a humbling experience for me and a muscular endurance/bodyweight challenge

[AJ_H]

well today I would have gone to the gym as usual and done some benching only when I got there, I realised I'd forgotten the key for my lock (I cycled over).

Well anyway I'm supposed to do this bodyweight circuit training thing for one of my courses at college so I figured that I'd do that instead rather than cycle all the way back to the gym with my key. Well...let's just say I overestimated my endurance ... I mean WAY overestimated my endurance. I previously believed that bodyweight wasn't enough to train legs (although I still believe freeweights - squatting/deadlifting are the way). I also thought I would be able to do dynamic lunges or tuck jumps for 10-15 minutes before I fatigued. Well I was wrong...I could only do it for about a minute and even that was ... debatable to say the least. My only excuse is that I've only ever really trained strength rather than muscular endurance but now I know all about it and am posting this here.

So here's the damage:

1. Dynamic Lunges - 1 min (just kept on repping out, on and on)
2. Incline Press-ups (off a box/block...well it was for a minute) - 1 min
3. Crunches (legs in the air) - 1 min
4. Calf Raises - 1 min
5. Chins - 1 min
6. Back Extension - 1 min
7. Tuck Jumps - 1 min
8. Dips - 1 min
9. Bent-knee kick crosses (1 min (1/2 min each leg)
10. Lying side leg raises - 1 min (1/2 min each leg)
REPEAT

(the last two exercises make a refreshing break)

I repeated the above circuit once only. I also rested for 20 seconds in between exercises.

Well anyway. This brings me to my point. I know that tonights training was completely pathetic on my behalf but still, I felt good knowing I pushed my body to its limits. Anyway I want to make this into a challenge. I want to see who can do:

The Most Circuits:
The Longest Length of Time:

The routine is, obviously going to be the same as mine only you will need to extend circuits or length of time (circuits is how many times you repeat all of the exercises so I did 2).

To keep it simple, you can only change one. So you would perform each exercise for say 2 minutes but keep the circuits at two and I would put your name down in 'Longest Length of Time' at two minutes. Or you would do it the other way round and do 5 circuits but keep the length of time the same.

For the time being a video is not requested. This competition is for your own self-esteem only, if you lie, then you have just won a hollow victory. If this thread becomes popular though, and I feel people are bull****ting, then I will change the rules to make it so a video or some form of proof is required, but I don't want to have to do this, so please don't mess up the thread. Of course if you want to post a video anyway, then by all means go ahead.

Well anyway good luck for those of you who are interested.

[Tom Mutaffis]

That sounds like a pretty tough conditioning circuit.

You might want to look into Crossfit workouts - they do similar types of training but do work with both weights and bodyweight resistance.

[AJ_H]

That sounds like a pretty tough conditioning circuit.

You might want to look into Crossfit workouts - they do similar types of training but do work with both weights and bodyweight resistance.

yeah it's much tougher than I expected it to be. I didn't used to think that you could really hit legs hard without free weights, but I was wrong lol. Still it doesn't really compare to squats and deadlifts.

Endurance isn't something I usually train tbh but I might give some crossfit stuff a go in the future nonetheless.

[KingJustin]

This is the most confusing contest ever.

[schmitty199]

You thought you could do that for 10-15 minutes? You must not have any expierence in anything plyometric related. But dont get down about that, there's very few people who could do tuck jumps for 10 minutes straight. That'd be a stretch for some world class athletes imo.

Last year for h.s football workouts we had to do tons of jump workouts including the ones you listed, the sets were usually 45 seconds to a minute and I was absolutely exhausted after them, definetly not exercises to scoff at!

[AJ_H]

This is the most confusing contest ever.

yes it is a little... I will try and edit the original post to make it less so...sorry about that.


You thought you could do that for 10-15 minutes? You must not have any expierence in anything plyometric related. But dont get down about that, there's very few people who could do tuck jumps for 10 minutes straight. That'd be a stretch for some world class athletes imo.

Last year for h.s football workouts we had to do tons of jump workouts including the ones you listed, the sets were usually 45 seconds to a minute and I was absolutely exhausted after them, definetly not exercises to scoff at!

lol yeah as I already mentioned I have very little experience in plyometrics. Most of my training is for strength. After seeing the weight some people squat I came under the impression that it would take a long time for legs to get tired with just bodyweight especially at my relatively low bodyweight but I was wrong lol. I'm not down about it, I just think its a little funny :)

[Dkalban]

not too sure about how to do some of these exercises, but Im definately gonna give this a go. Probably will get me better results outside a gym then my bloody 25lb dbs.

[AJ_H]

not oo sure about how to do some of these exercises, but Im definately gonna give this a go. Probably will get me better results outside a gym then my bloody 25lb dbs.

you can youtube them but be careful because a lot of the videos are wrong, so make sure you check more than one video. this is the only proper demonstration I could find of the dynamic lunge: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=7snTf3z29NU

[J.C.]

Frankly I can't be bothered doing this circuit right now because I have way too much other stuff to be doing, but contest aside, yes bodyweight circuits are often quite humbling. It can be embarrassing because you just haven't trained your body to move in that way before.

The good news is that you can often make major improvements very quickly. Which then carry over to your other training. I think Maki makes the point that "body-weight circuits do the body good" a number of times in his 50 things I've learned article. If you do this a couple of times a week I guarantee you'll make progress fast.

When I was at my fittest a couple of years ago, I did a broadly similar circuit for rowing training for 2x25min. The first time it was hellish. I felt sore the whole week. But what do you know, the next time we did it, it was considerably easier, and again the next time. I'm visiting my parents for Christmas so there may well be some circuit training then while I'm away from weights.

[AJ_H]

Frankly I can't be bothered doing this circuit right now because I have way too much other stuff to be doing, but contest aside, yes bodyweight circuits are often quite humbling. It can be embarrassing because you just haven't trained your body to move in that way before.

The good news is that you can often make major improvements very quickly. Which then carry over to your other training. I think Maki makes the point that "body-weight circuits do the body good" a number of times in his 50 things I've learned article. If you do this a couple of times a week I guarantee you'll make progress fast.

When I was at my fittest a couple of years ago, I did a broadly similar circuit for rowing training for 2x25min. The first time it was hellish. I felt sore the whole week. But what do you know, the next time we did it, it was considerably easier, and again the next time. I'm visiting my parents for Christmas so there may well be some circuit training then while I'm away from weights.

Yes - I tried this circuit again and it was much, much easier.