Some months ago I decided I was going to use this “downtime” to get in better shape. Maybe not objectively in shape, but less soft and wheezy. This is about when I tripped across a push-up workout in an Instagram post by a mildly tattooed guy named Jacob Manning. He calls it “Building a Dog House.” I don’t know why it’s named that; doesn’t make much sense at all. But I tried it, and it kicked my ass. Because it kicked my ass, I’ve returned to it semi-regularly to gauge whether my quest to get less doughy and wheezy is progressing. It is, thank you for asking—but even as I get fitter, the Push-Up Ladder, which is what I call this workout in my brain, continues to kick my ass.
The workout involves two movements: the push-up and a kneeling reach straight up with both arms, shoulders high, biceps by your ears, then back down with elbows bent to 90 degrees like you’re doing a Cornholio impression. You assemble those into a laddered reps structure, like so:
1 pushup, 1 arm reach
2 pushups, 2 arm reaches
3 pushups, 3 arm reaches
…and so on, until you reach 10 push-ups and 10 arm reaches. That’s the top of the ladder—at which point you have to go back down, from 9 and 9, to 8 and 8, all the way to 1 and 1. In total, the Push-Up Ladder is 100 push-ups and 100 arm raises. Simple! And hellish.
See, written out like I did above, you’re deceived into thinking things are gonna be easy. Ten pushups, max? Ten is a small number! And the rest of the sets are smaller. Raising your arms to the sky like a third-grader who’s gotta pee? WATCH ME DO THAT 20 TIMES RIGHT NOW, EASY.
But then you try the Push-Up Ladder. And if you’re like me, it goes like this:
Rungs 1, 2, and 3: This is a joke, or I am The Rock. Probably I’m The Rock.
Rung 4: Huh, felt that one. Also, my shoulders sound like a pepper grinder.
Rung 5: [Grunt a bit on the fifth push-up]
Rung 6: Doing that heavy-aspiration gym breathing like I’m giving birth. I’m also resting 5-10 seconds between reps, too, rather than going directly from push-ups to raises to push-ups again.
This is when you might start to think, like I first did, that you just need to speed up, knock these out fast. Don’t. As far as the Push-Up Ladder goes, at this point, you’re still at Everest Base Camp, sipping hot chocolate and asking if anyone can take your picture in front of “the big guy.” You don’t know what’s coming. The path up is hell, and it hasn’t even begun.
Rung 7: This is where things start to go to shit, at least for me. It’s when I realize that all those seemingly easy arm lifts are tiring out my shoulders. The same shoulders that keep me from collapsing face-first into my dog-hair-covered Wayfair rug during the down phase of the push-up.
Rungs 8 and 9: I am summoning every upper body muscle in a one-mile radius to avoid eating discount wool. If I don’t pay extra attention, my form goes to shit—my back hollows out and I resemble a carved-wood mermaid on the prow of a pirate ship. Between-set rests are now 10 slooooow breaths. Though my shoulders no longer feel like they’re filled with gravel, which is nice.
Rung 10 (before): This is going to suck.
Rung 10 (during): This sucks.
Rung 10 (right around push-up nine): [Falls on face, resets push-up position] [Holds at top for 1-2 hours] “Teeeengghhhhhh” [Molars shatter]
And listen, I want to tell you that after you hit ten, it’s all downhill. Which technically, from a counting perspective, it is. But stepping down the Push-Up Ladder, Rungs 9 through 6 are the real hell. Nothing in my chest is working properly, organs included. I’m acutely aware that my core has left my spine to fend for itself. My shoulders have gone on strike, so I’m begging my lats and traps to show up and do something, anything, please.
If there’s an upside to having my body and my self-confidence shattered by the Push-Up Ladder, it’s that the workout lets me finish strong. I’m so juiced up by the adrenaline of seeing the finish line that I can knock out the final three rungs with no rest between sets. I get to carry that strong finish with me to the shower, where I do some light mirror flexing and tell myself I’m a good boy for doing a hard thing.
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