Richard Gibney's 365 Days of Fitness: Day 185

Day 185 Recently one of my co-workers, Suzette O'Byrne, brought to my attention a ridiculous fitness challenge involving battle ropes. Apparently, Fraser Quelch, creator of the TRX Suspension Training Program has been working up to doing a 20 minute continuous set of battle ropes. To put this in persective, I usually do my battle ropes in groups of 20 sec.

The training effect of 20 minutes versus 20 seconds will obviously be different. My shorter intervals are working more on the power end of the spectrum where as the 20 minutes will be working more on endurance. The interesting thing with Fraser's challenge is that 20 minutes of a lower body dominant activity is not that unusual but 20 minutes of an upper body dominant activity, like battle ropes is very different. Our bodies are typically not very good at doing endurance based activities with our arms and shoulders.

When Suzette first mentioned this challenge, I thought to myself good luck, that's just crazy. However, I saw on facebook this morning that Fraser had just completed the challenge. The man is obviously a beast. Today, just to see how far I have to go to reach the same level as Mr. Quelch, I tried 10 minutes of continuous battle ropes.

Today's Workout:

Battle Ropes:

Alternating Wave (Hands Shoulder Height): 10 minutes continuous

- The high alternating wave was the method described to me as the one Fraser used.

The 10 minutes of ropes was pretty tough but more achievable than I thought. I was pretty sure I'd crash and burn about 2 minutes in, but once you get into a rhythm it gets a lot easier. However, 20 minutes like Fraser does is truly insane. I could hardly move my arms when I was finished, I can only imagine how I would feel after going twice as long. I guess I've got another thing to work toward.

It wasn't the regen / bike ride day I had planned for, but once again scheduling got in the way. That being said, the battle ropes although quite difficult didn't seem to deplete me too much. However, the burpees and the sprints from the past few days have certainly taken a toll. As the day wore on today , my feet, quads and hamstring just got more and more sore. I played softball after work tonight and just couldn't do anything. Batting, throwing, running, it all hurt like hell. I think I really have no choice but to do something really light tomorrow. Who knows, I might go for a swim. Not exactly a relaxing endeavor for this sinker but I think freeing myself from the constraints of gravity for a little bit would be really nice.