A journey of 10,000 burpees starts with one jump. A challenge was issued by my friend Chris,10,000 push-ups was his goal. Sounds good, I thought. Might as well join in and go for the trifecta, tendonitis in the knees, elbows and shoulders, by adding a squat thrust and jump (burpee=squat thrust, push-up, jump). Sounds crazy, no?
Actually,the burpee is a super-efficient conditioning exercise. Four summers ago, I was on a diet of 50 burpees a day (VB50). In one month I whittled my 100 burpee time, around the 8 minute mark, down to 6 and a half minutes. It works out to about 3 minutes of conditioning per day. Even if you have a busy schedule, it's not hard to find a slot for three minutes.
These days, I'm a little older and a little thicker in the middle, and my VB50 time is around 3 and a half minutes. I've taken up the challenge, but dang, looking forward to 50 burpees a day makes you want to stay in bed. One week into the challenge and I've only done 320. Time to get grinding.
While I'm on the subject of training challenges, I'm working on several others concurrently:
-One Armed chin-up (OACU), This one was inspired by my daughter, who asked me innocently last night,"You can do one of those, right daddy?" Curse you, YouTube! "Not yet," I responded. I can do regular sets of 5 with a 24 kg KB. A bit of a way to go and I'm stuck at 5 reps with 24 kg on the belt. Argh!
-Sub 7 minute 2K on the Concept II. About the same time I was on the daily VB50 plan, I rowed 2k in about 6 and a half minutes. These days, it's a wheezy 7'45." I'd like to get that time down.
-Secret service snatch test (200 KB snatches in 10 minutes). This one is really daunting. Single arm swings and high-pulls are no problem with 24 kgs, but snatches?! We don't need no steenkin' snatches!
Stay tuned or train along with me. Today's workout will be VB50, a KB breathing pyramid, and assisted OACU negatives.
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