20,000 Push-ups and Pull-ups in 30 Days Challenge (featuring David Goggins)

00:00:00.000 | A few days ago, I tweeted, "I will do as many pushups and pull-ups next 30 days as this tweet

00:00:06.240 | gets likes, retweets, and comments. No number is too high. Bring it." It got 20,000. So thank you,

00:00:15.840 | internet friends, for the love and the suffering. It was probably about four or more times the

00:00:23.280 | amount that I was mentally preparing myself for. In the name of health, I decided to spread that

00:00:28.960 | around across multiple bodyweight exercises, including pushups and pull-ups, but also squats,

00:00:35.440 | ab rollers, and running. One mile of running equals 42 pushups. Lex math. And, all happy with

00:00:44.000 | myself, I wrote to David Goggins, asking for his advice, thoughts on this challenge. If you don't

00:00:49.440 | know David Goggins, he, to me, is one of the toughest, most inspiring humans on the planet.

00:00:55.680 | Retired Navy SEAL, ultra marathon runner, former record holder for the most pull-ups in 24 hours,

00:01:02.080 | author of the book, "Can't Hurt Me," that I highly recommend, especially the audiobook.

00:01:07.200 | Anyway, I asked him a few questions about this challenge, and he was kind enough to respond.

00:01:12.240 | I'll interleave the clips into the video. So the first thing I did is I explained to him the

00:01:17.440 | challenge and the way I spread it around across multiple bodyweight exercises, and just asked him

00:01:22.880 | for his thoughts about what I'm doing. Well, I think it's a pretty good damn workout,

00:01:27.600 | but this is the issue right there, man. I believe that you told people on, I think it was Twitter,

00:01:34.800 | I'm not quite for sure, I think it was Twitter, that you would do pushups and pull-ups for the

00:01:43.040 | number of week retweets that you had. Now I'm hearing running, I'm hearing squats,

00:01:51.120 | I'm hearing, I am hearing pushups and pull-ups, but I'm hearing all kind of different other

00:01:56.560 | exercises. And you also told people that, guess what, bring it. No number's too high.

00:02:03.680 | But now I hear other exercises, so that must mean that there is a number too high.

00:02:09.280 | So be careful what you wish for, my friend. So that being said, I would have stuck with the damn

00:02:16.880 | pushups and pull-ups and challenge yourself to the umpteenth degree of pain and suffering,

00:02:24.960 | and that would have really taught you a humongous lesson about yourself

00:02:28.480 | and everything else. But what you have here is also amazing, but it's nothing compared to

00:02:35.440 | what you had previously talked about. Well, there you have it. When David Goggins calls

00:02:42.080 | you out on your bullshit, you got to step up. So I'm going to do what I originally promised,

00:02:46.320 | which is the 20,000 pushups and pull-ups. And on top of that, I'll do my best to do also the other

00:02:52.880 | bodyweight exercises really for the sake of health. So we're talking about squats,

00:02:57.200 | ab rollers, and running. The whole goal I wanted to do here is something that's healthy,

00:03:02.320 | but still pushes me to my limits physically and mentally, and allows me to build up a habit

00:03:07.520 | of doing some efficient exercises every day. You know, something that takes less than an hour,

00:03:11.600 | but keeps me in pretty sharp, hard shape. That's what I'm going to do here. Certainly with 20,000

00:03:18.080 | pushups and pull-ups, that's a whole nother level. I don't know what's going to happen,

00:03:22.240 | but I will learn something about myself for sure. So I want to mention some of the reasons,

00:03:27.280 | some of the motivations of why I'm doing this challenge. So first is I didn't think too much

00:03:33.440 | about it. I just dived right in. I was actually just laying in bed and tweeted it out. I think

00:03:40.000 | some of the craziest, most fun, some of the most ambitious things we can take on in life

00:03:44.160 | sometimes can be just on a whim. So I'm decided on a whim, but I'm going to take it to completion.

00:03:51.920 | Also, I wanted to do an exercise program that I've done often in the past that takes very little

00:03:56.400 | effort. So like being busy is not an excuse. It can take 20, 30 minutes a day just to get a hard

00:04:01.920 | workout in. You can do it at home. There's no excuse not to do it. The other thing is that

00:04:06.640 | travel is not an excuse because it's body weight. You can basically do it anywhere.

00:04:10.480 | You probably heard me talk a lot about it before, but I'm a huge believer in habits

00:04:14.800 | because habits remove the need for day-to-day motivations that can go up and down. I have a

00:04:20.320 | lot of research, work-related habits that are part of my life, but I wanted to get exercise

00:04:25.520 | as part of a daily routine in my life. I think especially in these times of the coronavirus and

00:04:31.840 | all the madness that's going on in the world, being healthy, making sure you're strengthening

00:04:36.320 | your immune system with good diet, good sleep, good exercise is really important for everybody.

00:04:42.080 | Everybody's kind of locked up and it's easy to slack on the exercise. I wanted to motivate others

00:04:47.760 | perhaps to join me on getting their exercise back on, getting back out there, getting a little bit

00:04:52.800 | of movement every single day. Also, I wanted to harden up that muscle of doing a thing you don't

00:04:57.920 | want to do for that long period of time and getting it done. So I actually asked David,

00:05:03.840 | "What should I do when things get tough?" - This is a good fucking question, man,

00:05:09.360 | because it's going to get fucking difficult day after day after day. That's the thing about what

00:05:13.840 | you're doing right now that's challenging is a lot of motherfuckers can sign up for the fucking

00:05:19.920 | one-day event. A lot of people do. A lot of these CEOs, a lot of these people who don't want to

00:05:24.560 | suffer as a living, who don't want to suffer as making it a habit, what they do is they go out

00:05:32.560 | and they recruit these people to put them through a two-day, three-day fucking challenge. Anybody can

00:05:39.280 | do that shit because your mind can process two or three fucking days of suck. What you're doing,

00:05:45.840 | my friend, is going to be damn near a month of suck. So basically, you're going to have a lot

00:05:52.960 | of days, especially in the morning time. The mornings when you wake up and your body says,

00:05:58.000 | "Go fuck yourself because I don't fucking feel like doing this today," and you're going to look

00:06:02.960 | at it because you're running six miles a day, I believe. What's going to happen to your fucking

00:06:07.680 | ass is you're going to wake up in the morning and you're going to fucking do what I do. People

00:06:12.160 | think, "Oh, David Goggins just wakes the fuck up and he just gets his shit on. He gets his

00:06:16.560 | fuck out." No, I don't. I don't get up and get after it. I look at my shoes sometimes for hours.

00:06:25.520 | I pass them. I go, I get something to drink. I go to the bathroom. I watch TV. I'll start doing

00:06:32.800 | some work. I look at those fucking shoes because my body's saying, "Go fuck yourself." So you have

00:06:40.080 | to be able to win the morning. You have to be able to not allow that to get too deep in your brain.

00:06:46.800 | When things get really tough for you, when you're out there on day 17 and your knees are hurting,

00:06:55.440 | and your back is hurting, and your shoulders are hurting, and your elbow tendonitis, and

00:07:00.080 | all kinds of shit going on, you got to start remembering your resume. A lot of people don't

00:07:06.880 | remember what the fuck they've accomplished in life. At that time of suffering, you have to be

00:07:14.160 | able to fucking go through and pull up that fucking "Who the fuck I am" resume and say, "Oh,

00:07:22.320 | for you, I'm sure you studied your fucking ass off for hours and days and years to get where

00:07:29.360 | you're at. I guarantee you did shit harder than this." And that's basically what you have to go

00:07:35.840 | back to, but it's hard to do because in that moment of suffering, all you can fucking think

00:07:42.480 | about is getting the fuck out of it. So you got to take that one second to pull yourself out of

00:07:47.600 | that suffering to have a clear fucking thought. It's hard to have clear thoughts in the midst

00:07:54.320 | of extreme pain and suffering. Find that clear thought. Remind yourself of what you've been

00:08:02.720 | through back in the past, back in the day, to get to where you're at today. So that's what I do

00:08:07.600 | is a counselor reminder. And then through that process, I guarantee you your mind and body will

00:08:14.320 | say, "Oh, we got this. We've been here before." Maybe not in that kind of pain and suffering,

00:08:21.280 | but we've been here before in the demons of your own mind. So that's the best reminder in the world.

00:08:27.440 | All right. So what I'm going to attempt, what I'm going to do is 20,000 pushups and pull-ups

00:08:33.920 | combined. And on top of that, I'm also going to do squats, ab rollers, and run six miles every day.

00:08:40.720 | So the routine is this, run six miles and then do 34 rounds of the following, 15 pushups,

00:08:48.320 | five pull-ups, five ab rollers, and 10 squats, just over and over 34 times a day. I might split

00:08:56.800 | it up three times a day. I might do it twice a day. I might do it just one in a day. My plan is

00:09:03.440 | to do the hardest one early on in the day, try to get as much done as possible, most likely about

00:09:09.760 | 14 rounds, and then do another 10 and 10 later on in the day. The goal is for each round like that

00:09:16.400 | to take about two minutes. So for 34 rounds, that's 68 minutes. So the start is tomorrow,

00:09:24.800 | Wednesday, June 10th, going on for 30 days after that. So let me quickly do a round

00:09:29.760 | to give you a sense of the form and then talk about it.

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00:09:34.000 | Transcription by CastingWords

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00:09:56.960 | Transcription by CastingWords

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00:10:32.960 | So there you have it, that's one round.

00:10:34.960 | The hope for that is to take about a minute

00:10:36.960 | and the total is two minutes, so you get a break

00:10:38.960 | of about a minute between each session.

00:10:40.960 | Obviously good form is important.

00:10:42.960 | There's always going to be a keyboard warrior out there,

00:10:44.960 | I'm looking at you,

00:10:46.960 | with some sweatpants in their mom's basement

00:10:48.960 | with Cheetos all over the place,

00:10:50.960 | way out of shape,

00:10:52.960 | who's going to comment about the fact that the pushups

00:10:54.960 | aren't all the way down or aren't all the way up

00:10:56.960 | and the same with the pull-ups, so on and so forth.

00:10:58.960 | None of that matters.

00:11:00.960 | Good form, in this case,

00:11:02.960 | for a pushup and a pull-up

00:11:04.960 | is something that minimizes

00:11:06.960 | the risk of injury.

00:11:08.960 | I think this whole thing is a tough workout,

00:11:10.960 | to be honest.

00:11:12.960 | Yesterday and the day before,

00:11:14.960 | I did over 400,

00:11:16.960 | which I was trying to see, is this even possible?

00:11:18.960 | Can I do 680 total

00:11:20.960 | pushups and pull-ups in a day?

00:11:22.960 | It seems like an insane number to me.

00:11:24.960 | So I did 400

00:11:26.960 | and it was tough,

00:11:28.960 | but doable,

00:11:30.960 | and I think if 400 is doable,

00:11:32.960 | then 680 is too.

00:11:34.960 | I think I can

00:11:36.960 | certainly, with a little bit of suffering,

00:11:38.960 | do it for a few days.

00:11:40.960 | If I can be fortunate enough to avoid injury,

00:11:42.960 | the rest of the month is just mental.

00:11:44.960 | That's where the battle is.

00:11:46.960 | That's where all the good lessons have to be learned.

00:11:48.960 | So I also asked David,

00:11:50.960 | by the way, there's a laptop over here,

00:11:52.960 | that's why I'm looking over here.

00:11:54.960 | I also asked David about the fact

00:11:56.960 | that some people

00:11:58.960 | might join in on this challenge

00:12:00.960 | in whatever capacity they can

00:12:02.960 | and what he recommends

00:12:04.960 | for me and for others

00:12:06.960 | to stay injury-free while still

00:12:08.960 | pushing their body and their mind to the limit.

00:12:10.960 | Well, this challenge, you're going to get injured.

00:12:12.960 | If you don't have a good base,

00:12:14.960 | like for instance, if you don't do

00:12:16.960 | a lot of pull-ups, a lot of pushups,

00:12:18.960 | what you do

00:12:20.960 | for both is you're

00:12:22.960 | utilizing

00:12:24.960 | these elbows, which you get

00:12:26.960 | tendonitis severely bad,

00:12:28.960 | and your shoulders.

00:12:30.960 | So with the pushup, you're here,

00:12:32.960 | this is your hinge part.

00:12:34.960 | Yeah, you are using your chest, using your triceps,

00:12:36.960 | but this hinge is being

00:12:38.960 | used an awful lot, this elbow hinge.

00:12:40.960 | These shoulders are being

00:12:42.960 | used an awful lot, even the pull-up

00:12:44.960 | motion is being used an awful lot.

00:12:46.960 | So basically,

00:12:48.960 | what happens is you're going to get

00:12:50.960 | injured. So

00:12:52.960 | for a lot of you, I would

00:12:54.960 | definitely suggest doing a lot more

00:12:56.960 | squats, do a lot more

00:12:58.960 | abs, doing things like

00:13:00.960 | that, even abs, you can injure your abs, but

00:13:02.960 | going from zero to hero,

00:13:04.960 | you will have some

00:13:06.960 | injuries, and

00:13:08.960 | you got this isom,

00:13:10.960 | try to get your body to recover as fast

00:13:12.960 | as possible, taking in proteins,

00:13:14.960 | taking in aminos,

00:13:16.960 | things like that, getting as much rest as you

00:13:18.960 | can, but you're going to get over

00:13:20.960 | overused

00:13:22.960 | training issues with your body.

00:13:24.960 | That just comes with the, it's just nature of the beast.

00:13:26.960 | And like I said, those of you who start

00:13:28.960 | to get injured, start doing

00:13:30.960 | those, start making those squats,

00:13:32.960 | you know, your

00:13:34.960 | go-to because your legs

00:13:36.960 | can handle so much. When I was doing

00:13:38.960 | the pull-up record, people wondered

00:13:40.960 | why that was so hard for me.

00:13:42.960 | First of all, I had a jacked-up body

00:13:44.960 | when I was doing it, a very

00:13:46.960 | I guess out of alignment

00:13:48.960 | body, but your only contact

00:13:50.960 | point is your hands.

00:13:52.960 | And there's been times

00:13:54.960 | in 200-mile races

00:13:56.960 | where I tore my quad, completely

00:13:58.960 | tore my quad, I was able

00:14:00.960 | to bandage it up and walk

00:14:02.960 | it out. I was able to walk 75 miles.

00:14:04.960 | So that's the thing, your

00:14:06.960 | legs can handle a lot of

00:14:08.960 | abuse, a lot of abuse.

00:14:10.960 | So when you start hurting, go to your legs.

00:14:12.960 | So there you have it.

00:14:14.960 | Don't use any kind of injury

00:14:16.960 | as an excuse to stop

00:14:18.960 | moving, stop exercising, just

00:14:20.960 | find an alternative exercise that doesn't

00:14:22.960 | hurt. I'm going to really try

00:14:24.960 | to stick to the push-up and pull-up and do

00:14:26.960 | everything I can to remain injury-free.

00:14:28.960 | For me, a part of

00:14:30.960 | avoiding injury is

00:14:32.960 | stretching really well, also

00:14:34.960 | doing good warm-up. For me, I'm doing

00:14:36.960 | the six-mile run before

00:14:38.960 | doing the bodyweight exercises.

00:14:40.960 | Also, obviously

00:14:42.960 | nutrition is important.

00:14:44.960 | Everybody has their own journey.

00:14:46.960 | I've dieted

00:14:48.960 | my whole life all kinds of ways.

00:14:50.960 | I did combat sports my whole life, so

00:14:52.960 | cutting weight and performing optimally

00:14:54.960 | was always important.

00:14:56.960 | For me, whatever you think about it,

00:14:58.960 | the main

00:15:00.960 | diet that I've come to enjoy

00:15:02.960 | is either keto

00:15:04.960 | or carnivore, so primarily a meat-based

00:15:06.960 | diet, meat and fat, very low

00:15:08.960 | carb. So mostly for me, that

00:15:10.960 | just means ground beef,

00:15:12.960 | sometimes steak, and

00:15:14.960 | keto-friendly, low-carb snacks

00:15:16.960 | here and there. Nutrition-wise,

00:15:18.960 | it's pretty basic, but I do take

00:15:20.960 | some stuff. I take

00:15:22.960 | sodium in my food,

00:15:24.960 | so I put quite a bit of salt

00:15:26.960 | in there, magnesium.

00:15:28.960 | Also, I take fish oil

00:15:30.960 | and pill form, not much, like two or

00:15:32.960 | three fish oil pills

00:15:34.960 | a day and an emaldivitamin.

00:15:36.960 | That's it. It would be, of course,

00:15:38.960 | awesome if other folks, if you

00:15:40.960 | decided to join in on this challenge, at

00:15:42.960 | whatever level you want, it would just be fun

00:15:44.960 | to do push-ups and pull-ups together,

00:15:46.960 | or any kind of difficult exercise,

00:15:48.960 | activity

00:15:50.960 | that will challenge you.

00:15:52.960 | Do it every single day. If you haven't ramped

00:15:54.960 | up to it, you haven't done it much,

00:15:56.960 | what I would recommend is

00:15:58.960 | to start very low to where

00:16:00.960 | almost you're comfortable, and

00:16:02.960 | then increase it day by day to when

00:16:04.960 | you quickly become uncomfortable.

00:16:06.960 | But give your body time to adjust. That's

00:16:08.960 | really important. Again, the

00:16:10.960 | point here is to do

00:16:12.960 | a difficult exercise,

00:16:14.960 | but really is to do it for 30 days.

00:16:16.960 | And what I'm doing,

00:16:18.960 | and I hope you do as well, it's not just for

00:16:20.960 | 30 days. For 30 days you do

00:16:22.960 | something difficult, but you form that

00:16:24.960 | habit and you stick to it

00:16:26.960 | for months to

00:16:28.960 | come. Especially in these times, exercise

00:16:30.960 | is just so important for staying

00:16:32.960 | healthy and staying sane.

00:16:34.960 | I'd love it if you joined in on the challenge.

00:16:36.960 | I'll have a spreadsheet

00:16:38.960 | linked in the description where I'll keep

00:16:40.960 | track of the reps that I'm doing

00:16:42.960 | on a daily basis, just so you can follow

00:16:44.960 | along. You can also just copy that spreadsheet

00:16:46.960 | and use it for yourself

00:16:48.960 | to track your own numbers.

00:16:50.960 | Share it with me on any of the social platforms.

00:16:52.960 | I'd love to see your progress.

00:16:54.960 | I'll also maybe

00:16:56.960 | go live on one of the platforms,

00:16:58.960 | Instagram, YouTube,

00:17:00.960 | on our Discord server,

00:17:02.960 | Twitter, I don't know.

00:17:04.960 | I don't know if there's interest in that.

00:17:06.960 | I'll be honest, I tried Instagram

00:17:08.960 | live a couple of days ago

00:17:10.960 | to work out, and it was a little weird

00:17:12.960 | for me to work out while other people watch, so I'm not

00:17:14.960 | sure. But maybe if there's interest, let me know.

00:17:16.960 | Maybe I can take a few questions about

00:17:18.960 | the challenge. I'll probably record

00:17:20.960 | a video throughout the month and just

00:17:22.960 | publish it at the end. So with

00:17:24.960 | that, I'd like to thank David Goggins.

00:17:26.960 | I follow him on Instagram, and he's

00:17:28.960 | a constant reminder that

00:17:30.960 | I need to push

00:17:32.960 | myself to my limit,

00:17:34.960 | mentally. I asked him,

00:17:36.960 | of course, whether

00:17:38.960 | he'd want to be a guest on the podcast.

00:17:40.960 | Let's see what he had to say.

00:17:42.960 | No problem, man.

00:17:44.960 | I love what you do.

00:17:46.960 | I've seen some of your work.

00:17:48.960 | You're an extremely intelligent guy.

00:17:50.960 | So your intelligence,

00:17:52.960 | and I see that you're willing

00:17:54.960 | to go the next

00:17:56.960 | mile. So you're willing to be

00:17:58.960 | a guy that is just not...

00:18:00.960 | Alright, so for instance, when I was in the military,

00:18:02.960 | they said, "You better be real smart

00:18:04.960 | or you better fucking be

00:18:06.960 | real hard."

00:18:08.960 | I was the real hard guy,

00:18:10.960 | and I had to develop the smarts.

00:18:12.960 | I see that you're a really smart

00:18:14.960 | guy, and you're developing the hard.

00:18:16.960 | So I think that

00:18:18.960 | we can really have a good

00:18:20.960 | podcast together. It'd be a pretty

00:18:22.960 | interesting conversation.

00:18:24.960 | So there you have it. It's on.

00:18:26.960 | I think I'm recording this

00:18:28.960 | video, but most of this journey is

00:18:30.960 | quiet. It's on my own. It's with myself.

00:18:32.960 | It's a quiet journey of suffering.

00:18:34.960 | So yes, it's a way to get

00:18:36.960 | exercise back in my life,

00:18:38.960 | but it's really a chance to

00:18:40.960 | rediscover myself by doing something

00:18:42.960 | really, really difficult for

00:18:44.960 | a prolonged period of time.

00:18:46.960 | No matter what,

00:18:48.960 | I'll be a different

00:18:50.960 | and, I think, a better human being on the

00:18:52.960 | other end. If you join

00:18:54.960 | me on this, in your own parallel

00:18:56.960 | journey, great.

00:18:58.960 | Either way, stay healthy

00:19:00.960 | and stay hard.

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20,000 Push-ups and Pull-ups in 30 Days Challenge (featuring David Goggins)

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