Thursday, April 27, 2006

The best 15 mins part 1 - Burpee-Pushups

So you only have 15 mins per day to exercise. This leaves us with no choice but to work REALLY HARD during these 15 mins. People can go jogging for an hour (which we don't have time for) but have you looked at joggers? They look sad, bored, and to be honest - Not particularly impressive. Thats because when we do long, slow exericse, the body tears our muscles away because it thinks we are lost in the jungle and the less muscle we carry, the less food we need to survive and the longer we live. But of course we end up looking sickly and soft. THAT WON'T HAPPEN HERE. We are going hard for 15 mins....We are NOT lost in the jungle.
I can guarantee you that as you do what I say, you will KNOW that you worked hard, and in a couple of weeks, you can see it in the mirror too (unless you are eating a whole bunch of BAD STUFF which i will talk about aonther time!).

Just do the following exercise for 15 minutes continuously. Rest whenever you need to but let the clock keep running. Remember how many you did, and then the next session, try to break your personal record. Its always important to go for a new record! For the ladies you can do girl pushups with the knees on the floor. I suggest you don't push too hard in the first 5 minutes. After that you can really go for it and do as many as you can. It takes a while for the body to get "warmed up". If you are panting and your legs and arms feel like they are going to drop off, fear not thats the correct feeling.

STEP 1: Stand straight up

STEP 2: Bend down and touch the floor

STEP 3: Kick both legs backward so that you end up in a pushup position
STEP 4: Drop down into the bottom of a pushup (elbows tucked in not flared out)
STEP 5: Come back up. Remember that your chest and tummy leave the ground at the same time. NOT chest first, then tummy (the body stays straight like a plank, not jiggly like a worm)
STEP 6: Tuck Legs back in and be ready to jump!
STEP 7: Jump up! Hands up!YOU HAVE JUST COMPLETED 1x Burpee Pushup! Well done... But there is no rest!
Repeat from step 2. Absorb your landing from the jump and end up in the same position as step 2 and continue from there i.e. step 3, 4, 5 etc... this repeats over and over for 15 mins. Rest when you need to.

As you can see from the pictures, you don't need ANY equipment to do this kind of stuff. Also, you don't need much space just a place enough to do a pushup is enough.

Try this for 15 mins and tell me how you feel in the comments to this article! This is the way to spend 15 mins training if thats all the time you have! If you have any questions about how to perform this movement correctly, feel free to put them on the comments page as well! Good luck and enjoy!

As a guide, i have done 130 of these in 15 mins... not world class but its certainly good trianing:)!

I'm a test subject!

Ah ha! Whats that you might ask? Ok im testing this new "food". Its actually "Extra-Virgin Coconut Oil". Coconut oil is actually good for cooking becuase its stable in heat and does not turn into bad kinds of fat. Supposedly its a good energy source for endurance activity as well. It does contain whats called MCT. "Medium Chain Tri-Glycerides" that means, fat that can be used as energy (much like starch). I'll be trying some before training. Will update next week:) I'm a very small (1) sample size to do testing, but I do know my body pretty well so maybe I can tell a difference.