Trisha Tries: Pull-Up/Push-Up Challenge

As I’ve mentioned in the past, though my “strong” lower body muscles have carried me through countless road races, I have laughably weak upper body muscles.

Over a year ago, my friends and I did a push-up challenge, where I challenged myself to do 20 push-ups every day for a month. While I technically made it through the month doing the push-ups on most days, my form is horrible and my chest gets nowhere close to the floor. I felt my muscles working, for sure, but didn’t feel like I was making any great progress toward doing a good push-up.

Likewise, I used to like rock climbing. I started with top-rope climbing in college, then moved on to bouldering after graduating. I did enjoy it a lot, but definitely felt limited by my lack of upper-body strength. Anything with an overhang or inward slope? Forget about it!

*I did a Tough Mudder and a Spartan Race last year didn’t even attempt a lot of the obstacles because I knew my limits – they were still fun, but I was definitely a little disappointed*

In quarantine, my fitness goals have shifted from running (because it’s hard to motivate myself to run, especially in the heat, especially with a mask, especially when there are no races in the near future) to general, total-body fitness. While cleaning, I came across the pull-up bar that I made as an aspirational purchase a long, long time ago, and decided to finally do something about my lack of upper body strength.

Wish my shoulders luck!

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Isolation Tool Kit: Moving My Body

And before I start going down the rabbit hole of health, I have acknowledge the obvious: I’m young and generally healthy! I’m incredibly thankful to have a job that lets me work remotely, indefinitely, for the same amount of pay! I’m not a BIPOC, so while my stress levels have gone up recently, they’re nowhere near as high as they could be! I live with my loving boyfriend and generally skew introverted anyway! Isolation definitely suited me in many different ways – but time still takes its toll!

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Mini Blog 1/many, hopefully

My life has forever been split into two eras: before I ran a marathon, and after I ran a marathon.

After spending an entire summer beating my body up for the sense of glory (and Instagram likes), I have been spending the last 4 months or so resting my body. I slowly worked my way back into working out by taking boxing classes, following along to yoga videos on YouTube, and feebly forcing my legs to remember how to run again (the last one, regrettably, is still a work in progress).

Whenever I took a new class, the instructor would go through their usual spiel: this is the class, here’s what you’ll have to do, do you have any injuries?

“Well, I just ran my first marathon,” hold for applause, “so I have a few running injuries, but I think I should be able to manage!”

As I struggled my way through upper! body!! work, the negative thoughts inevitably swirled through my head, “You’re weak! You have no arm or back strength! You can’t do anything!”

… which were immediately countered with, “Wait, what the fuck, I just ran a marathon, I can do something.”

… which then turned into, “Huh, I ran a marathon before I could do a full push up.”

… which then turned into, “Huh, is that how I’m measuring my life now?”