Brian’s fitness journal after a brain stroke
Today marks a small but meaningful milestone for me—one that took an entire year to earn.
About a year ago, I started doing push-ups once a week. I began at 20 and made myself a very modest promise: add one more rep each week. No heroics. No sudden transformations. Just one extra push-up. Today, that number reached 72.
When you have compromised kidneys, muscle-building looks a little different. I can’t eat as much protein as a healthy adult male, so progress doesn’t arrive quickly—or loudly. I started running about a decade ago, but it was only in the last few years that I began adding other forms of exercise. Even then, I did it cautiously.
Summers are already physically demanding thanks to lawn mowing and general activity, and my body doesn’t recover the way it used to. So instead of piling workouts on top of each other, I started doing something less exciting but far more effective: adding things slowly.
I also tweaked how often—and how much—I train. Rather than working everything in one session, I focus on a few selected muscle groups each time. The goal isn’t exhaustion. The goal is regeneration. Training your body not to recover is not a win.
Since switching to this approach, something unexpected happened: it worked.
My wife mentioned that I look noticeably leaner than I did a few years ago, back when running was my only form of exercise. I’ve noticed it too—mostly because my pants are tighter. And no, it’s not because my legs suddenly bulked up. Progress shows up in mysterious ways.
The push-up plan itself has been almost comically simple. One rep per week. That’s it. Occasionally, I misremember what number I hit the week before, which means I may have skipped a number or repeated one. But honestly? I don’t care. What matters is that I showed up every week for a full year.
That alone feels worth celebrating.
I’d like to reach 100 push-ups someday, but that will take most of another year—and I’m perfectly fine with that. I’m not in a rush. Each week, I’ll try the new number. If I succeed, I’ll add one more for next time. Thanks to a spreadsheet, I can now be reasonably sure I’m not accidentally cheating or sabotaging myself.
A fitness journey doesn’t need to be dramatic to be real. It just needs to be yours. I’ve accepted my kidney disease and built my workouts around what my body can actually handle.
And one push-up at a time, it turns out, is more than enough.