehearsals of timed exercises like this challenge's push-ups, they do not give the body enough time to recover from multiple doses of stress, making each set of repetitions performed more and more difficult, as skeletal muscles are flooded with lactate.
Craig Richey teaches: Break it down to do it best
Seeing as he had to perform a truly absurd amount of push-ups at once, Richey took the smart approach to any loud wod.: he divided it into feasible and small series.
For most reps, Richey performed sets of five. Five reps is a feasible number to do quickly and it's not that big of a challenge.
It was only after the goal of 700 repetitions that fatigue forced him to do series of three, then two and finally single push-ups to cross the finish line.
By stimulating himself and not starting with huge sets of 20 to 30 reps, Richey maintained a good steady pace that allowed him to get well over halfway before the fatigue really started to manifest.
Masters of masochism
If this is your first time seeing an athlete perform something so superhuman for fun, rest assured that there are a lot more feats like this one to absolutely see.
Some of our favorites include:
Madness, isn't it?