Monday, July 13, 2009

I do some push-ups.

Today a guy came in for his yearly check-up. Usually these are pretty uninteresting affairs with a series of questions about the person's health being answered with things like, "I feel fine", "No complaints". About half the time they answer my questions about exercise with, "yeah, I go running about 2-4 miles per day" and they look like it. Or they answer, "Yeah, I go walking sometimes" or "I'm pretty active."
Today I asked a guy if he exercises and he said, "I do some push-ups in the morning" "Me, too" I said. I thought this was code for I don't do much so I'll cover by saying that I do something menial. But when I scrolled down his chart a little more the nurse who checked him in had asked him how many, and he does 800 push-ups every morning. 800. Ridiculous? It gets better. When I asked him how long it takes him to do this punishing routine, as I think to my self I bet I'd be lucky to do 30 pushups, he told me that he pauses between each set of 100 for 30 seconds but could probably do the whole 800 in 8 minutes!! "Um, yeah. Me too." I replied.