the infamous burpee ladder workout

What a title, eh?!

Boy do I have a super fun workout to share with you guys today.  When I use the words “super fun” that’s really just code for “super sweaty, super hard and super WORTH your time.”  I use the word super a lot.

Since most of my readers don’t live in my state (let alone my town), you might be wondering what it is that we DO at Trackstars four times a week.  First off, Trackstars is meant to be an OUTDOOR training group at….wait for it….the track.  But since it’s too cold to be outside here in North Carolina, I had to find an indoor facility from November through March.  I operate the training group based off a punchcard system.  We meet Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday mornings at 8am at a local corporate gymnasium – it’s basically a basketball court with a few pieces of equipment on the borders.  We bring our kids (which can get crazy from time to time but every mama is in charge of her own and they mainly stay put at one end of the court).  We have a BLAST!

The format varies from session to session but a few things are constant:

A jog/run warm-up (5-8 minutes)

Speed and agility drills (10 minutes)

Group stretch (5-8 minutes)

WORKOUT (20-30 minutes)

Auxillary work (core, balance, flexibility work) (5-8 minutes)

Group stretch (5-8 minutes)

Group picture (1 minute but it feels like 10)

Every workout is different.  Since the group is constantly changing (some days I’ll have 6 people and others I’ll have 20), I have a myriad of workouts and formats that I can pull out of my brain at any time.  I always sit down on Sunday night and plan out the week but it can change.  I’m finding that I LOVE this genre of training – I’m actually getting my Group Training Specialist certification through NASM as we speak!

Anyhow, I thought I’d share one of the workouts we did last week – the Burpee Ladder Challenge.

What you’ll need:

A basketball court or any flat surface where you can perform a “suicide.”

Your body

The Workout:

Starting at the baseline, perform one burpee.  Run to the free-throw line and perform one burpee.  Run back to the baseline – one burpee.  Run to half court – one burpee.  Back to baseline – one burpee.  Run to the farthest free-throw line – one burpee.  Back to baseline – one burpee.  Run all the way down to the farthest baseline – one burpee.  Run back to start.

After all that, when you return to the starting baseline, you’ll now start out with TWO burpees and go through the entire ladder performing TWO burpees at each line (ascending rep scheme).  Then THREE burpees at each line, all the way up to FIVE burpees at each line.  Water break – take 2 or 3 minutes.  Then work your way down the ladder (descending rep scheme) from five to one.  By the end, you’ll have performed a total of TWO HUNDRED AND FORTY burpees!

Make sense?  I hope so!  This ladder workout takes about 30-45 minutes depending on your fitness level and is a great conditioning tool.  My groups have a hate/love relationship with it.  You can also use this workout design and sub in ANY exercise for the burpees – the sky is the limit!

I hope you’ll give it a try yourself – “pin” it for later so you can easily find it!

QUESTION:  Burpees.  Love or hate?? <-I actually love them.  I’m odd.

splendid…lindsay