Whew

Well I survived the workout.  I have been anticipating this workout for about a week.  Today I had some of the same anxiety I get before playing in a volleyball tournament or running a race.  It’s the unknown factor, attempting something that you can’t accurately predict the result of.

Anyway I brought a spare t-shirt cause I figured I would be quite sweaty when I was finished.  So after a quick 5 minute warm up on the recumbent bike I had at it.  I grinded out 13 pull ups.  The difficulty level of number 12 and 13 made me pretty confident that my last set of pull ups would be less.

Next it was on to push ups, I cranked out 25 of them easily as they are part of my daily routine.  Next up 25 135 pound dead lifts.  I had more of a break between exercises than I imagined because I had to get things set up for some of the exercises. 

I managed to do 25 of the dead lifts, from 20 on up it was rather tough and left me wondering how was going to be able to do the two other leg related exercises.  It wasn’t until after the dead lifts when I really started feeling it.  I was breathing hard but kept moving.  Again I had some extra time devising how to do my next exercise, the floor wipers.

The wiper is the exercise where you hold a barbell with 135 pounds on it over your chest as you lift both legs to one side and touch the plate, back to the floor and then back to the other side to touch the plate.  I wasn’t quite sure how to logistically set this up.  At first I put the bar with 45 pound plates on either side on the floor and tested to see how much of my body fit under it.  Well I could only roll it up to my ribcage, that wasn’t going to work.  I then came up with a pretty good set up.  I used the steps from a Reebok step bench as the supports.  I set up 5 on either side of the mat, without the top on and sat either side of the barbell on them.  It worked perfectly.

Now all that was left was the exercise.  It was awkward and very tough trying to stabilize the weight over head while bringing your legs up and down on each side.  I originally had hoped to do 25 reps but only managed to crank out 15 before I stopped.  I’m sure it will get easier as I do them more often.  I was a bit bummed that I missed my rep goal for that move and now it was on to another difficult exercise that I never do, box jumps.

I used every step they had in the place to make my “box”  I didn’t measure it but it looked close to two feet high.  So up and down I go.  This exercise in particular worried me due to it’s injury potential with my very flaky knees.  Again I fell short of my 25 rep goal, only getting to 17.  I may have been able to get a couple more but number 17 was rather shaky and I didn’t feel like jumping and coming up short, falling on my face and hurting more than just my pride.

I was really sucking wind at this point, it was tough as hell.  I decided to ad lib a bit.  The next scheduled exercise was the one arm clean and press dumbbell move.  However since I just got done doing a leg exercise and since I knew I was going to wind up short of my 150 rep goal, I cranked out another 25 push ups to pad my reps and give my legs a small break.

Then it was on to the clean and presses with a 35 pound dumbbell, 13 reps for each side.  Again I was pretty wiped.  I only had my finishing set of pull ups to do.  As predicted I fell short of my first sets reps and only managed to get 10 of them. 

I was spent.  I did all those reps (156 total) in around a half an hour.  Thinking about basically doubling the effort seems near impossible at this point.  It was the first time in years that I felt a little nauseous after a workout.  I was a bit bummed I didn’t hit all the numbers I hoped to but in all I think it was a decent starting point.  From here I have to decide how I want to progress.  I am thinking I will either do this kamikaze workout on Monday’s and do my normal routine the rest of the week or do it Mondays and Fridays, with the hope for quicker progression.  I guess I will see how my body feels tomorrow.  If my knees hold up to this I will be very happy and it will be a good sign that I could return to some of my former activities.