Guys I finally nailed my 1000 burpees challenge yesterday ( August 11.2018). Wow! The feeling is just fantastic J honestly I have no clue what made me do such a thing lol. But boy am I glad I did it. I am actually feeling gratitude for God right now, because this really was a feat for me to achieve.
I am a normal 42 year old fitness trainer, been training only women for the last 10 years. Training them to stay healthy, fit and strong but nothing extreme and this was really something extreme even for me. I never imagined taking something like this up ever.
So far I used burpees just as an exercise routine, and honestly I wasn’t doing them regularly either, sometimes with the class and sometimes alone … so it’s not like I am a big fan of burpees but yes knowing how good and effective this body weight exercise alone is, made me like it a lot. Before taking up this challenge the most burpees I had done so far was 100 burpees in 6 min 40 secs, I did the Deadman burpees and this was my fastest record so far and I was absolutely happy with myself.
Last week I planned I wanted to go for it, though the thought of this challenge had begun two months back but somehow didn’t have the courage to commit but then it happened and there was no looking back and hence, thought I should start training myself and at least see how many I could do at a go… as I was thinking of doing the challenge a month or so from now. Cutting it short I could manage only a total of 4 days of burpees, the most numbers I crunched out was 160 together, then I fell ill, viral so had to stop..
Then last Thursday, I finally decided to go for it, it’s NOW or NEVER. So committed myself to the idea of 1000 burpees on Saturday after two days of deciding.
So wasn’t still feeling too well till that point, but somehow just the idea of achieving something this big made me feel good, over the years I have developed one good habit of listening only to my inner voice. I knew very well that doing this will not really make me some overnight sensation nor its going to give me any recognition or awards, the only reason for me taking it up was to set my own standards higher for myself. As I have always believed in the quote, ”It’s You Vs You”. So even after seeing and reading the videos and blogs of all those people who have done it , and seeing that almost each one of them were highly skilled and better than me in every way … on top of it having an ACL reconstructed knee and a right arm which was injured and still weak wasn’t going to help me much . So yea for me to even think of doing this was farfetched.
But like I said I wanted to see how far I can push myself , honestly I didn’t even know I would be able to complete it or the time it would take me … all I knew was that I had to set a new record for myself. I just needed to do it that’s all.
Burpees – what are they ?
Drop down, get back up- it’s a vicious cycle. the name burpee came up in 1930’s by American physiologist royal H Burpee who developed the so called burpee test – part of his PhD thesis which was a quick and simple way to assess individuals overall fitness. He was right. They test our aerobic capacity and indomitable will and much more.
The Final Day
The final day, Saturday morning, I was up by 4:15am, after completing my morning rituals, I was up at my home gym for the challenge.
Set up my phone camera, wanted to capture each moment for obvious reasons. Kept my white board handy so I could write down my timing and sets and reps as I was doing them in between every interval.
My plan was to complete every set of 100’s by doing 20 reps each for 5 sets, alternating every 20 with full burpees and half burpees ( without jumps of course) , I didn’t want to die yet J
So started with it , my first 100 was not so bad , I took up a slow and steady pace , the one I could keep going as I didn’t want to burn myself out in the first 100 so ,took a little more time.
While doing the 200, I started feeling my right arm give way, the pain was excruciating. Somehow after completing I had to go down and take a pain killer, or it would have been impossible to continue. After that there was no looking back. Till 500 I was taking it well, was taking breaks after every set for few seconds enough to bounce back. After 800, it started taking a toll but by then I guess you automatically get switched on to a auto pilot mode and your mind stops working. So u become a machine only doing the motion you are trained to do. So that’s what happened , though I could feel the heat and my body giving out , I didn’t stop , went on , I just knew I had to do it that’s all.
The End
The last 100 was surprisingly refreshing, somehow just knowing that the end was near made it so exciting and rewarding, though took a bit more time cause I wanted to finish with as proper form as possible.
Total time taken with breaks and all was 1 hour 46 mins.
Wow! Made it, my first ever 1000 burpees probably my last, but you never know 😉
Below is my board with my stats…
My body was tearing apart, I was breathless beyond words, and probably you can catch a few glimpses of it in the video below. But if you asked me if this was all worth it and what did I get from doing this? I would say ‘Yes’ it was totally worth it, and by completing this challenge, I have not only set a new record for myself but also have learnt a few valuable lessons.
- Always listen to your inner voice (intuition) as I believe that’s the voice of the lord speaking to you directly from within your heart.
- Don’t care what others might think of you or say to you. You will always find naysayers everywhere, the trick is to just go deaf and blind with them.
- Don’t think too much about the whys and what’s especially when it comes to physical challenges such as these cause you will always find an excuse to fail. You decide and you do it. That’s all.
- Don’t do anything for the sake of any rewards or recognition. You will only add more pressure on yourself and your own expectation will go bigger. Basically you will add to your own misery.
- Lastly believe in yourself always, god resides within you, so when you listen to his voice you can never go wrong. Trust and have faith in yourself always.
That’s my story on my 1000 burpee challenge. I gave it to myself and made it possible.
KEEP CHALLENGING YOURSELF IN EVERY LITTLE WAYS YOU CAN, NEED NOT BE JUST PHYSICAL CAN BE IN ANYTHING YOU WANT IN YOUR LIFE. SO KEEP WORKING HARD AND GO FOR YOUR DREAMS!
Below is the video. Please click to watch it. The video has been edited and fast forwarded in some places or it would be too long and boring …but you will still get a good draft of how I did it.
Thank you and stay blessed.
Best
Soma
Recent Comments