More on "Are you still strong"

In the last post I talked about testing your strength at the end of endurance training as a gage of your fitness, but there's another way to do it that kicks just as much butt. Actually there are several ways but there are several others to throw in a test that gives you the opportunity to grow and tells you where you are in real fitness. (As much as you can know considering you can't prepare for every situation).

I mentioned the 12/12 workout challenge - 20 swings with 140-150lbs and 20 squat thrusts repeated for five rounds. It's a tremendous both strength and conditioning challenge, because of the heavy swings and intense pace. I performed this workout again the other night and think I actually got a significant time PR however I lost track of time so I'm not going to count it until I re-time the workout. Hey - sometimes you get in the middle of intense effort and the clock becomes the last thing on your mind.

To further push this I followed it with another short but intense strength/endurance test. This one is actually not very heavy but was very tough after the first workout. I picked this workout up from Crossfit and what really inspired me to do it is that Steve Kotter had the lead time for this workout. Now Steve is an ultra-world-class athlete. It gives me a great time to shoot for and someone extremely tough to compete against.

The workout is 10 power cleans with 135 (have to touch the ground on every rep), and 15 push ups for five rounds as fast as possible. If I remember correctly Steve did it in 4:15 - I did it in 4:43. It was definitely tougher than it should have been because of the previous workout. That's the point. Testing if you can keep going mentally and physically after you've smoked yourself.

Whether it's strength or endurance if you want to develop that never quit quality this is the kind of stuff you've got to do. If you want more on this kind of training see these three DVDs:

Super Human Training Monthly
Secrets of Massive Functional Drug-Free Muscle
The Outlaw Strength-Fitness Training Challenge

God bless!