A man and his Burpees. Pt 2

Current count: 8333

I’ve fallen behind! This is not a position I’d like to be in but I’ve been here before. My current counts about 470 behind where I’d like to be. I can only blame myself for this, two nights out on the town in a row, and afternoon of home accounting gave me good enough excuses to let my daily target slide. I have done the sums and can make the deficit up fairly quickly with an additional 50 thrown in on my lunch breaks.

Finding the sweet spot.

I’m currently on day 44 of the 200 burpees a day challenge I set myself (see part 1 for details) and I’ve found the numbers that work well depending on the situation.

• 5 reps on the minute every minute – I do these when i have the time but need to stay “cool”. It’s perfect timing to get extra done during my lunch break without getting to hot and sweaty.
• 8 reps on the minute every minute – These are my go to rep count. 8 seems to be the number I can sustain for 30+ minutes of training. doing 8 takes roughly 28 seconds but gives me enough time to rest before the next round starts the following minute. Wearing my HRM, it shows doing this for 25mins burns upwards of 400cals and hits a nice round number of 200 reps for the session. Not a bad little workout that you can do for free, with no equipment.
• 10-20 reps, not set breaks – I do these when I energy is low, and I’m not short on time, sets of 20 are done slowly and I give myself a bit of time to recover before doing the next set. Knowing I only need to do 10 sets sometimes makes doing more a bit easier mentally.

Some benefits.

My main fitness goals revolve around running, mainly trail running of varying distance, which, at present I’ve had to scale back on as I’ve had a minor case of plantar fasciitis. The burpees don’t seem to be giving me any issues, even with the impact of the jumps and have helped me keep my cardio fitness up.

I also feel my core is stronger from keeping good form on the push up phase of the burpee and my flexibility seems to be increasing through my hips from repetitively having to get down into a low squat position and back up again. Both important for me as I’ve had issues in the past.

Going forward from hear.

As anyone who does fitness knows, to keep improving you need to alter one of more of the following;

• Frequency
• Intensity
• Time
• Type.

With the challenge I’ve set myself, there’s only one real aspect of that list I can change, that being intensity. Will I have been doing my sets at varying intensity in regard to sets, reps and breaks, I’ve also decided to add a weighted vest to equation to give me more resistance. The plan is to add a single kilogram each week for as long as I do my challenge, currently i’m working with the vest + 2kg, which isn’t too noticeable but does add a bit of a kick to it and i’m yet to feel any soreness or pain from doing so.

Stay tuned to see how I go.

Dave