We’re starting the week off with this triple triplet:

3 times:

30 pushups
30 second plank
30 squats

For your pushups, break up your 30 into 6 sets of 5, doing some kind of variation every set. The variation can be minor (moving your hands out an inch), or major (handstand push-ups). Some variations: go wide, go narrow, incline, decline, diamond, slide to hollows, clapping, chest slap, one hand elevated on a book, spiderman, weighted.

For your plank, on your hands or elbows or both fine. You can either just hang out, or if you want to juice it, squeeze the hell out of your ass and quads.

Do not do the 3 rounds all in a row. Take at least an hour between your triplets, so you can be fresh as you play around with your push-ups.

The dare part of the dare today is to get someone to do some of these push-ups with you. If you can get them to do slapping partner push-ups with you, all the better.

Let us know in the comments your variations, and whether you were able to convince someone to get down with you in push-upland.

Poem-wise, we start the week with Maya Angelou’s. Her performance of Still I Rise is simply amazing.

Still I Rise
Maya Angelou

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may tread me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard
‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.