How I did over 18,000 burpees this year.
At the time of writing, I have crossed over 18,000 burpees, pushups, sit-ups and squats for the year (yes, 72,000 unique movements). I’ll save you the math, that is 50 of each, per day, for the whole year. Some quick backstory. Last year I set about doing a personal challenge, it was a simple creative exercise, but was my first foray into the yearly-challenge category. I was hooked. Looking back after completing a whole year of something is a rewarding feeling.
While the challenge was simple, it did take time, every day.
Another habit that takes significant time is planning, pursuing and maintaining a healthy lifestyle. For some of us, that’s a more involved battle than for others. In the interest of life optimisation, I decided to make my yearly challenge for 2017 be a fitness challenge.
If I was going to spend the time doing both, making the two goals align was an easy win on the time category.
This challenge has been brutal and time intensive. Assuming I complete the next few days, finishing this challenge will be extremely rewarding.
With two years behind me now, I want to take some time to outline some lessons I’ve learned and to announce my challenge for next year and an extend an invitation to join me.
For a fitness challenge, set a weekly goal. Injury, sickness and the unforeseen will simply get in the way.
I don’t think I made it three weeks into January before I had a significant muscle strain. Getting sidelined that early made me embrace the fact that I wasn’t going to be able to do them “every day” — just so long as I get them all done by the end of the week. Doing 300 burpees in a day sucks — let alone adding the other exercises.
Create some variety, make special combinations and sets that allow you to get it done.
I created multiple patterns for working through backlogs. I have custom timers for 50’s, 100’s, 200’s and more all depending on what kind of mood I was in. I would do 3x17 on some days (and just eat the extra burpee, pushup, etc. Or I would do 3x20 (and just take a pass on half of the last set.) For creating custom timers, this is the best one you can get.
Counting by 5’s and thinking in 3’s makes nearly any challenge easier.
Here’s how I would break down a back log of 100 burpees, pushups, etc.
Group the exercises into 5 sets of 20, count three rounds out before you allow yourself to “feel tired” and you’re suddenly over half way and the last round is always easy.
Burpees never get easier. Never. I’m in 18,000 for the year and they still suck. But I suck less at doing them.
Enough said.
It’s not really about health.
Marathons aren’t healthy. Mountain climbing isn’t healthy. Over training is a real thing. At some point the body starts to switch into a survival mode and you stop seeing the gains like you used to. In all honesty, this program was too much. I’m not going to do it again. But it wasn’t about being healthy, it was about doing what I said I was going to do and finishing. Abs just don’t like daily exercise. There are fare more intentional programs for growth and performance.
Pick a challenge you can do anywhere and everywhere.
When you are about 6’3 (193cm) and right around 200lb (90kg), you can’t do burpees subtly. I’m fortunate enough to work with some extremely chill people at the office, but sometimes you have to read the room. Even tucked away in the printer room, the floors tend to shake.
Collect the data.
This was one point where I failed with this year. Tracking all the different exercises with reminders and periphery just didn’t happen. I didn’t have a plan going into the year and tried rolling various versions as I went along. The problem is that I was trying to track data on 4 different axis and nothing was really optimal for that. It was too much work with too little reward to track.
Find a support system for accountability.
Tell your friends, family, coworkers or the internet. It helps. Shame is a powerful motivator.
Know what your reward will be.
I’m slightly off. I know that. I like doing something hard because I know it’s hard. I’m running away from a weak default nature. Everything is a battle to be better. I don’t do temptation bundling or other tricks like that, though if that’s your thing, you do you.
My reward is the data and the ability to play with it later. Yes, I ruined my reward this year but I DO have a near 24/7 Fitbit data that I get to look at, including heart rate data. It’s enough. That I kept religiously. If you’re looking for a good tracker, I recommend the Charge 2.
Next.
All things holding constant and no injuries getting in the way, I will finish the year with 18,250 of each exercise. I’ve not gone more than 3 days in a row without some muscle or joint hurting. But I will have completed the challenge. That’s what this is really about. Finding the strength and discipline to complete a challenge for an entire year.
With that being said, I am announcing the fitness challenge for this year will be 1,000 pushups per week. To address what I’ve learned, a weekly challenge gives opportunity to split up the exercises and provides days for healing or compensation for missed days. Pushups are also among the most versatile exercise possible. There are hundreds of variations and techniques, working out nearly the whole body. My rough plan is to do 200 per day for 5 days a week. With a little training, the body can quickly get to doing 50 pushups in a row. That leaves four sets throughout the day. Easy™. Pushups do get easier, and have progressively difficult variations — from a strength building perspective, they are nearly perfect. The program is still not entirely about health, but this program should at least keep me from sabotaging gains with over training — another win with having the option for rest days.
Here’s the best part, you can do pushups ANYWHERE. No excuses, no bothering the co-workers and you can do quite a few before breaking a sweat. We’ve come full circle to me being 6’3 and 200lb.
That leaves “collect the data.” There are a number of methods for tracking single axis goals like this. All requiring some sort of hodgepodge of tools and hacks to get the data just right. Having learned the ideal set of features and the ideal set of data to gather from this year’s challenge, I’ve decided to build my own tool to collect the data.
So, now I’ll have an optimised fitness challenge and a custom app to track it. That’s when I decided to take it to the next level and invite others to join me! The problem is, I hit on this idea rather late in the year. I had a crisis of identity and pivoted away from my other plan for the coming year. However it did result in more alignment of time, intention and personal branding — more on that at a later date. When the app launches, it will have opportunity to join for various intervals of length. Some as short as a week, all the way up to a year. I’m launching an ultra minified version of the app for tracking the data. It’s a small wrapper around the excellent Airtable product (referral link). The great thing about Airtable, is that even before launching the application, you can use their default data entry view to accomplish 90% of the same data collection (just no geo data). Eventually the database will pivot to something more traditional and the there will be a host of features to make it more fun. But with Airtable, it lets you get started at the start right away. For those interested in joining at the start of the year and are interested in joining me for the ride, here’s a link to sign up for the beta.
There will be a follow-up platform to announce in the coming year that’s related to the challenge, but more on that later.
That’s it. That’s my yay, I think I’m going to make it and my next level of accountability for the challenge before me. If this sounds like your kind of jam, then I invite you to join me for a challenging but rewarding 2018!
Follow me on Twitter if that’s your thing.
Cheers and let’s finish the year strong!
