Friday, December 20, 2019

Fall 2019 fitness goals results


Pierini Fitness doing a Sprint 8 burpees 
workout on a recent Fall 2019 day.
Good day Pierini Fitness sports fans.  Have you been wondering where I’ve been?  It’s been a while and I’ve been known to go AWOL every now and then for various reasons.  This time, I was gone for slightly over one month.  What was going on?  I hit a creative dry spot, something I’ve done before.  But I also got busy helping Mrs. Pierini Fitness help her 91-year old father who has become increasingly frail and needing more assistance.  It’s a reminder that we’re all going to, sooner or later, get our turn.

Despite my absence, I’ve managed to continue with my fitness training which, as of today, is for the most part significantly done for 2019. Mrs. Pierini Fitness and I are leaving for a two-week vacation in Arizona to visit our four little grandsons.  It’ll be a breath of fresh air that I’m looking forward to beginning, and it will on Saturday.

I’ve made and uploaded several YouTube videos sharing snapshots of my fitness training. Most of them showcase my pursuits of pull-ups, bar dips and burpees performance goals.  As a soon-to-be Medicare Man, I’m proud of my current conditioning yet grateful and humble, realizing that it could all be taken away from me in heartbeat.

The remainder of this post will give an accountability report of how I did in achieving, or not, various Fall 2019 fitness goals that I previously shared.

Fall 2019 Fitness Goals

1 - complete 100 reps of alternating pull-ups and chin-ups in 20:00 or less. Accomplished on 11/29/2019 - 100 reps in 19:38.

2 - complete single set max reps of 18 pull-ups. Did not achieve, best this Fall 2019 is 16 pull-ups on 12/14/2019.

3 - complete single set max reps of 25 bar dips. Accomplished on 12/3/2019 with 30 bar dips. 

4 - run mile in 7:00. Did not achieve, basically abandoned training effort due to demands of chasing burpees goal. Will achieve by Summer 2020.

5 - complete 100 burpees in 12 minutes. Accomplished on 12/14/2019 completing 100 burpees in 11:54.  

6 - morning weigh-in of 170-175 lbs. 100 percent. Accomplished, did not weigh more than 175 lbs. at any time but did dip below 170 lbs. for a streak.

7 - pull-up hang hold of 1:50. Accomplished with 2:02 on 10/19/2019. 

8 - handstand hold against wall of 1:15. Did not achieve but did do 1:14 on 12/10/2019. 

9 - body fat of 16 percent (currently 18.6 percent.) Did not achieve but measured 17.4 percent on 12/18/2019.

To all my Pierini Fitness sports fan, Merry Christmas 2019 and Happy New Year 2020, and may all your dreams and desires for 2020 be realized in the new year.  I’ll be away until the first week of January 2020 and it may take another week before I return to Pierini Fitness with fresh new content of my middle-aged man reflections about living and dying, gracefully aging and trying to live a good and honest life.

There you have it, my Fall 2019 fitness goals results.

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum

Monday, November 18, 2019

Tabata Burpees


Yesterday, Sunday late morning, I went to the park for a quick workout.  It included a single set of pull-ups of 15 reps.  Then, I wrapped up my workout with a 4-minute quickie of Tabata burpees.

Tabata burpees are done following the Tabata protocol of 8 rounds of high-intensity exercise work with a brief 20 seconds recovery.  In my case, it was 20 seconds of doing as many burpees as I could. 

I did this workout only once before five years ago but only shared the first round of effort, because I was embarrassed at my performance for the latter rounds.  That time, I completed 48 burpees but ended up being off-cadence and it took me 5 minutes to complete all 8 rounds.

Yesterday, I did better but still have work to do.  I completed 45 burpees in the prescribed 8 rounds and got all 8 rounds completed in the prescribed 4 minutes, despite having a “technical difficulty” during the first round of trying to sync by Garmin heart rate monitor timer with my Gymboss timer.  Nonetheless, I was satisfied with my effort.


All the burpees I’ve been doing lately is training to help me achieve one of my Fall 2019 fitness goals of completing 100 burpees in 12 minutes.  It’s a goal I expect to achieve early, likely this month.  Then, God willing, I’ll continue marching forward to see how much more progress I can make.

I’ll never go wrong banging out a quick 4 minute workout of Tabata burpees.

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum

Friday, November 15, 2019

Burpees one-minute test


Whenever I need to be humbled, one minute of burpees seems to get the job done, such as how many burpees I can complete in one minute.

I admire the younger people who can bang out so many more than me but I'm grateful that at age 64, I'm able to do burpees.  Here’s my latest effort yesterday:


Whenever I need a quick test of my middle-aged man fitness, or need to be humbled, I’ll get the job done with a burpees one-minute test.

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum