Workout Finisher Dude VS Pull Up Queen

My pal Mike is the King of workout finishers. I like to think I’m the Queen of pull ups. Together we’re a pretty awesome force to deal with and we’ll have your fat running for cover, or in this case it’ll just melt off you.

I created a cool body weight challenge workout that I’ll call Big Mike out on.

What I like about it is that it’s timed sets. I love training by the clock. I get the interval time set, put it in overdrive and I don’t stop until I hear a beep. (In fact, in my fitness boot camps, we do so many timed sets that my clients are so conditioned to the beep, if they’re in a grocery store and hear someone’s watch go off they say they feel like hitting the floor for some push ups.)

I digress….Back to the workout…

Admittedly, it’s darn near impossible to train your back with any kind of intensity without a bar of some sort. In this workout, I use a pull up bar. If you can’t do pull ups, you can do assisted pull ups, jump pull ups or inverted rows.

If you have no bar to use for your pull ups, well you’re out of luck. You’re going to have to go find something to pull…can you drag your car by it’s bumper down the block? Your whole posterior chain (fancy words for back, bum and hams) would feel that.

Basically, you need to be pulling to be working your back. You push to work your chest. The pull of gravity with your body weight is your resistance. Anytime you can find something to hang off, you’re all set for a back workout. I’ve been known to hang from the rafters in an airport, off a lifeguard tower on a beach, off a low bridge over a creek. Geesh, just look up and you’re sure to find something…

Safety first though, be sure to check out if whatever you’re hanging from can hold your weight. And if it’s sort of ‘if-y’, make sure to get your camera set up so we can watch the fall out (literally)

Here’s the workout:

Set your timer for five sets of 1 min with a 5 second transition time.

Burpee

Pull ups

Squats

Push ups

Box jumps (or bench step ups)

Count your reps for each set and record (during the 5 second transition). I have to say that next time I do this, I’ll give myself 10 seconds rest between sets so I can record my numbers and catch my breath. I found that I cut into the next set each time cuz I was pretty toasted. I’d recommend just remembering your reps, but I can’t trust my memory. Once I get into that lactic acid pool, I can barely remember how to count let alone how many reps I did five sets ago.

Here are my results:

Rest 2 minutes between sets.

Repeat up to 3 times trying to match your reps from the first set.

You may notice that I also recorded my finishing heart rate and recovery heart rate one minute later. I’m a fool for all that kind of stuff. Any way I can quantify things is cool by me, this way I have numbers to compare in subsequent workouts.

This is a quick 15 minute workout, but trust me, it’s a tough one. I was totally baked.

The next time out when I repeat the workout, I’ll try to beat the number of reps in each set. At least now I have a benchmark.

Mike can fill you in on his results. How about you? Give this a try and be prepared, you may need a bucket by the end.

If you like this, I have a cool body weight challenge workout module that will help you improve your pull up and push up power here.

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Thanks Shawna,

Holy smokes… that is all,

Mikey, CFNC, CTT