Alexandersmap

    Tag: Burpees

    • An Hour on the Table

      I got a massage from a muscular guy named Jim. I don’t generally get massages mind you – this was the fourth I can remember getting in my life, other than two chair massages to help pass the time. But this lie down on a table kind? Not generally my thing. Except for the nagging shoulder pain that crept into my neck. After 41 consecutive weeks of daily burpees I finally said the hell with it and gave my shoulders a rest. And then a massage. I’m deep into three weeks away from home and don’t need an injury now. Time for preventative maintenance on the old buggy.

      I figure I’ve done roughly 3200 burpees this year. And I’ll do more soon, but I’m switching to longer walks for the next few weeks. Burpees have been very good for me. Too many consecutive days of burpees… not so good. It seems my shoulders are my weak link. Shoulder and neck pain impact other important things, like sleep cycles and train of thought. So a shift to walking for now. Maybe a call to get back on the erg when travel slows a bit. Rowing has never injured me physically. I do still carry some psychological pain from anaerobic threshold moments in my past. But I’m mostly over that, right?

      So my new friend Jim pulverized the knots upon knots in my shoulders. Did it flip a switch and make it all go away? No, not yet. But it certainly helped a great deal. So why don’t I get massages more? I don’t have a good answer for you. But if you’re thinking of getting one, I’d recommend Jim.

    • Burpees Before Bed

      The other night I lay in bed, mind racing. My streak of burpees every day was in jeopardy. A busy day, missed opportunities along the way, and to be more honest, procrastination had delayed me until now, 11 PM, a couple of adult beverages into the evening and ready for sleep. Except there was no sleeping with the thought of breaking the streak here. Look, I know it’ll happen eventually, but not this way. Not because of a lazy mind. So I got up, did a dozen burpees to meet the minimum and got back in bed, heart still racing, and slept like a baby. Another link in the chain.

    • Felling the Tree

      “Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to be.” – James Clear

      This morning the snooze alarm went off well before I was prepared to get up. I don’t use the snooze button mind you; don’t believe in it. You’re either sleeping or you’re getting up. But my wife uses the snooze button often as part of her wake-up routine. Thankfully most days I’m up well before her alarm would go off. Today was an exception. Feeling a bit worn out I was going to sleep in, until the second snooze convinced me it wasn’t possible.

      This morning I operated in slow motion. Foggy and some aches and pains. I slowly dressed to work out, walked downstairs and drank a pint of water. The internal dialogue trending towards bagging the morning workout and doing it later in the day.  I’ve heard this song before and point my feet towards the basement door, down thirteen steps and onto the erg for a row.  I row 500 meters to warm up and assess my overall condition.  My assessment isn’t good, but I stand after 500 meters and warm up the shoulders.  More aches…  but I ignore them and drop down for the burpees, slower than usual but complete, row another piece and call it a workout.  I’ve done the bare minimum, cast my vote and I’m back upstairs.  I hear the snooze going off upstairs and look at the clock.  60 minutes of snooze buttoning.  Yikes.

      On to reading stoicism, a bit of an article on Ben Franklin in London, and a bit of writing this before my wife is downstairs and off for her commute.  Habits carried the morning for me even as the mind rebelled.  The James Clear quote above stays with me more than anything else in his excellent book.  Simple, memorable wisdom in a bite-sized chunk.  I wish I’d written that.  Instead I write other words, casting votes for the type of person I wish to be.  I’m closing in on 100,000 words written in this blog, and a few thousand burpees.  I need to move beyond the bare minimum workout, which means changing other habits later in the day.  Win the morning, lose the evening and it’s a wash.  Life is too short for a wash.  With only 142 days left in 2019 there’s so much to do still.  Why settle for the bare minimum?

      I joined a group challenge with co-workers.  We all travel, and we all struggle with the balance of exercise versus caloric intake that the job seems to demand.  We’ve all agreed to lose ten pounds by the time we reach a trade show in Chicago next month or pay $20 bucks and hear about it from those who were successful.  Nothing focuses the mind like peer pressure, so I’m all in on this challenge.  But I noticed I gave myself a pass last week (after all I had five weeks to complete the challenge).  I recognized this trend – it reminded me of pulling all nighters to complete papers in college.  Wait until the last minute, then put yourself through hell to reach a goal.  You won’t fell the tree with one swing of the axe…  I like the more intelligent approach of consistent, daily action and the compound effect, and so an incremental increase in daily workload to reach the goal is in order.  Keeping it going for the rest of the 142 days offers a head start on 2020, a nice round number with some big moments scheduled.

      I’ve always been intrigued with the concept of accelerating through the curve.  In racing that means slowing down in the first half of the apex and accelerating in the second half. Using momentum to your advantage.  In life momentum starts with casting consistent, daily votes.  That applies in your career, with exercise and weight loss, and writing.  The lack of momentum also applies in each of these areas, so why build anchors when you can build kites?  Or to return to that zen philosophy, you need to chop for a long time to fell the tree, you can’t do it with one swing.

    • Hit the Minimum and Check the Box

      I ran into trouble last year when I increased the number of burpees I was doing to 50 per day.  As the reps increased I started using my upper body strength to make up for core weakness.  This poor form led to injury, which led to me not doing burpees for a couple of months.  Not what I was hoping for.

      This year I started doing burpees again, but with a focus on technique.  I also kept my total to 10 max for a few months.  Embarrassingly low number of burpees, but the long view is to keep doing them every day for life and not repeat the issues I had last fall.  But even at 10 per day I started getting shoulder pain again.  I made a point of looking straight ahead at the wall in front of me so I wasn’t using my shoulders to bear the weight, and that helped.  I started doing shoulder warm-up exercises to get the blood flowing, and that helped too.  But that familiar shoulder pain was creeping back in anyway.

      Two weeks ago I made a minor adjustment to the push-up part of the burpee; pointing my fingers towards each other and forming a diamond shape.  This angled my elbows outward and combined with the rest of my focus on good form relieved the stress on my shoulders.  Will this hold up over time as the solution?  We’ll see, but that minor tweak in form has been a huge relief in doing burpees.  I’ve increased the number of reps slightly and will see how it goes.  I’d like to get back to 50 per day if possible, as there’s no better travel exercise than burpees.

      Good form is essential in burpees, as it is in everything that we do where long term results are the objective.  Burpees are portable – I’ve done them on the lawn on the Cape and in hotel rooms and gyms around the world.  That means that I’ve done burpees at sea level and 15 stories up in a Manhattan hotel.  My goal in hotel rooms is stealth – I don’t want to be the guy shaking the entire floor while I do these things.  I land softly, usually barefoot in a hotel room and wearing running shoes everywhere else.  Focusing on a soft landing offers another benefit (aside from being a good neighbor) in that it keeps my knees from absorbing unnecessary shock.

      I figure my burpee ninja exercises have increased my overall strength, nullified some bad travel food and prompted me to make better nutritional choices along the way.  And one good thing leads to another.  I don’t just do burpees, but they’re the gateway to other exercise that I do based on where I am.  Walking, climbing stairs, rowing, swimming…. whatever.  But always with burpees.  Hit the minimum and check the box.  Good form and good habits offer sustainability and a foundation on which to build something bigger.  And that’s why I’m focus on getting it right from the beginning.

    • The Second Step is Easier

      “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step” – Chinese Proverb

      The first burpee is the worst one. More specifically, the first push-up on the first burpee is the worst one. Sure, they don’t get more pleasant later in the set, but then it’s just fatigue. On the first one you have to clear the hurdle too.

      I do these burpees at 6:15 AM, when the tightness in my shoulders stubbornly refuses to go quietly. Warming up on the erg helps, and some dynamic stretching gets the blood flowing in the old joints, but that first one is always a bear. Just getting on with it, fingers pointing slightly inward to relieve stress points, I shoot my legs back into plank position and slowly descend into the push-up. Creaking old guy complaints ensue and then recede; I’m on my way.

      The starting is the hard part. Always. But once you get going it becomes a lot easier.  The habit loop makes it easier to get some exercise in the morning, get some reading in, and to do some writing.  This morning was particularly foggy and the brain wasn’t completely wrapped around things until I started those burpees.  They have a way of focusing you quickly…  once you begin.

      And beginning is the theme of this morning.  Get started already, do what you’ve got to do to move forward.  Burpees, writing, work tasks…  whatever.  Carpe Diem isn’t just a clever quote in Dead Poets Society.  It’s a call to action not a poster on the wall.  Seize the day already!

      “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing. A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days. It is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time. A schedule is a mock-up of reason and order—willed, faked, and so brought into being; it is a peace and a haven set into the wreck of time; it is a lifeboat on which you find yourself, decades later, still living.” – Annie Dillard

      Dillard reminds us to structure our day to make the most of it.  And life is a series of days of course, though we don’t always see the forest for the trees…  I’ve been guilty of winging it over the years.  A scheduled day minimizes the downtime a restless mind carves out for you.  But not busywork; productive, planned tasks that move you forward.

      I’ve found the scheduled reading time immediately after exercise has been highly beneficial.  And starting with a little stoicism before reading whatever book I’m tackling is like finishing that first burpee – I’m focused and ready for what comes next.  The Daily Stoic is a good level set for me that I wish I’d discovered earlier in life.  Ryan Holiday boils down the wisdom of Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, Seneca and other great Stoics into bite sized daily chunks.  I wish I’d thought to write this book, but since he did I’m thoroughly enjoying it.

      That habit loop got the heart rate up today, but also got the electrodes firing in the brain.  When the student is ready the teacher will appear….   and the messages keep piling up this morning.  James Clear Tweeted his own reminder to get on with it today:

      “Life is short.

      And if life is short, then moving quickly matters. Launch the product. Write the book. Ask the question. Take the chance.

      Be thoughtful, but get moving.”

      And on cue, Mookie starts whipping me with her tail as she murders the birds outside the window in her mind.  I haven’t done all the reading I wanted to do this morning, but I can’t ignore the messages.  Get to it.  I realized that I haven’t had a second cup of coffee this morning.  Somehow that fog I walked downstairs with has lifted without the need for much caffeine.  And the day is well underway now.  Best to focus on the next task at hand.

    • Routines & Systems

      “Routine is one of the most powerful tools for removing obstacles.  Without routine, the pull of nonessential distractions will overpower us.  But if we create a routine that enshrines the essentials, we will begin to execute them on autopilot.” – Greg McKeown

      I’m a big believer in established routines.  Unfortunately I’ve got a lazy routine established at the moment.  Not enough rowing, walking, burpees, and weights.  A few days ago I set out to re-establish a routine by starting small – ten burpees and ten push-ups.  Just do them at the same time every morning, just after I get up, and once the routine is established start increasing the workload.

      James Clear, in Atomic Habits, talks about focusing on a system, and not on goals.  I feel that’s about right too.  He also says it’s okay to miss, but don’t ever miss twice.  More good advice.  Of course, I missed more than twice, but who’s counting?  I should be.

      Last summer and fall I had a pretty solid routine that included fifty burpees per day, no matter what.  But then I injured my back, and that what mattered.  My back is back to normal again, but the routine of fifty burpees per day hasn’t reappeared.  Perhaps starting with ten and building back up again will do the trick.  After all, ten is way better than zero.

    • Burpees and Excuses

      Burpees and Excuses

      I’ve struggled with getting the appropriate amount of daily exercise for years.  I’ve tried P90X, sprint triathlons, swimming laps, walk-a-thons, and all manner of motivators to get myself going.  I rowed in college and like to row, but I travel a lot and don’t have regular access to an erg, let alone a river; I tell myself.

      I love to walk, and when Bodhi was younger I was powering through 10,000 steps daily with no trouble.  As Bodhi has slowed down, my steps have decreased significantly.  Walking 10K steps takes roughly 90 minutes at a steady pace, and I don’t always have time for 90 minutes of walking; I tell myself.

      I don’t run, I don’t lift weights all that often, and I my bike has gathered dust in the garage for three years since I tuned it up and promised myself I’d get out more.  Life is busy, and I just haven’t had the time for long rides; I tell myself.

      I love to hike, and watched with envy as friends subtracted themselves from the regular turns at drinking together on weekends and tackled the 48 4000 footers in New Hampshire.  I celebrated their completion of this goal after a year of getting out there almost every week for a year.  I could accomplish that goal too, but I travel and the weekends are the only time I have to get things done around the house I tell myself.

      Over the last couple of years, I’d read a story that burpees were the perfect exercise.  I then started following Joshua Spodek, who writes about his daily burpee routine and how that’s improved his overall quality of life.  Small daily habits make all the difference.  Discipline equals freedom, as Jocko Willink says.  I understand this, and I’d tried to introduce this daily habit before, starting with 20 burpees per day.  After day three one of my abs felt like it had torn and I quick.

      I’ve decided to start again, but more slowly.  I’ve been doing burpees for almost a month.  I began on September 20th with 10 burpees.  No more.  The next day I added one burpee, and the next another one burpee.  Eventually I got to 20 burpees per day and stopped at that for a while.  Then I increased it again, and again.  Yesterday I did 50 burpees with relative ease, so I added 20 decline pushups when I was done.

      I’m under no illusion that I’m fit yet.  I’ve lost a couple of pounds, but I have a long way to go still.  No, my goal is to establish a habit of daily exercise, and see where it takes me from there.  So far the habit has continued through a trade show in Vegas, two long trips to Upstate New York and 12 hour days of driving and meetings.  I missed one day during this, when I got up early and drove to Vermont for a service and got home late.  That was on day 10 of what has been 28 days of burpees.  I’m now trying to do a minimum of 30, and trying to hit 50 per day.  This increase in production isn’t costing me a lot in time as I’ve become more fit and I’m not out of breath after 7 or 8 burpees.

      Where this takes me I don’t know, but I like to do them, I can do them in my hotel room without waking up the hotel neighbors, and it gives me a minimum threshold to reach daily that I can then mark as success.  And success builds on itself.  I’m trying to do more of the other activities that I’ve put off now as well.  I’m 651 burpees into this, and look forward to reaching 1000, and then 10,000, and then 100,000 burpees.  It’s a small daily thing, but small daily things are everything.