200 pushups, 400 sit ups, 50 pull ups – twice a day

Holy smokes that is a ton! As we approach the bathing suit season (more commonly known as the sun burn season for us Redheads) it is a good time to freshen up on that core work. My motivation falls into the category of using it so I can eat food more easily on long runs.

The workout above is stated in a book written by Dean Karnazes called Ultramarathon Man. He states that he does 200 pushups, 400 sit ups, and 50 pull ups, twice a day. Wowzer. Since I was recovering from a marathon and had more time on my hands to rest my legs, I thought it would be fun to do an experiment.

I currently do 20 pushups once every two weeks when I feel as if I should do something to be able to maintain my strength of rearranging furniture around the apartment when asked by my wife. My sit ups are even less frequent and my pull ups are non existent.

My theory was, with a month of training, could I complete this workout in one day? Would I lose my fantastic looking abs (Flabs for short) and get a Dean Karnazes six pack? Well, 800 sit ups, 400 push ups, and 100 pull ups in one day couldn’t be so bad. Let’s see how I could do in 31 days!

On April 8th, I kicked things off and painfully got started.

Day 1 for our average runner Paul: I began at 6 a.m. In 20 minutes, I was pleasantly surprised to find out I could complete 400 sit ups in sets of 50 with pushups in between. The sit ups got hard after 30 but were doable. My lack of abs on the outside fared better than I expected. With the push ups, I did a set of 20, then 10, then struggled throwing in a couple in between sit ups. After 20 minutes, I finished the sit ups and slowly got to 100 pushups. It took about 10 more minutes to get through 30 pushups and I had yet to complete any pull ups. It was break time and my arms hurt. It took me hours to complete more push ups throughout the work day. As for the pull ups, I did one. So therefore just a pull up without the ‘s’. I did try one more set of pushups and sit ups in the afternoon so there is that.

Final Results of Day One:

• Karnazes: 800 sit ups, 400 push ups, 100 pull ups.
• Conway: 437 sit ups, 210 push ups, 1 pull up.

Day 2 for our average runner Paul: So sore, so very sore. The arms and back are throbbing and the morning started with a stretch.Next the core followed because it seemed okay. After 30 sit ups, I tried to do a push up and one was painful enough. No pushups for the arms! On the bright side, I walked over to the local coffee shop for work and swung by the Intel free outdoor gym area. This time, I managed three pull ups, a 300% increase from the day before. That was it for arms for the rest of the day (Potentially week) and I focused on sit ups the rest of the day.

Final Results of Day Two:

• Karnazes: 800 sit ups, 400 push ups, 100 pull ups.
  • Total: 1600 sit ups, 800 push ups, 200 pull ups
• Conway: 140 sit ups, 1 push up, 3 pull ups.
  • Total: 577 sit ups, 211 push ups, 4 pull ups

Day 3 for our average runner Paul: Game on for continued soreness! Dean continues to pull away as I try to approach just doing the amount of sit ups in three days that he does in one. For arms, just two push ups and no pull ups.

Final Results of Day Three:

• Karnazes: 800 sit ups, 400 push ups, 100 pull ups.
  • Total: 2400 sit ups, 1200 push ups, 300 pull ups
• Conway: 130 sit ups, 2 push ups, 0 pull ups.
  • Total: 712 sit ups, 213 push ups, 4 pull ups

Final Results of Day Four:

• Karnazes: 800 sit ups, 400 push ups, 100 pull ups.
  • Total: 3200 sit ups, 1600 push ups, 400 pull ups
• Conway: 531 sit ups, 50 push ups, 0 pull ups.
  • Total: 1234 sit ups, 263 push ups, 4 pull ups

Final Results of Day Five:

• Karnazes: 800 sit ups, 400 push ups, 100 pull ups.
  • Total: 4000 sit ups, 2000 push ups, 500 pull ups
• Conway: 250 sit ups, 80 push ups, 6 pull ups.
  • Total: 1484 sit ups, 323 push ups, 10 pull ups

Results of Day Six:

• Karnazes: 800 sit ups, 400 push ups, 100 pull ups.
  • Total: 4800 sit ups, 2400 push ups, 600 pull ups
• Conway: 860 sit ups! 10 push ups, 0 pull ups.
  • Total: 2424 sit ups, 560 push ups, 10 pull ups

Day 6 for our average runner Paul: I was able to match the sit ups! I did a few more to be cheeky and I figured I would take the sit ups off tomorrow anyway. As for the pull ups, it looks like it will take a long time to catch up to Ultra Marathon Man.

Results of Day Seven:

• Karnazes: 800 sit ups, 400 push ups, 100 pull ups.
  • Total: 5600 sit ups, 2800 push ups, 700 pull ups
• Conway: 0 sit ups, 150 push ups, 5 pull ups.
  • Total: 2424 sit ups, 710 push ups, 15 pull ups

End of Week 1:

Quick summary: Dean Karnazes is a stud. My belly, arms, and basically all other body parts are not studs. Now it is time for the long summary to follow. The current stats put the Ultra Marathon Man ahead by 4036 sit ups, 2100 push ups, and 685 pull ups. And that’s only in the span of one week!

My initial prediction looked grim of achieving this workout in the span of a month. I highly underestimated the difficulty of the push ups and my pull up attempts don’t even deserve to be described or mentioned.

On the plus side, the sit ups turned out to be attainable. I give credit to my job of working with kiddos where I spend time on the floor and standing consistently which indirectly strengthens my core. You wouldn’t believe my core could finish this segment under a week due to my love for a local IPA. My current favorite is the Stash IPA from Independence Brewing (not a sponsor, I wish!). Now the trick will be to complete the 800 sit ups the same day as the other arm segments. Back to the arms…

I did make a promise to myself that I would complete this challenge so that did not leave me with many options except to keep trying. Or lying. I definitely could just lie at this point and say I could do it. That does sound easier so hopefully I don’t revisit that thought too often.

Results of Day Eight, Start of Week 2:

• Karnazes: 800 sit ups, 400 push ups, 100 pull ups.
  • Total: 6400 sit ups, 3200 push ups, 800 pull ups
• Conway: 900 sit ups, 140 push ups, 5 pull ups.
  • Total: 3324 sit ups, 850 push ups, 20 pull ups

Results of Day Nine:

• Karnazes: 800 sit ups, 400 push ups, 100 pull ups.
  • Total: 7200 sit ups, 3600 push ups, 900 pull ups
• Conway: 50 sit ups, 30 push ups, 0 pull ups.
  • Total: 3374 sit ups, 850 push ups, 20 pull ups

Results of Day Ten:

• Karnazes: 800 sit ups, 400 push ups, 100 pull ups.
  • Total: 8000 sit ups, 4000 push ups, 1000 pull ups
• Conway: 0.
  • Total: 3374 sit ups, 850 push ups, 20 pull ups

Results of Day Eleven:

• Karnazes: 800 sit ups, 400 push ups, 100 pull ups.
  • Total: 8800 sit ups, 4400 push ups, 1100 pull ups
• Conway: 0.
  • Total: 3374 sit ups, 850 push ups, 20 pull ups

Fallin’ off the Wagon…

At this point, I started taking too much time off and it was time to get take my lack of discipline and turn it right around. Dean managed to get thousands of push ups and sit ups ahead of me. This shows the difference between your average professional vs. your average paul. My weakness, to no one’s surprise, turned out to be food. Specifically, I pigged out on so much Easter chocolate and goodies and probably gained back all the weight I was losing. Only slight regrets before deciding to get back on track.

Results of Day Twelve:

• Karnazes: 800 sit ups, 400 push ups, 100 pull ups.
  • Total: 9600 sit ups, 4800 push ups, 1200 pull ups
• Conway: 640 sit ups, 150 push ups, 0 pull ups.
  • Total: 4014 sit ups, 1000 push ups, 20 pull ups

Results of Day Thirteen:

• Karnazes: 800 sit ups, 400 push ups, 100 pull ups.
  • Total: 10400 sit ups, 5200 push ups, 1300 pull ups
• Conway: 100 sit ups, 20 push ups, 0 pull ups.
  • Total: 4114 sit ups, 1020 push ups, 20 pull ups

Results of Day Fourteen:

• Karnazes: 800 sit ups, 400 push ups, 100 pull ups.
  • Total: 11200 sit ups, 5600 push ups, 1400 pull ups
• Conway: 810 sit ups, 250 push ups, 0 pull ups.
  • Total: 4924 sit ups, 1270 push ups, 20 pull ups

End of Week 2:

So how close did I get? Or more so, how far in front was Mr. Karnazes to our average runner? Quite a distance in either measurement. Dean is now ahead by 6,276 sit ups, 4,330 push ups, and 1,380 pull ups. He didn’t pull as far ahead on the sit ups compared to last week and is crushing my stats both physical and spiritually in the other categories.

Pull ups continued to elude me as I focused on upping my push up count. I felt comfortable now getting in at least 800 sit ups every few days and I needed to get more consistent with pushups. My weight hasn’t really changed too much and when I asked my wife if she saw anything different with my stomach, she could only see new zits. No abs here (at least on the surface level).

Results of Day Fifteen:

• Karnazes: 800 sit ups, 400 push ups, 100 pull ups.
  • Total: 12000 sit ups, 6000 push ups, 1500 pull ups
• Conway: 100 sit ups, 0 push ups, 0 pull ups. (I felt little lazy)
  • Total: 5024 sit ups, 1270 push ups, 20 pull ups

Results of Day Sixteen:

• Karnazes: 800 sit ups, 400 push ups, 100 pull ups.
  • Total: 12800 sit ups, 6400 push ups, 1600 pull ups
• Conway: 801 sit ups, 250 push ups, 0 pull ups.
  • Total: 5825 sit ups, 1520 push ups, 20 pull ups

Results of Day Seventeen:

• Karnazes: 800 sit ups, 400 push ups, 100 pull ups.
  • Total: 13600 sit ups, 6800 push ups, 1700 pull ups
• Conway: 150 sit ups, 160 push ups, 0 pull ups.
  • Total: 5975 sit ups, 1780 push ups, 20 pull ups

Results of Day Eighteen:

• Karnazes: 800 sit ups, 400 push ups, 100 pull ups.
  • Total: 14400 sit ups, 7200 push ups, 1800 pull ups
• Conway: 400 sit ups, 30 push ups, 0 pull ups.
  • Total: 5975 sit ups, 1780 push ups, 20 pull ups

Results of Day Nineteen:

• Karnazes: 800 sit ups, 400 push ups, 100 pull ups.
  • Total: 15200 sit ups, 7600 push ups, 1900 pull ups
• Conway: 801 sit ups, 210 push ups, 0 pull ups.
  • Total: 6776 sit ups, 1990 push ups, 20 pull ups

Results of Day 20:

• Karnazes: 800 sit ups, 400 push ups, 100 pull ups.
  • Total: 16000 sit ups, 8000 push ups, 2000 pull ups
• Conway: 50 sit ups, 50 push ups, 0 pull ups.
  • Total: 6826 sit ups, 2040 push ups, 20 pull ups

Results of Day 21:

• Karnazes: 800 sit ups, 400 push ups, 100 pull ups.
  • Total: 16800 sit ups, 8400 push ups, 2100 pull ups
• Conway: 801 sit ups, 400 push ups (New record!), 5 pull ups.
  • Total: 7627 sit ups, 2440 push ups, 25 pull ups

End of Week 3:

It was looking like that I would not reach Dean’s core workout within the month period. I did keep up with the sit ups every few days and one of the days my push ups hit the magical 400! Funny to me, when I did half that amount at the beginning of the month I could hardly move my arms for days after. I may not be losing weight but I’m not as sore as I used to be. Head-to-head, Dean’s lead has increased by 9,173 sit ups, 5,960 push ups, and 2,075 pull ups.

Hitting the first two parts of the core goals makes my body similar to 66% of Dean Karnazes (For only one day). That adjusts to a 2% Dean Karnazes if compared all out. Mostly because of my little pull up completions and he’s also pretty ripped even at 60 to my 30 year old body.

For next week, the goal is to start adding in pull up workouts at least twice a week. I don’t know what the number of pull ups will be. Maybe at least 2 so I can say I did some pull ups rather than I did A pull up (singular). Or maybe I’ll just eat pizza instead. Who knows.

Results of Day 22:

• Karnazes: 800 sit ups, 400 push ups, 100 pull ups.
  • Total: 17600 sit ups, 8800 push ups, 2200 pull ups
• Conway: 400 sit ups, 50 push ups, 20 pull ups (Record for me – Wooohooo!).
  • Total: 8027 sit ups, 2490 push ups, 45 pull ups

Results of Day 23:

• Karnazes: 800 sit ups, 400 push ups, 100 pull ups.
  • Total: 18400 sit ups, 9200 push ups, 2300 pull ups
• Conway: 803 sit ups, 30 push ups, 0 pull ups.
  • Total: 8830 sit ups, 2520 push ups, 45 pull ups

Results of Day 24:

• Karnazes: 800 sit ups, 400 push ups, 100 pull ups.
  • Total: 19200 sit ups, 9600 push ups, 2400 pull ups
• Conway: 10 sit ups, 200 push ups, 0 pull ups.
  • Total: 8840 sit ups, 2720 push ups, 45 pull ups

Results of Day 25:

• Karnazes: 800 sit ups, 400 push ups, 100 pull ups.
  • Total: 20,000 sit ups, 10,000 push ups, 2500 pull ups
• Conway: 1,005 sit ups, 100 push ups, 8 pull ups.
  • Total: 9845 sit ups, 2820 push ups, 53 pull ups

Results of Day 26:

• Karnazes: 800 sit ups, 400 push ups, 100 pull ups.
  • Total: 20,800 sit ups, 10,400 push ups, 2600 pull ups
• Conway: 410 sit ups, 90 push ups, 0 pull ups.
  • Total: 10,245 sit ups (Joined the five digit club!), 2910 push ups, 53 pull ups

Results of Day 27:

• Karnazes: 800 sit ups, 400 push ups, 100 pull ups.
  • Total: 21,600 sit ups, 10,800 push ups, 2700 pull ups
• Conway: 400 sit ups, 110 push ups, 0 pull ups.
  • Total: 10,645 sit ups, 3020 push ups, 53 pull ups

Results of Day 28:

• Karnazes: 800 sit ups, 400 push ups, 100 pull ups.
  • Total: 22,400 sit ups, 11,200 push ups, 2800 pull ups
• Conway: 0 (We were moving and painting so a little arm workout there?)
  • Total: 10,645 sit ups, 3020 push ups, 53 pull ups

End of Week 4

As the end of one month approaches (or technically, end of a month if it was February), it is looking very clear that I will not reach this athletic achievement of completing Dean Karnazes’s one day workout in a month. Fortunately there is so much data in this post that this fact is unlikely to be discovered by anyone, whew!

On the bright side, progress so far has included me completing 10,000 more sit ups than I typically would do, over 3,000 more pushups than I would ever think about, and at least 53 pull ups. I felt every single one of those so far. Karno has more than doubled me in sit ups, tripled me in push ups, and I am so far behind in pull ups that I can’t even compare what it is like between the two of us. Some of his stats include 10s of thousands of push ups and sit ups as well as 2800 Pull ups! Wowser!

Here is the comparison of our daily averages so far:

	Dean Karnazes	Average Runner Paul
Sit Ups	800	380
Push Ups	400	107
Pull Ups	100	1.89

Point to Mr. Karnazes! I still have my flabs of steel so maybe getting to about half of his daily average will bring me towards a better figure. I have lost a few pounds since beginning this endeavor. Though I think that is more tied to not buying as many chips as the week before (Shoutout to Fritos, not a sponsor but a sponsor in my soul).

The trick now will be to somehow get to 100 pull ups in in one day. Goal for last week was to do two pull up workouts which did increase my overall amount. 20 pull ups was my record for most in a day so I am no where close to hitting the big 100. I would probably need to work my day job next to a pull up bar for a chance to grind it out. Maybe in the next few days I will go down this route…Anyways, back to the grind!

Results of Day 29:

• Karnazes: 800 sit ups, 400 push ups, 100 pull ups.
  • Total: 23,200 sit ups, 11,600 push ups, 2900 pull ups
• Conway: 466 sit ups, 100 push ups, 0 pull ups.
  • Total: 11,111 sit ups (cool number!), 3120 push ups, 53 pull ups

Results of Day 30:

• Karnazes: 800 sit ups, 400 push ups, 100 pull ups.
  • Total: 24,000 sit ups, 12,000 push ups, 3,000 pull ups
• Conway: 530 sit ups, 160 push ups, 0 pull ups.
  • Total: 11,641 sit ups, 3280 push ups, 53 pull ups

Results of Day 31: (Officially a month all around – Didn’t make it!)

• Karnazes: 800 sit ups, 400 push ups, 100 pull ups.
  • Total: 24,800 sit ups, 12,400 push ups, 3,100 pull ups
• Conway: 830 sit ups, 363 push ups, 22 pull ups.
  • Total: 12,471 sit ups, 3643 push ups, 75 pull ups

And that is a month!

And that’s a wrap! The monthly guess to achieve this in a month did not result in a success but it was a fun journey! Let’s see how far ahead the ultramarathon man got in front of me.

Total		Average Runner Paul
Sit ups	24,800 (800 per day)	12471 (~519 per day)
Push ups	12,400 (400 per day)	3,643 (~117 per day)
Pull ups	3,100 (100 per day)	75 (~2 per day)

Oof-da. Well, the numbers don’t lie. There is a reason he is a great athlete and your average runner Paul has an average body type (think Dad bod with less arm strength).

The pull ups certainly proved to be the hardest bit to motivate myself to do and stay accountable. That was a lack of mental effort more than physical. Push ups genuinely got better and I didn’t have crazy ongoing soreness last more than two days maximum following a big push up day. I was happy to not at least get doubled in the sit up department! Overall I may keep this going on the side to see if I would be able to do this in a day. For now, I will be happy to lay off the drive and enjoy more running.

Hope your month is going great and you enjoyed reading this monthly attempt at being a pro!

Average Runner Paul