2024 - 12 - 24
Aerobic Capacity - Development
Austin Haedicke
429 Words | Read Time: 1 Minute, 57 Seconds
2024-12-24 12:24 -0800
Energy System: Aerobic Capacity
Difficulty: Development
Intention:
This session follows NonProphet / Ollin’s classic “Dumpster Fire Friday” format. In Michael’s own description this is the essence of work capacity. I agree, there was a session or two like this in Escape Velocity and they have always stuck out in my mind because of the smoker’s cough you’re left with for several hours afterwards. Keeping that in mind, our breathing should be the limiting factor here, not the skill of a movement – hence, the warmup involves a form check. Remember, you’re going to have to hit those box jumps, from a burpee, after several hundred calories on the bike. The session score is time-to-complete, but if you take longer than 2 minutes to complete the penalty movements, the session is over.
Warm Up:
AMRAP / 10 minutes
Jump Rope (single under) x 100
Step Up x 10 (hold breath, one step, exhale, inhale, repeat)
Work:
Bike x 500 calories “clock”
Penalty every 2 minutes:
0 - 10 minutes: 5 air squats
11 - 19 minutes: 5 burpees
20 - 29 minutes: 5 burpees to 20" box jump
30 minutes onward: 5 burpees to 24" box jump
Results:
Warm Up: 4 rounds at 24" box
Work: DQ at 1:10:06, 436 calories
Reflection:
What worked: I started with a Gear 3 breath (nasal in, mouth out) because I knew I wanted to “get ahead” early on the calories, but if I came out too hot I’d blow up and crash early. There were a lot of times in the 70 minutes I wanted to quit, it would have been easy on Christmas Eve. I could have let off the gas on the burpees / box jumps, but I didn’t. I went to failure.
What didn’t work: Around 50 minutes the burpees / box jumps became the more challenging part. I was ground down to a little more than Zone 2 on the bike, so that was just a slog. Ensuring I didn’t chuff on the box jumps was a different story. I really thought I was going to make it through all 500 calories, but the last 10 minutes really fell off another cliff.
Plan for next time: This was a great reminder of what a fight feels like, when you want to pull the trigger, but you’re gassed and your muscles are stuck in mud. This is definitely the type of training I’m aiming for in the next block, but getting a similar sensation without having to wreck myself for an hour will be a difficult challenge.
Original Inspiration: