For my birthday, I received a book called Living with a SEAL by Jesse Itzler. An absolute motherfucking bull’s-eye. Just like Can’t Hurt Me by David Goggins, I couldn’t put it down; I had to consume it like some sort of addict. I finished it this morning. Near the end, Jesse does 1,000 push-ups in a single day. That sounds exhausting. The book includes a table that tracks the daily and cumulative workouts Jesse and David did. Here’s a simplified illustration of that kind of log. The first figures below are not accurate, but the totals on the last day are pretty much there and in the book:

Day	Miles-Run	Push-Ups	Pull-Ups	Situps	Burpees	Jumping Jacks	Box Jumps	Flutter Kicks	Fireman Carries
1 Dailies	3	100	10	50	20	100	10	50	1
1 Totals	3	100	10	50	20	100	10	50	1
2 Dailies	3	100	10	50	20	100	10	50	1
2 Totals	6	200	20	100	40	200	20	100	2
3 Dailies	3	100	10	50	20	100	10	50	1
3 Totals	9	300	30	150	60	300	30	150	3
… Dailies	…	…	…	…	…	…	…	…	…
… Totals	…	…	…	…	…	…	…	…	…
30 Dailies	…	…	…	…	…	…	…	…	…
30 Totals	222.5	6488	236	957	200	800	50	150	14

The numbers in the book are wild: hundreds of miles and thousands of push-ups. That got me thinking: what can I do a thousand of?

A number to beat

Every so often, this question comes back to me. The 1,000 isn’t as important as pushing myself far enough to know how far I can go right now, so I have a number to beat next time. It doesn’t really matter whether it’s 100 pull-ups, 200 squats, or 300 push-ups. Not knowing these numbers bothers me because, to me, it means I’m living more comfortably than I should.

With running, I’ve noticed that motivations, to me, as some sort of external force that I need to rely on to get myself moving is just fake BS that comes and goes - but the discipline, and seeing the numbers improve, make this exact motivation actually irrelevant and replaced by some sort of momentum that keeps me going. Anyway, back to topic.

I’ve learned that keeping track helps me gauge whether I’m actually improving over time. Instead of comparing myself with others, I’m comparing myself with my past self, which seems fair and healthy (at least to me). Funnily enough, I remember Arnold Schwarzenegger writing something similar in his autobiography: he made a point about being annoyed of himself wasting a lot of time during flights instead of doing shit like 1,000 sit-ups or push-ups. It makes me realize that I idle SO MUCH. It’s really sad, isn’t it? And it’s such a wasted opportunity. Unlike other areas of life, like work or social situations, where so much involves guesswork and uncertainty, these challenges give me immediate feedback: Have I improved? They also give me something concrete to be proud of: the work I’ve put in.

Now I’m wondering how I’m supposed to go to bed when I’m hyped and wondering how many push-ups I can actually do. It’s already late, and I don’t want to fuck up my sleep schedule. But tomorrow morning, after my run, I’ll start counting. Then, after lunch, I’ll keep going and hopefully get to 1,000.

I actually tried something similar just recently, but with single-leg pogo hops (to improve my ankle springiness; read the bit about optimization rabbit holes in my first post…). I ended up doing 2,000 (1,000 per leg) - and almost in one go. As you can imagine, it was a horribly painful lactate festival in my legs, and my calves were absolutely fucked for three whole days afterward. The semi-idiotic hill run the next day surely didn’t help my recovery, but I never said I was a smart man.