Long time reader of Pavel's work, but new to the forum. Since I'm working from home these days, my strength routine is really just GTG style upper body pushes/pulls + some more structured swings. Not super complicated, but it helps to get blood flowing throughout the day and maintain a reasonable level of strength on the lifts I care about. I saw this program in the newsletter and decided to give it a go because it fit well with the style of work I was doing anyway but had some actual structure.
Pushup technique was simple: enough pause at the top and bottom to kill momentum. and modest speed in between (not too slow, not explosive as per Q&D).
Baseline max: 55 reps
After two weeks, on the first retest, I only hit 60. But, I slightly upped my 1/3, 1/2, 2/3 totals and pressed on. I did my final max test yesterday and was surprised to hit 79 reps. Overall I was pleased with picking up 24 reps from my baseline.
I was expecting the progress to be a bit more linear, but for whatever reason my body had other ideas. Curious if others had a similar trajectory on this plan.
A few observations:
1) After day 1, the outside of my lats were a bit sore. This was a little surprising because I spent plenty of time on the pullup bar. Clearly not working them enough in that plane of motion though.
2) Overall, the program was pretty manageable. No soreness or tendon issues.
3) Finally, I've been neglecting my handstand pushups for quite a few months now. When I got up this morning, I decided to see how those felt. I was pleasantly surprised to hit 11 reps with probably 1 or 2 left in the tank. The most reps I think I've ever hit for a handstand pushup is 13 so it was nice to see that there was carryover. At the beginning of the month, I probably would've conked out around 6 or 7 reps. Apparently pushing your bodyweight almost 6000 times in a month makes you better at pushing your bodyweight
I'll probably try this again in the future with a harder variety of pushup.