It's The Butterflies That Remind Me I Still Got It....

Or maybe it's the butterflies that prove I'm nuts.. There are certain workouts that I literally get nauseous just thinking about them. Like the butterflies in the stomach before a race or some other event that I really want to do well in. But for a workout at the gym? Does that make any sense? Here's why it makes sense. I use certain workouts as measuring sticks.. Like when I try to do 100 burpees as fast as possible (PR 5:56). Or when I do my 300/3000 workout where I do 300 yards of power wheel crawl and 3000 jumps on the jumprope for time (PR 28:34). These are brutal, all out efforts that take me right to the limit.. 

I did another one of these workouts today.. It's a Tabata interval workout with 4 different exercises done for 8 rounds each in a 20:10 format with no rest between rounds. Repeat 8 rounds of each exercise before moving on to the next exercise. The exercises were Strict Pullups, Strict Pushups, Bottom to Bottom Squats, and Jackknifes.. I emphasize "strict" pullups and pushups because it makes a pretty big difference when you do these exercises properly. Pullups are done from a full extension of the arms and pulling up to chin over the bar, every time. No kipping and if the chin doesn't come over the bar it doesn't count. Pushups are done with elbows in, bring the chest and hips to the ground on each repetition. The elbows are not allowed to flare out which collapses the shoulder blades and gives you more of a bounce off the shoulder blades rather than a press from your torso. Big difference. I've seen people do 100 crap pushups that can't do 20 proper ones. The bottom to bottom squats are a fairly miserable exercise where you do as any body squats as possible (heels flat, butt to heels, not hindu squats) in 20 seconds and then hold the 10 second rest in the squat position with legs just above parallel for maximum quad activation. You can't sit in the bottom position of the squat with your butt resting on your heels. 8 rounds of this suck, there's no other way to put it. More rules.. For the pullups, you have to stay on the bar the entire 20 seconds, even once you're unable to perform any more pullups for the round. All 8 rounds of the exercise are completed and then you move directly to the next exercise with no rest (other than the 10 seconds rest from the last exercise).. So you complete 8x 20:10 of pullups, go directly to 8x 20:10 of pushups, to b2b squats, to jackknifes.. You are scored by the lowest number of reps completed in any round.. For example, if you did 12 pullups, followed by 10, 7,4,3,2,2,1 then your score would be 1.. Get it? This is 16 minutes of pure hell.

Now do you understand why I was nauseous before starting? Or maybe I'm just a big baby... Here's my scores.. 

Pullups 3

Pushups 10 

B2B squats 16 (i was pretty psyched about this number), 

jackknifes 9... 

I didn't keep track of my exact totals, but I have a good idea about what I was getting per round and it was something like this, give or take 1 or 2:

38 pullups

95 pushups

130 b2b squats

85 jackknifes

Pretty good amount of work for 16 minutes....

I took a 5 minute rest and then did 20 minutes of hand balancing work.. Made it all the way around the gym walking on my hands until I hit the climbing rope which I had forgotten to wrap around the pole and it took me down.. Fun way to wrap up a workout :)

Best,

kevin