100 Burpee Challenge

I get a little burned out on my various workouts every now and then and am always on the lookout for new things to help me stay in shape.

I'm planning to run the Big Cottonwood Half Marathon this September so I'll be doing a lot of running, but I've been looking for something new for cross-training throughout the week.

In my searching I came across a site called the 12 minute athlete.  I haven't fully looked into it yet, nor have I done any of the workouts so I can't say it works, but I saw her post something about a "100 Burpee Challenge".

So today, I decided to try it.  I'm always up for a challenge.  And she said "Doing 100 burpees in a row is an awesome way to gauge your fitness level"

Here were the guidelines for time:

12+ minutes:  You're an athlete in training!  Way to work hard, and don't stop pushing.

10-12 minutes:  You're an athlete!  Awesome job getting past those mental blocks.

8-10 minutes:  You're a super athlete!  You're strong and in great conditioning shape

6-8 minutes:  You're a total badass!  You have some serious burpee skills.

4-6 minutes:  You're the ultimate badass!  Be very, very proud.

I've never done a burpee before.  I've done a few things that are kind of similar in Insanity, but never done an actual burpee.  Like, ever. 

And I ran 8 miles last Saturday.  So I'd like to think I'm in pretty good shape.

I did the 100 burpee challenge.  After I did 20 I was seriously questioning whether I was going to be able to finish.

I finished.

And it took me SIXTEEN minutes.  16.  16 1/2 actually.  But I didn't cheat on a single burpee.  I went all the way down and I jumped after every.single.one.  I did consider lying about my time just now.  But I resisted.

It was humbling.  And made me realize I have some work to do on my overall body strength.  I'm going to work on my burpee skills and try again in a month.  I'm blaming it on my arms.

Anyone want to try this with me??  It kicked my butt, but I'm up for the challenge of improvement.

{I wore a Heart Rate monitor while I did it and will post about the benefits of having a HRM and how many calories I burned during this exercise in a future post coming soon.}


And because no post feels complete without a picture.  Photo Credit:  Carter, 4 years old.  Added blur for artistic expression.