This
middle-aged man has a history of starting birthday-theme fitness challenges of
some type beginning with a new calendar year.
He
did so about a decade ago when he trained to self-administer the Marine
Physical Fitness Test to himself on his birthday with a goal of scoring 250
points (300 points is a perfect score).
It took me three birthday attempts over three years to finally get my
250 points and that was the last time I took this test; wouldn’t even try now.
Then
seven years ago I came up with another beginning-of-the-year birthday-related
fitness challenge of completing 54 burpees each Monday through Friday at the
end of my workouts. This was a demanding
challenge yet I stepped up to the plate and delivered a perfect attendance
score. In the chase, I improved my
cardiovascular conditioning and that was nice.
Now
it’s time for another beginning-of-the-year birthday-related fitness challenge
and this one will again be a burpee challenge.
I’ll perform 100 burpees each Monday through Friday from January 1st
until my 61st birthday about six-weeks from now.
I’ll
take off the day before my birthday to be fresh on my birthday when I’ll perform
the 100 burpees as fast as possible in a timed test. That will give me 35 days of work or 3,500
total burpees for this new little birthday-related fitness challenge.
To
make it interesting and extra challenging, I’ll incorporate these 100 burpees
with kettlebell work on some days. I’ll
also be smart with pace and intensities so as to not burn myself out. That’s something very easy to do with
burpees.
Do
I have any particular goal time in mind?
Having thought about it really hard, I’ve decided no I don’t other than
to improve my benchmark time and that is the time it took me last Friday –
January 1st – to complete 100 burpees.
Oh, I guess I do have one other goal in this pursuit and that is to have "perfect attendance".
That
early morning workout consisted of 100 burpees that I completed in 10 rounds of
10 burpees each round. My plan was to
start a new round every 1:30 and I pretty much kept that pace with some rounds
being a little faster and some rounds a little slower.
My
time to complete the 100 burpees was 14:34.
All burpees were of the variety including a flopping pushup and a jump
with both hands overhead reaching for the stars.
This
should be fitness fun of the bittersweet variety.
The
bitter will be that completing 100 burpees each Monday through Friday is a
demanding chore that will challenge me both mentally and physically.
The
sweet will be that if I complete this challenge as prescribed, I’ll walk away
with a nice uptick in my cardiovascular conditioning. That’s a nice birthday gift to give myself.
Come
along for the ride and cheer my on as I tackle my 61st birthday burpee
challenge.
Pax
Domini sit semper vobiscum
2 comments:
Do you consume anything before or after a strenuous workout?
I try to have at least 500 calories consumed sometime earlier in the day before the workout. I eat afterwards once I totally recover. Eating some walnuts now and then we'll see what. Perhaps a total of 500 to 700 calories. Got to catch my breath first.
Thanks for asking.
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