Thursday, March 12, 2009

Prison Workout

Not too long ago the officials who run prisons decided that allowing prisoners to work out with weights all day long was a bad idea. Seems that the guards were just sitting around doing what it takes to pass federal and state physicals, and the prisoners were doing what it takes to survive in prison: pounding iron. Eventually the officials found themselves on the losing end and made the official decision to officially ban weights.

So the prisoners came up with a new plan. The Prison Workout. Burpees baby. Have you tried Burpees yet? Watch Mike Rowe, from Dirty Jobs explain why you should be doing burpees.

So today, when most of my lunchtime running buddies were planning to run on the treadmill, eat, or even go shopping, I came up with a new plan: We would do a Burpee prison workout.

Here is what we did:

Jog to the park (about 1 mile)
At top of hill, Do 15 burpees
jog down and back up hill
do 14 burpees
jog down and back up hill
repeat (descending sets all the way to 1 burpee)
jog down hill and back
jog home (about 1 mile)

This was 120 burpees, and 15 hill repeats. Very little rest. All in about 22 minutes.

Talk about the Happy Face! I was happy from this workout for the rest of the day.

Have you tried burpees yet?

Run hard out there.

7 comments:

David Ray said...

Happy for it to be over is what I'd be. :)

We do the burpees at boot camp class. Not every week, but enough to hurt every time.

Unknown said...

This workout should definitely be revisited. The reward of finishing makes the challenge worth it. Great idea for a workout!

Sophie Speidel said...

Now we're talking, baybeee! We must have been on the same training wavelength this week---yesterday I ran 3x 4:00 hill repeats in your honor, then went to a flat section of grass and did 6 burpees, 25 crunches, 15 pushups, 30 walking lunges, 30 side crunches all x2 with a 25 yard run up a short hill sprint and back in between each one!

I will call it my Neal workout.

Neal Jamison said...

Sophie,

Nice! A workout named after me. I'll try it soon and let you know what I think.

robison52 said...

I did watch Mike Rowe show what and how to do a burpee and was alarmed how difficult he made just 10 burpees look! I will attempt my first burpee tomorrow, God help me. Are burpees going to help me in my very first ultra race next month, "The Labor of Love 50k?" Do Kenyans do burpees?

Neal Jamison said...

Robison52: Burpees will increase your fitness from head to toe. But watch out, they will leave you sore the first time you do them. Don't let that get in the way of your training for the upcoming 50k.

If you aspire to have the body type that we stereotypically associate with Kenyan runners, then stay away from the burpees.

Good luck with The Labor of Love.

Anonymous said...

I tryed your full work out, starting at 20 burpees down to zero with 100 meter run in between each set, ya i am pretty sore today, awsome workout, i will definitly incorporate this one once a week. One thing i do to make the burpees harder though is to do a full jump when you come up. When i say full i mean jump a few feet in the air and bring your knees up. It takes longer for each one but hurts 100 times worse.

Later