Hoping something sticks

As previously shared, one of my Fall 2019 fitness goals is to complete 100 burpees in 12 minutes or less. Pierini Fitness sports fans who have followed me for a while know that at various other times in my fitness training past, I’ve had burpees performance goals.  Some I’ve achieved and some I haven’t.

The last time I had a burpees goal was preparing for my 61^st birthday back in 2016 with a goal of completing 100 burpees as fast as possible.  I was making good progress with a time of 12:03 until catching a bad and extended case of the flu that unexpectedly ended this burpees challenge.

Don't forget to jump when doing your burpees!

This time, like the last time, I’m taking a methodical approach with my training.  While it has slightly evolved, my current training approach plans on burpees training three times a week and looks something like this:

Burpees training day 1 – This currently involves completing a round of five burpees every minute on the minute for 30 rounds.  This is a total of 150 burpees in 30 minutes.  My plan is to keep the one-minute time interval constant while slowly increasing the rounds.  We’ll see how far I take this but if all goes well, I’ll be up to 60 rounds and 300 burpees in 60 minutes.

Burpees training day 2 – This currently involves completing a round of five burpees at a fixed time interval for 18 rounds and then a final round of 10 burpees done in a sprint to the finish for a total of 100 burpees.  Currently, my training time interval is 0:40 and my best recorded time is 12:48.  My training plan is to slowly inch downwards the time interval by a second or two with each faster progression. 

To achieve my 12-minute goal, my time interval will need to be 0:38 with the burpees x 10 sprint to the finish being completed in 36 seconds.  Logic tells me that so long as I continue diligently training, I should achieve my goal by the last day of Fall 2019.

Burpees training day 3 – This currently involves doing a Sprint 8 burpees workout.  I learned of the Sprint 8 protocol after reading a book written by Phil Campbell, Ready, Set GO! It consists of 8 rounds of high-intensity cardio for 30 seconds followed by 90 seconds of recovery.  Here’s a video demonstration of a recent Sprint 8 burpees workout:

I may substitute this with a Tabata-protocol burpees workout down the road as my burpees conditioning improves.  The Tabata-protocol will be even more intense than the Sprint 8 because I’ll perform 8 rounds of burpees done as fast as possible for 20 seconds with a brief 10 second recovery. This workout will take a mere 4 minutes to complete and be very brutal.

Taking this structured training approach will increase my odds of achieving my burpees goal.  If all goes well, I’ll continue with it with a 65^th birthday goal in slightly less than 4 months of completing 100 burpees in 10 minutes.

I do best with training structure when tackling a challenging fitness goal rather than an approach of throwing spaghetti at the wall and hoping something sticks.

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum

Run, walk and run

Pierini Fitness, circa 2004 - a long time ago!

Pierini Fitness has had an on again off again relationship with running the past dozen years.  And now, the relationship is back on again.  For how long?  Time will tell but there’s no doubt about it, running has its place in the middle-aged man fitness toolbox for those who want to reap its tremendous cardiovascular, mobility and self-defense benefits.

The cardiovascular benefits are without question.  A somewhat dated, yet still relevant, research done on this reported than “running is an excellent means of conditioning the cardiovascular system. It is a highly aerobic activity that utilizes both fatty acids and carbohydrates for energy. The typical runner tends to have a slow resting pulse rate and a high maximal oxygen consumption.”  Read more here:  Cardiovascularaspects of running

Mobility is the ability to move or be moved freely and easily.  Since running is an activity of moving from here to there and since practice makes perfect, running, therefore, improves our middle-aged man abilities to more easily and efficiently move and, thus, be mobile.

The self-defense part may have you wondering and wanting to know more.  The best example is with a story.  Here’s one from a long time ago:  Run, run, run

So, what’s my current running curriculum?  Twice a week which will not resurrect me into a world-class middle-aged man runner but that’s not a goal.

Twice a week, consisting of a Sprint 8 workout one day and a run, walk, run workout the other day.  It’s a current running work-in-progress that I’ve recently begun to rekindle my past joy of being a middle-aged man fun runner.  How long will this last?  As with all middle-aged man fitness training and goals, time will tell.  I’ll give you updates from time to time, particularly if I’ve done something worth sharing.

Sprint 8 workout

So, what’s the Sprint 8 workout?  Pierini Fitness explained it here: 

The super-tough Sprint 8 workout

Last Saturday, my workout was 8 rounds of 30 seconds sprinting and 90 seconds of walking recovery, done on a high school all-weather track.  The weather was amazingly wonderful for January, perfect for this workout. 

This is always a tough workout and that was my case.  For the fitness data geeks like me, here’s a statistical summary of my effort:

Round	Mile pace for 0:30
1	6:00
2	6:03
3	6:00
4	5:56
5	6:41
6	6:00
7	6:17
8	6:32

These mile paces are the equivalent to sprinting between 120 and 135 meters during the sprint portion of the rounds.  This is pathetically slow compared to my past but I’m not complaining and am glad I was able to complete the workout.

Excluding a 2-minute warm-up and 2-minute cool-down, these 8 rounds took 16 minutes to complete. 

Here’s a snapshot of the cardiovascular demands of this workout:

There’s no doubt about it, a weekly dose of Sprint 8 training will help this middle-aged man ratchet his cardiovascular conditioning to the next level.

Run, walk, run workout

So, what’s a run, walk, run workout?

I guess the best way to describe it is a running workout done sort of like a “grease the groove” workout that was discussed in a Pierini Fitness post a few days ago about a pull-up workout.

I first learned about run, walk, run when listening to a presentation by running great Jeff Galloway.  You can learn more about this approach here:

Run Walk Run: It began in 1974

Earlier this week, I did a run, walk, run workout for a long run lasting one hour.  What I did was run for 3:10 and then walk for 0:50 for 15 rounds, taking exactly one hour to complete.  It’s about the third time I’ve done this workout.  Initially, I started with 3:00 of running and 1:00 of walking and each successive workout I’ve increased the run time by 0:05 and decreased the walk time by the same time.

Since my running speed is a far cry from its former self, during this one-hour run, walk, run workout was for 5.78 miles, which is a slow 10:23 mile pace.  Undoubtedly, my distance covered will improve over time.  Interesting is that my average and maximum heart rate for this workout was comparable to the Sprint 8 workout, as shared above.

Consider adding running to your middle-aged man fitness toolbox.  Then, together, we'll be improving our cardiovascular conditioning, mobility and self-defense skills by a once a week date with Sprint 8 and a workout where we run, walk and run.

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum

The super-tough Sprint 8 workout

On Saturday, I visited my former neighborhood for some business and a friend who I am mentoring in his health and wellness journey accompanied me. For lack of a better term, I'm his "official coach". He's making good fitness progress and is always willing to test my training ideas. Recently, I told him about a hill sprint workout I use to do when I lived in my old neighborhood - with its rolling hills - called Sprint 8. This Sprint 8 workout is explained in the book Ready Set GO! Synergy Fitness by Phil Campbell.

Sprint 8 is basically a high-intensity sprinting workout consisting of 8 rounds of 30 second sprints followed by 90 to 120 seconds of walking recovery. Each round of sprinting is suppose to be a little more intense than the previous round. Doing the sprints on a hill guarantees this progressive intensity.

Here’s a short video of my friend in action:

Watching him in action reminded me of how tough this workout is. I’m a retired runner but cheering him on and reflecting on my “good old days” makes me want to give it another try, the super-tough Sprint 8 workout.

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum