Day 6 - Work Capacity 101

Holy crap! I just finished my workout for the day, Work Capacity 101. This one is another of Ross's "Warrior Challenges". I found it much more difficult than the first one, The Magic 50.

This challenge is broken up into two minute rounds. You have 2 minutes to complete a set of pullups, medicine ball slams (I did band slams, since I didn't want to slam my new medicine ball), burpees, and jumping jacks. The trick is that it doesn't take two minutes to actually do the above exercises, so you get to rest for the remainder. You're supposed to do 10 rounds (or, as many rounds as possible in 20 minutes).

Well, I made it through the first two rounds OK, but I was extremely fatigued after the third round, so I switched to 3 minute rounds (giving me an extra minute of rest). So, I completed 2 two minute rounds and 5 three minute rounds in roughly 20 minutes. I was absolutely smoked afterward... my whole body was just quivering (actually, it still is a little now, 45 minutes later). I like the idea of this workout though; since round times are fixed, the faster you work, the more rest you get.

The beauty of Ross's conditioning workouts (like this one), is that they work your whole body. Your arms are tired, your legs are tired, everything is tired. The burpees are the hardest part of this workout. When Sarah does it later today, I'm going to recommend she starts out with 3 minute rounds, or cuts back from 15 to 10 burpees per round.

If you're unfamiliar with burpees, check out this article. I do burpees the Ross way, with a pushup... like the article says, it is also key to focus on jumping as high as possible (higher jump = more rest, right?... seriously though, working on jumping higher does a better job of working the legs). Although, as I get more and more tired, the quality of the jumps and pushups really start to suffer.