Pi Day and pushups!

Happy Pi Day!  3/14. A celebration of the circle and its irrational number.

How about a circle for breakfast?

Bagel – showcasing pi with the diameter and circumference references!  Learning – it’s what’s for breakfast.

Wednesday bagels are one of my 10% meals of the week.  It was a gorgeous and sunny morning as well.  So hard to sit my butt down and work.  It’s also my really busy day, too.  I did make a point to get some lunch before leaving for my literacy tutoring appointment.  More circles!

This is 2% Fage topped with 1/2 cup of pumpkin, 1 teaspoon of honey and cinnamon.  I thought it would be nice to photo it before mushing it all together.  Good, but needed something crunchy on top like pecans. Too bad I had to eat this fast and not savor it.

After tutoring, back to work until latte time!  More pi =

:mrgreen:

Fran had asked me about learning to do pushups.  I now do straight military style pushups.  (I hate calling them man pushups because women can do them, too).  I used to do pushups on my knees, like girls were taught to do.  The problem with this is that you can never learn to do them on your toes this way. What I did was to do incline pushups.  I started leaning against a wall, then progressively dropped down the angle until I was straight on the floor.  This gives your body time to build the upper body strength it needs to support the ‘real’ pushup stance.  It’s too hard to just start in the pushup position and work from there because pushups on your toes are really an advanced exercise.  They aren’t easy!  Give yourself time to work down.

(source)

You can use anything for the support.  A weight bench, a chair, a step stool.  As the pushups get easier, lower the height of the object.

* My one piece of advice is to anchor the object that you will be pushing against so that it doesn’t slide away from you causing you to fall to the floor.  Not that I have ever done that or anything.  I just want to make sure it doesn’t happen to you, because it hurts – or I imagine it would hurt. Not that I know anything about that…

I ate dinner later because work was running out and I wanted to make sure I got as much as I could.  Ah, the lovely part of working on production.  I did a quick dinner of shrimp stir fry.  This is 4 oz of shrimp with some sauteed broccoli, 1/2 cup of leftover rice and 1 tablespoon of Kikkoman ginger teriyaki sauce.

This was really yummy!

More working after dinner until files run out.  Taking 2 hours out of my day for tutoring means adding them in at night. I am actually ahead for the week, so no big deal.

My mother is coming over tonight for a visit.  Too bad I didn’t make any pi(e).  We like to have pie on pi day, but just didn’t make any this year and too tired to go out tonight!  Guess I will have to settle for nuts and dried pineapple.

Tomorrow is workout B of the Fit Female!

22 thoughts on “Pi Day and pushups!

  1. kwithme

    Another tip for learning military style push ups is to do “negatives”. When I started with my trainer, I could do push ups on my knees easily. He said to do them on my toes and lower down and hold as low as possible and then lower to the floor. I did them this way for several weeks and eventually I could do full pushups.

    1. Maren

      Pi daaaay! I love that drawing too. 😀
      I can do a lot of push-ups on my knees, but what did you guys mean about lower to the floor there? I would really like to try that 😀

  2. Lynn Haraldson

    I heart Pi Day! And I’m not far enough into the number to be a dick…thank goodness 🙂

    I stopped on the bike trail today to do pushups off a picnic table. It’s not quite as low as the bench you have pictured, but it’s low enough to make an impact. Pushups give me that “I can do anything feeling.” More than any other strength training move 🙂

  3. Kimberley

    This post gives me great hapPIness! 😀 Had to get the pi in there somewhere!

    Push ups are tough! I still haven’t mastered them, but one day I will!

  4. debby

    That’s funny about Pi day. Never heard of it before. Your yogurt/pumpkin concoction would be good with Shelley’s granola topping it!

  5. Fran

    Thanks Lori! I’ve been looking around on the internet and found the same advice you are giving: start at a wall and work your way to a full push up. I will start this next week on my DVD workout days and hopefully within a few months I can do a full pushup.

    Just to let you know: my blog is down. Not my fault but an error at the host I bought my domain. Hopefully it will be in the air somewhere today.

  6. Satu

    I’m crying! Now that I’ve given up my push up challenge everyone is training for military push ups. I don’t want to be left out 🙁

    I didn’t know Pi has it’s own day.. You live you learn.

  7. Jill

    Thank you for the lesson on push ups! I have never been good at them and I feel like I am not making any progress. I will follow your plan and hope to see some improvements!!!

    If you “were” to fall from not anchoring your bench…. “would” there be any bruises??? 🙂

  8. Miz

    I love push ups 100% because I can do them without having to get to a gym.
    I like to add in a ball (little one. on one side then switch.) to make me more unstable.
    and now I read that and laugh and think AS IF I NEED TO BE MORE UNSTABLE 🙂
    happy day after pi day.

  9. Ali @ Peaches and Football

    I love all your Pi references – super cute!!

    I agree that incline pushups are the way to go. ‘Regular’ pushups are very hard to just hop right into doing – usually most people can only do one or two before dying (or maybe that’s just me – ha ha). Years ago I took karate class and we had to do knuckle pushups. That was beyond evil. I shudder at the thought!!

  10. Nichole

    My NSV for the day was avoiding the amazing pizza place in St. Louis called Pi (after the 314 area code.) 🙂

    Love that you’re doing the Rachel Cosgrove program! I’m looking forward to hearing how you like it. I love her book and blog.

  11. Stepheny

    I am a new reader of your blog and am really enjoying it! Thanks for the pushup tips. I’ve been following New Rules of Lifting for Women which has me doing pushups every other time I lift. I’ve been doing them on my knees, but will definitely start using a bench instead.

  12. Cammy@TippyToeDiet

    Working your way down is also a good way to learn other types of push-ups, like triangles and explosives. I was just thinking during today’s push-up session that it’s been a while since I did spider push-ups. Fortunately, all I did was think about it. 🙂

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