For the past several years I have pursued a diet and exercise regime that consisted of eating out several times a week, imbibing industrial quantities of booze, and moving slightly less than a statue. One of the notable physiological consequences of this is that I have cultivated a fine pair of man-boobs and my once-manly arms have atrophied to the pale, timid biceps of a toddler. I wouldn't mind so much if I were a toddler but unfortunately I am a 29-year-old man. Something had to be done.

The answer, I decided, was a prescription for a month of press-ups, 20 to be taken morning and night. Long before the gullible attended gymnasiums to do sit-ups inside ridiculous, cosseted roll-cages, men did proper exercises such as press-ups. You know these exercises are working because your face takes on a puce tinge, your vision dims, your muscles quiver violently and, at around the 14th repetition, you feel something go click in your neck. Nature rewards these exertions with a prolonged tingling sensation across your spine and an inability to pick things up with your left hand; scientific proof that the exercises are working.

So, for a month, morning and night, I grunt my way through 20 press-ups. I even throw in some old-fashioned sit-ups, which for a few days leaves me incapable of rising from a chair without issuing a sizeable "GAAHH!". Shamefully, my puny physique cannot sustain full press-ups at the beginning, so I'm degraded further by having to do press-ups with my knees on the floor.

At the beginning of the month my biceps had a circumference of 36cm. By the end of the month my right bicep had expanded to a healthy 38cm and my left to 37cm: a success! Although I fear my appearance growing progressively more asymmetrical should I continue the programme. My wife insists I have much better definition and yesterday I discovered I can now make my nascent pectoral muscles "dance", in the manner beloved by bodybuilders. I don't feel much fitter but, personally, I think dancing pectorals qualify as a success in anyone's book.