I've never exercised or been to a gym in my life. Other than some basic Physical Education during High School (at least 50% of all lessons I managed to get out of doing throughout the entireity of school, instead ending up sitting on the sidelines chatting to whoever the PE teacher was about computers... I know, I know...). I'm also pretty lazy - I prefer to drive everywhere. And I have a job that involves not needing to do much other than sit at a PC - mentally strenuous, sure, but certainly not physically strenuous. I'm not fat - I'm 11 stone (69kg), and dot on 6 foot tall. But I'm not "fit", at all - unsuprisingly. I thought I'd have a go at this at last, just for the sheer embarassment/lulz, if anything. I'm also likely to abandon this after only a couple of sessions, or simply forget to do it, without some serious poking/encouragement/forcing from other people.
I sometimes get RSI in my wrists, which can be a bit dodgy, so I'm going to do "knuckle pushups" rather than the normal ones, shouldn't make any difference at all though.
"Initial Test" Result: 2 pushups. 2. Two. Yes, two.
So on that note, I should probably give in already, but I'll have a go at doing the easier "Knee" pushups for a while, and see if I actually get anything from this. So until I say otherwise, any ranks i give myself should be taken as a "half-measure" - knee pushups, not normal pushups. I'll let you know if I manage to get back to normal push-ups to 10+ at any point (if I don't just give up/forget about this before then).
So immediately after wearing myself out on the mighty 2 pushups, bar a few minutes break to write the above paragraph, here's my first test, knee-pushup style;
Week 1, test 1, knee-knuckle pushups: 7.
However, it is a lot better for your wrists. If you suffer from wrist problems though, you might try to wrap some sports tape around them. One round around each wrist works wonders! You should also consider buying some light manual to work up some muscle strength there.
