Derek Semmler dot com - money, motorcycles and cars (with a little bit of everything else)

While my day was wasting away at the office, one of my good friends sent me an email about a site that was getting a lot of attention from an article on digg (via lifehacker) called one hundred push ups.

About a month ago I remember seeing this site and thinking that it sounded like a cool idea but never pursued things much further than that. My buddy, Ryan, said he was going to try the program, so naturally he challenged me to do it as well for a little friendly competition.

For quite a few years, Ryan and I were lifting weights together but recently our schedules became an excuse and we stopped lifting. The program we were following had the sole purpose of improving our one-rep max bench press, which is one of the ultimate testosterone, chest-thumping, male exercises that you will find. Since I clearly dominated that friendly competition, moving well above 300 pounds for my one-rep max, this is Ryan’s shot at redemption.

100 Push Up Challenge

One Hundred Push Ups is a site dedicated to providing a progressive push up training program that will have you doing 100 consecutive push ups in just six weeks, no matter how many you can do today.

The program requires participants to exercise three days per week for a total of roughly 30 minutes. Each day you will perform four sets of push ups with the number of repetitions gradually decreasing for each set. Then you will perform a fifth set that is a “max” set, meaning you do as many as you can until your arms turn into noodles and you collapse on the floor. Each week the number of push ups gradually increases, with an exhaustion test required after Week 2, Week 4 and Week 5 until the final test after Week 6.

Doesn’t sound too bad, does it?

Before you begin the program, it is recommended that you obtain clearance from your doctor (yeah right, we’re guys, so this step will be skipped…but don’t blame me if you skip this step and drop dead during the program) and then take an initial push ups test. This initial test is used to measure your current fitness level and determine where you will start in the program.

For the record, I have taken the initial test and recorded 27 push ups with good form. This was much lower than I was expecting and is a rude realization of how far I have slipped since Ryan and I stopped lifting weights. Ryan has also performed the initial test and recorded 29 push ups although I am sure his form was less than perfect!

Join The Challenge And Win

That’s right - it is time for another contest. Since I wanted to encourage as many of you to join me as possible, I figured that I would have to sweeten the pot a little more than just simply asking. So I am going to offer up a prize that includes $25 cash and a few random t-shirts - you know, because your old shirts will have ripped with your new rippling muscles.

Obviously I will have no way of proving that you are actually participating in the challenge, although requiring a video clip of you doing push ups in order to enter could be entertaining.

How Do I Enter?

To enter the contest you need to pledge that you will participate in the program for the next six weeks and write a post about it on your blog, linking back to this contest post using whatever anchor text you see fit.

You’ll want to be sure to send a trackback to this post or leave a comment with the link to your post so I know that you entered. For those of you that don’t have a blog, well…sorry, I guess this contest isn’t for you. Maybe you can convince a friend, or a completely random blogger, to let you post about it on their blog.

When Is The Deadline?

Normally I would only run a contest like this for one or two weeks. However, this contest will run for the duration of the one hundred push ups program, which is six weeks long. That would put us right near the end of August, so the contest will officially close at 11:59pm CST on August 31, 2008.

How Will You Decide Who Wins?

The winner of the contest will be selected at random using the Random Integer Generator, similar to how I have selected blog contest winners in the past.

The prizes will be shipped anywhere in the world and the cash prize will be in US dollars, which could be a bummer depending on where you live, paid preferably via PayPal. The winner will have seven days to respond with their contact information, otherwise an alternate winner will be selected.

Who Is In?

So…who wants to get strong and have a chance at winning some cool schwag?

Even if you are not gifted with the skills to create outstanding images with Photoshop, which is certainly how I would describe myself, that doesn’t mean you should stop yourself from having some fun.

As you might have guessed by now, the post revealing my AdSense check that was “worth” well into the six figures is one such example of me trying to have a little fun with Photoshop.

Just to clarify for everyone, I have never received an AdSense check for four figures let alone six.

A few months back I had seen Shoemoney discussing his AdSense check (his was actually legit) and also read a post from the Super Affiliate Zac Johnson discussing how he made over $800,000 in four months.

Those posts gave me the idea to snap a few pictures of an AdSense check and see what I could create using my amateur Photoshop skills. As I mentioned in the post, I really had been sitting on that image for a few months as I just never got around to posting it. When I finally decided to post the image, I thought that I would have a little fun with the post.

At the end of the post, I included some fine print that indicated you should be sure to read the entire post for all of the details. In the very last paragraph of the post, I mentioned that regular readers have seen my tips and tricks but that I would disclose the secret to all of the new readers.

Did you notice the “secret” linked to a post about my Photoshop skills?

Rather than come right out and say that the AdSense check was a fake (well, the check was real but I doctored the numbers), I thought it would be fun to give everyone a clue that it was fake and see what would happen. Based on the responses, I see that some people quickly noticed my Photoshop hack but that others were offering their congratulations and asking how it was done.

While I am certainly no expert with Photoshop, I still enjoy spending some time every now and then tinkering around to see what I can come up with. If you’re interested in having some fun of your own with Photoshop, be sure to take a look at Michael Kwan’s blog to see how you can win a big box of cool stuff.

So what did you think of my AdSense check?

By now just about everyone that blogs on the Interweb has seen the impressive AdSense check shared by Shoemoney.

As a matter of fact, I am sure that check is responsible for motivating a great number of people to start their blogs. Unfortunately, many of those people bailed on their blogs after a few short months when the AdSense earnings were not rolling in and the “fun factor” of the new blog had waned.

Well, I am here today to tell you that the “little guy” can do it, as I am about to show you.

As you’ll notice in the photo, this check is dated from February of this year. The reason that I am just showing it now is because I’ve had a long debate whether I should post this or not - as I don’t want anyone to think I am bragging.

Enough of the small talk…

The next time that you are questioning yourself or doubting if you made the right choice by starting your blog, come here and take a look at this for motivation.

Anything is possible!

Now that I have let the cat out of the bag, I am sure there will be plenty of questions regarding how this was accomplished and what you need to do to duplicate this success.

As long-time readers of this site will know, I have posted about the tips and tricks that were used along the way to get to this point. If you’re new to this blog, I will try to save you some time and point you towards the one post that will tell you exactly how I was able to do this and what you need to be in the same position. Are you ready? Please keep in mind that I cannot guarantee you will be able to achieve the same level of success but here is the secret.

(Be sure to read the entire post for all of the details.)

With everything that has been going on away from the Interweb the last two weeks, I’ve been seriously neglecting my list of RSS subscriptions in Google Reader and had well over 1000 posts waiting to be read.

Unfortunately, many of them were skimmed over as I tried to catch up but the following posts caught my eye (well, at least before my eyes glazed over.)

1. Last month we talked about whether or not anyone cares about Google PageRank. Over at Postcards From the Funny Farm, Damien recently shared his thoughts about using a self-rating system for his blog. When you’re reaching your own personal goals with your blog, does it really matter how someone else rates your blog?

2. As I am working on my experiment with keyword sniping, I’ve gained a better appreciation for the work that freelance writers do on a regular basis. One such writer that I really respect, Michael Kwan from Beyond the Rhetoric recently asked: can freelance writers read for pleasure? While I don’t consider myself a freelance writer, I am a blogger and can say that I do read for pleasure - although most people think the books I read for pleasure should be classified as torture.

3. As bad as I thought it was when I received a violation notice from the Illinois Tollway Authority, Dave Pitlyuk from DavidPitlyuk.com received an interesting piece of mail the other day that included a nice picture of his Viper in the mail. While I have to agree it is a pretty nice picture, I think the use of speed cameras is used primarily as a source of revenue rather than as a means of providing safer streets. As mentioned in Dave’s post, how do you dispute the accuracy of the supposed violation? As many of us are well aware, technology is not perfect and is prone to error.

4. My blogging buddy Danielle from MsDanielle.com recently took a trip to her Motherland. She is back now and has a few interesting observations about Japan that make it sound like a great place to visit. Being a huge fan of sushi, I was very jealous to hear about Danielle’s epic sushi adventure - although having an In-n-Out burger as a consolation prize wouldn’t be too bad eitehr. Stay tuned over the next few days as Danielle shares more stories and pictures of her trip.

5. Being an owner of a Harley Softail, I had to laugh when I saw that Stephen Fung from Stephen Fung dot Net recently bought himself a Yamaha C3 scooter to get around town. But you know what, considering that the scooter gets over 100 miles per gallon, Stephen is laughing all the way to the bank with his savings on fuel costs. That doesn’t mean we cannot all point and laugh at him though, after all his scooter is also known as a Giggle in Europe.

Thanks for joining me on this quick look through a few posts from Google Reader. It feels great to finally be caught up on my RSS feed reading.

In order to make sure that you don’t miss any posts from this blog, please make sure that you have signed up for the RSS feed.

The Q&A sessions that I have featured here seem to have been a big hit so I will now be featuring one each month. With the last session taking place on the 2nd Friday of the month, I figured it would be good to stay consistent.

You can ask anything that you like and I will answer to the best of my abilities, or tell you if I don’t know the answer.

To get you in the spirit of asking questions - and hopefully reduce the number of duplicated questions - please take a look at the previous sessions to see what the community has wanted to know.

• Q&A Round 1 :: The Answers
• Q&A Round 2 :: The Answers

So…what is on your mind?

Questions will be answered on the following Friday.