The Fireman Challenge and Roxanne warm-up

One of the practicals we had to do in class a few weeks ago was “The Fireman Challenge”. It consisted of a series of exercises. You had to perform them each for one minute, count how many you could do and award yourself points based on a points system, rest for one minute and then straight onto the next one.

We warmed up first to the song “Roxanne.” Every time the singers sang the name “Roxanne” we had to do a certain move such as a pushup, a burpee or a squat.

Then we got straight into it here is the list of exercises and the point system in brackets:

Squat Press 

Less than 10 (0 points), 10-15 (1 point), 16-22 (2 points), 24+ (3 points)

Box Jump 

Less than 20 (0 points), 20-30 (1 point), 31-44 (2 points), 46+ (3 points)

Russian Get Up 

Less than 6 (0 points), 6-10 (1 point), 11-15 (2 points), 17+ (3 points)

Chest to Bar 

Less than 16 (0 points), 16-22 (1 point), 23-38 (2 points) 39+ (3 points)

Jump Over 

Less than 60 (0 points) 60-70 (1 point), 71-85 (2 points), 86+ (3 points)

Burpees 

Less than 10 (0 points) 10-13 (1 point), 14-18 (2 points) 19+ (3 points)

Ball Twist 

Less than 25 (0 points), 25-35 (1 point), 36-50 (2 points) 51+ (3 points)

V-Sit Up

Less than 15 (0 points), 15-25 (1 point), 26-35 (2 points) 36+ (3 points)

Push Up 

Less than 20 (0 points) 20-30 (1 point) 31-45 (2 points) 46+ (3 points)

Bent Pull

Less than 25 (0 points), 25-35 (1 point), 36-45 (2 points) 46+ (3 points)

Jump Lunge 

Less than 25 (0 points), 25-40 (1 point) 41-60 (2 points) 61+ (3 points)

Body Weight Squat

Less than 25 (0 points) 25-40 (1 point) 41-60 (2 points) 61+ (3 points)

Sit up and Stand (holding weight overhead) 

Less than 15 (0 points) 15-25 (1 point), 26-35 (2 points), 36+ (3 points)

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And here are the results to measure yourself against:

10-19 = Princess

20-28 = Average 

29-35 = Good

36-39 = Fireman 

I did “Average” with 25 points) Maybe not that great for someone who is training to become a PT but in all fairness the majority of the class was also in this area, with just a handful in the Good category and no one got the award of fireman!

I think I could have definitely scored quite a bit higher if: 1. it wasn’t 8:30 at night when we had to do this (without warning too) and 2. i hadn’t already worked out hard that morning. In addition I am not sure about the various weights and modifications (eg. pushup on knees (I did full) or hight of box in box jumps) and the rules that apply. In the sit up and stand we were all expected to do this move with a 10kg plate which was really hard for me.

All in all though this was a killer cardio workout. There were some new moves that I don’t do much and the fast pace of it also resulted in major DOMS….the next morning I woke up i felt I couldn’t move at all! Its been a while since I’ve felt that sore, but it’s a good thing! I am looking forward to attempting this challenge again later on in the year!

Fitness Goals – Pushups and Chin-ups!

I like this photo which I found on facebook from the group Female Health Motivation: Eat Clean Train Mean.

Reminds me of my fitness goals…I have many, many fitness goals but the top two right now both involve improving my upper body strength, which has been very slow going for me.

Goal one: 100 consecutive push-ups 

Achieve by: 50 by end of March, 100 by end of June! 

Right now…I can do a little over 20 consecutively… one of my personal trainers that I go to told me she thinks I can do 100 consecutively by the end of March this year! I think she is crazy, so secretly I am aiming for 50 by the end of March and 100 in 6 months…that will still be impressive to me. I can still remember only a couple of years ago when I could only do 1-2 push-ups… (on toes of course.)

I feel like being able to do so many pushups is especially empowering for a girl. I have skinny arms that look very useless but slowly i have managed to increase my strength and have found that it makes so many everyday movements such as carrying things and lifting so much easier.  Many girls don’t realise the value of increasing their strength in particular upper body, they are more concerned with simply looking slim (and therefore do a lot of cardio) and there is nothing wrong with that, however increasing your strength has so many benefits, in addition to making everyday tasks easier, it helps improve your posture, balance out your body and protect you from injuries.

How to achieve this goal? 

For a while I have been using this free app i downloaded onto my phone called 100 pushups. It breaks down pushups into sets and increases the sets each time.  For example my next attempt looks like this:

13, 12, 14, 12, 12, 11 with 60 seconds rest in between each set for a total of 74 pushups.

You are supposed to do this every second day….I admit that I only get around to doing it maybe once a week. I do pushups as part of my workouts often but the amount I can do is greatly affected when i am already fatigued. So the main issue will be simply reminding myself to practice every every second or at least every third day!

Goal Two: Perform 5 (unassisted) chin-ups

Achieve by: end of March 

Another goal I’ve had for a long time but until recently wasn’t really putting the effort that I should have into it! I guess because I hadn’t set a time. This is why you have to set very specific time for achieving goals by!

We all had to choose a fitness goal to reach by the end of our PT course and that will be in March…

so this is the one that I have put down. Currently I can do 2 chin ups on a good day….I don’t want to even say how long it took me to get to that point.

My training for this is to use the assisted chin-up machine at the gym where you use weight to help make it easier a few times a week. I also will jog down to a park near by me and attempt chin ups using the bars there, and then i do “reverse” chin ups where I will jump up till my chin is over the bar and then slowly lower myself down and repeat as many times as I can – this helps build the muscles. The other method is to jump up and then lower yourself down till your elbows are bent at 90 degrees and then hold in that position for as long as you can.

Hopefully the fact that I blogged about this will put more pressure (and motivate) on me to achieve these goals in time!