Did 75 burpees where the “jump” was into a pull-up. That was it.

Was about six hours fasted at the time. Goal in this workout was glycogen depletion as I’m fasting until dinner tomorrow. Deplete glycogen loads, release fatty stores, burn the fat.

Question is: do I repeat this workout today prior to breaking the fast? Hmm …

Did a repeat of the Thrustwingprees 300 workout (TSB300) from February 12^th:

- 100 Single-arm Thrusters, 35 lb. kettlebell (50 per arm, broken down into sets of 20 with a minute rest between each set)

- 100 70 lb. Kettlebell Swings (broken down into sets of 10 with a minute of rest in between)

Elapsed time at this point — 25 minutes on the nose (that includes the jumping jacks).

- 100 Burpees. At this point, goal was to be regimented but mainly going for time efficiency (i.e. as quickly as possible, but regimenting rest).

Total time: 37:40 — I thought I was making terrible time, too, but managed to beat out my time from a month ago by almost four minutes. Woot!

The TSB300 is even more brutal than I remember it. This workout destroys me. As I am typing this, I’ve got sweat runners going everywhere. Totally disgusting. Time to go surprise the wife with a hug*!

Off to a happy hour now. It’s the weekend. Be Active!

*Yeah, right. Do you think I’m crazy?

My brief warm-up (if you can call it that) was 100 jumping jacks.

After, I did:

- 100 Single-arm Thrusters, 35 lb. kettlebell (50 per arm, broken down into sets of 20 with a minute rest between each set)

- 100 70 lb. Kettlebell Swings (broken down into sets of 10 with a minute of rest in between)

Elapsed time at this point — 25 minutes on the nose (that includes the jumping jacks).

- 100 Burpees. At this point, goal was to be regimented but mainly going for time efficiency (i.e. as quickly as possible, but regimenting rest). This ended up meaning. 10 / 10 / 10 with a minute rest in between, then 14 sets of 5 with 30 seconds of rest between each set.

Completely destroyed at the end of this routine. Total time was 41:42.

I’d long been wanting to try this three-exercise combination because each exercise has a slightly different focus, but all three require complex, full-body coordination.

Thrusters are a great exercise that hits the quads, hip flexors (I think), and shoulders/triceps, while encouraging core stability. Single-arm thrusters seem to hit the core in a different way than double-arm thrusters, but that’s a discussion for another day.

Kettlebell swings are another exercise, even more ballistic than thrusters, and really work your back, forearms, core (stabilizing) and hamstrings.

Capping it all off with burpees, which almost knock the air out of you by design hit your core, chest, shoulders, back (in the scissoring motion), and legs. They are also require the most coordination to do efficiently.

As recorded above, each exercise warmed me up for the next round as each one is progressively harder, requiring more coordination and working more muscle groups in concert. It’s been about 45 minutes since I finished and I still have that sort of out-of-body feeling. The sign of a workout well done!

I was trying to think of a catchy name for this veritable trifecta of full-body exercises. “Thrustwingprees” is a bit too long, hard to say and goofy. So for now, I’m going to call it the TSB300, obviously for the Thrusters, Swings and Burpees at 300 total repetitions.

Try it out and let me know what you think!

Did around 20 push-ups and 20 53 lb. swings to warm-up.

Workout:

10 rounds of:
5 double 53 lb. kettlebell swings
5 burpees
Rest one minute between rounds.

After, I went on a 5 mile road bike ride around some neighborhoods in Decatur. Time on the ride was right at 21 minutes.

I didn’t time the entire workout, but I’d guess it was no more than 50 minutes. A good workout though I think I probably could have squeezed in another rep of swings and burpees in per set. Still was a good routine and a nice outdoorsy workout.

Today’s workout was:

60 jumping jacks
20 uneven push-ups (10 per side using a 70 lb. kettlebell to make the surface uneven)
20 standing lunges (10 per side)
20 mountain climbers (10 per side)
20 air squats
60 second plank
5 burpees
10 70 lb. kettlebell swings
Rest 1 minute

Repeat for a total of three rounds

Rested around 45 minutes and then did it all again subbing a 45 second wall squat for the air squats.

First time was 16:15 – second time took 17:20.

Today I wanted to mix-it-up a bit from my regular routines, but I wasn’t fully interested in lifting weights (probably save that for tomorrow).

So here’s what I did:

Tabata intervals (8 sets of 20 seconds work / 10 seconds rest) of two 20 lb. dumbbell thrusters. Managed to do 10/10/10/10/9/9/8/8 (something like that anyway).

Then I did 22 minutes of cycling on a stationary bike (L7). Average heartrate was around 130 bpm.

Back to Tabatas, this time I used a 35 lb. dumbbell to do swings. I managed 12 swings for all 8 sets.

Back to the bike, did another 22 minutes, L7. 130 bpm average heartrate.

Finished this workout with Tabata intervals on burpees! Did 5/5/4.5/4/5/4.5/5/5 (38 total in four minutes).

Lunchtime!

Inspired by Mark’s latest, I decided to take a go at doing a slew of burpees with a jumping chin-up (rather than just a plain jump after the push-up).

I ended up doing 100 of these burpees in 16:50. Was a nice way to break-a-sweat. Now that I’ve set a time for 100, it’d be interesting to repeat this workout in the future and try and beat that time. It’d be really awesome to manage 100 of these burpee/chins in 10 minutes.

Afterwards because I just felt like trying it, I grabbed my 53 lb. kettlebell and did 10 alternating single-arm kettlebell swings – where the pass is accomplished with a flip of the bell. Empowered with the realization that I could do these (Had been doing them with the 35 lb. bell, but never the 53), I decided to do four more sets of 10.

No problem! Yay!

Today’s workout was:

10x5 of the Burpees, High-pulls (53lb kettlebell) and Thrusters (@ 1 53lb kettlebell) – so 50 of each. Time to completion was right about 21 minutes.

Prior to working out, walked probably a mile-and-a-half with the wife.

Today, did this Turbulence Training a.k.a. Craig Ballantyne cardio circuit called the “Crazy 8 bodyweight 300 cardio circuit” – C8B300 for short. It’s billed as a cardio workout and reminds me a lot of the more cardio-aimed CrossFit workouts. Rusty over at Fitness Black Book brought it to my attention the other day. Here are the details:

1. 60 Jumping Jacks: Done as fast as possible, but make sure you do full jumping jacks.
2. 15-20 Spiderman Pushups: I'm just doing normal pushups until they become too easy. Typically it is a breeze for me to do 40+ pushups, but it is much tougher when you do these with zero rest in between jumping jacks.
3. Walking Lunges: I take 20 steps total. This is the easiest part of the workout in my opinion.
4. Spiderman Climb: I do a total of 20 of these (10 per side) I really feel these in my abs and obliques.
5. Wall Squat: Do for 45-60 seconds. This hurts! Don't rest your hands upon your legs, since it makes it easier.
6. Planks: Do for 60 seconds. Tough after doing all these other exercises without rest.
7. 5 Burpees: Make sure and do a full pushup at the bottom and explode as high as pssible at the top into a jump. I'm still kind of uncoordinated with these…probably because I'm "smoked" at this point!
8. High Knees: Done as fast as possible. Do 50 total. I just count when my right leg hits the ground for 25. It is hard to count both legs for 50 since you are going fast. You will be dying about 1/2 way through.

Notes: Each exercise is done back-to-back with zero rest in between. You will want to rest, but immediately hit the next exercise. After this 8 exercise circuit is done, rest exactly 60 seconds. I usually run over to the microwave and set the timer. Those 60 seconds will feel like 15-20 seconds. Do this circuit 1 more time. Don't add in the 3rd one until you are ready.

The spider-man routines are totally new to me, so I did my best to do them right. However, I know my form needs some practice. Also, Craig says the static wall squat is a 45 second manouever.

Here’s Craig providing examples of each exercise:

Final note, I couldn’t quite add it up to 300: I think the closest I got was 295 (note this is per round, so you really do close to 900 total reps/second-holds).

Took me 24:30 (resting a minute between the rounds). Was a solid workout that really ramped my heartrate and made me break a sweat. Amazingly, Ballantyne actually suggests you do 15 minutes at highest intensity cardio afterwards to top it off. Yikes! I’m passing on that this time around.

One thing I really like about it is that you can do this practically anywhere. You only need enough space to do push-ups and jumping jacks (assuming you could just sub doing the lunges-in-place).

Glad to add it to my repertoire!

Day 2 back in the workout saddle.

100 burpees - took approximately 14 minutes
100 double-unders - took around 11 minutes

Pretty strenuous little workout. Burpees are just rough.