Day 3 Interval Work
This session is performed on a Concept 2 rower.
Warm-up: Rowing.
Jason completes 10 minutes on the rowing machine at less than 20 strokes per minute. (Jason’s distance: 2102m.)
Workout: to mimic Jason’s interval workout, you’ll do six intervals of 500m. Between each 500m “sprint” engage in active rest for three minutes. For this, you can get off the rower and grab a drink of water, but you must continue moving around.
Here’s a look at Jason’s times for reference:
- Sprint 1: 1:40.1
- Sprint 2: 1:39.7
- Sprint 3: 1:43.9
- Sprint 4: 1:41.6
- Sprint 5: 1:38.7
- Sprint 6: 1:50.3
Cool-down:to finish up, Jason performs a farmer carry for 500m with two 30kg kettlebells. There is no set or time structure; just carry the weight for 500m as quickly as possible. This tends to be a grip issue, so that dictates any rest that must be taken.
Day 4 Set Work
Here, Jason focuses on front squats, one of the best strengthening and total body conditioning exercises there is.
Warm-up (part 1): Rowing.
Jason completes 10 minutes on the rowing machine at less than 20 strokes per minute. (Jason’s distance: 2095m.)
Warm-up (part 2): Jason does 20 reps of bodyweight squats before moving on to the primary portion of the workout.
Workout: five sets of five reps of the front squat. In this workout, Jason used a load that was 105 per cent of his bodyweight.
Jason’s Front Squat Workout (Reps x weight x rest)
- 5 x 80kg – 90 seconds
- 5 x 80kg – 90 seconds
- 5 x 80kg – 90 seconds
- 5 x 80kg – 90 seconds
- 5 x 80kg – 90 seconds
Cool-down: Jason does 200 reps of the push-up, but he performs this workout using a “ladder” routine. We do this as partnered ladders of 1-5, so 13 ladders plus an extra 5 reps at the end. I do a push-up, he does a push-up, I do two, he does two, I do three, he does three, I do four, he does four, I do five, he does five. We’ve now each done 15 push-ups and we immediately repeat the process starting at one again.
We do these quickly, with the only rest being the time it takes for each of us to do our push-ups. If you wanted to do this alone, you could do one push-up and count “1 one thousand”, do two push-ups and count “1 one thousand, 2 one thousand”, etc. This approach allows you to do a large volume of quality work (with small sets there is no reason the push-ups aren’t perfect and done explosively) without much, if any, residual muscle soreness. We also use this approach with chin-ups and knees to elbows. Not many folks finish their workout with 200 perfect chin-ups, but this approach makes it doable.
