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!