I’m 43. I have to think really hard every time someone asks, because after car insurance getting cheaper at 25, there really aren’t any milestones to look forward to in life. Oh, you thought a blog post about burpees would be motivational? Yeah, no refunds, sorry. (Not sorry)
I’m 43, I’m about 5’11”, and I weigh about 220lbs. I’m officially obese, but don’t worry, I, “carry my weight well.” I’m pretty sure that just means I’m so unattractive, no one notices I’m *also* fat. But here’s the deal, I really want to wear the Reptar shirt my friend Josh gave me, but it’s too tight.
Oh, you were hoping for an inspiring weight loss journey involving health and self-discovery? Yeah, no. I like wearing absurd DadShirts, and a couple of my best ones are too tight. I’ve come to the realization that no amount of exercise will bring back my hair, and my bald option looks far more like Uncle Fester than The Rock. I want to wear my pink button up shirt with cartoon dinosaurs on it. That’s my main motivation. Again, no refunds, you’ve read this far, you should realize there’s little hope for a talk about lifestyle choices.
Huh. Not giving a crap. I guess that’s another milestone worth looking forward to. I have no idea at what age that gem is attained, but it’s sub-43. Maybe that’s the question to Life, the Universe, and Everything, and last year I stopped giving a crap. Cool.
But back to burpees. Back, heh, get it? Yeah, my back hurts. I don’t know for sure, but I think when you find yourself googling “spine pain burpee”, you’ve achieved peak fitness shame. Why would I choose to attempt burpees? Because I’m lazy. No really.
I wanted to find the best way to get serious exercise while doing the least possible exercise. Burpees are reported to engage like, every muscle in your body, count as cardio and strength, and can be done anywhere. (I don’t actually recommend parking lots, especially if you have a mouse-clicking job like me, my baby-soft finger sausages get bruises on carpet…) Plus, a co-worker (Michael Aliotti) recently set the world record for most burpees in 12 hours. He did 7,295. I kid you not. So I figured if I did burpees, I’d have the same chiseled, eternally-25 body he has. Lol, actually no, I never thought that. But I thought if I did enough burpees, I might be able to button my men’s size large Reptar shirt.
Why does a pink Reptar shirt come in men’s size large? Shut up, when you’re 42 you’ll understand what things are cool.
ANYWAY, I knew that starting with 7,295 burpees would probably go poorly for me. So I decided to do 100 burpees. That seems like a nice, round number. It’s also a fairly common number of burpees for super-fit people who could totally wear Reptar shirts can do. BUT. I’m not an idiot, so I searched for an online “plan” for getting to 100 burpees. Eventually. I found a 30-day schedule somewhere online, and decided I could ramp up to 100 burpees in a month and not die. (Yes yes, you see where this is going. I’d never done a burpee, and well, let’s just say they’re not as satisfying as their assumed namesake, burping.)
Day 1 on the schedule calls for 8 burpees. 8. The OCD part of my brain (ie, the part inside my skull, the whole stupid thing) was really annoyed by it being 8 and not 10. But whatever. Day 2 is 11, and that’s somehow worse, so I’ll just do 8 and shut up. If you’re expecting me to say I tried the first burpee, and questioned life or something, well no. 8 burpees were surprisingly easy.
Don’t get me wrong. When I do a burpee, it looks like I’ve dropped my keys, fallen over trying to pick them up, and then eventually stand up and celebrate the retrieval of my keys with a sad 2″ hop. Nevertheless, I did 8 burpees in a row, forgetting to breathe until about burpee 4, and apart from a small twinge in my spine, everything went well. I actually thought perhaps I should do more burpees. Possibly 100 on the first day, because really, my heart was pumping, but I wasn’t out of breath or anything. Oddly, the same OCD that was annoyed by “8” burpees on day 1 wouldn’t let me change the schedule. So I stopped.
That was before work on Wednesday. By lunch on Wednesday, I was pretty sure I’d severed my spine and secretly replaced all my cervical discs with shark teeth. It literally felt like if I went into a plank position, I might break directly in half. I considered going to the doctor, but thankfully I’m over 42, so I don’t give a crap anymore. Also, the doctor would assuredly tell me that I needed to rest. I figure since I’ve been resting for the past 20 years or so, I have a bit of rest built up, and I should be fine.
Then dinnertime came. I don’t think I ate dinner, but not because I thought fasting would improve my health or anything. No, I didn’t eat dinner, because I couldn’t lean forward enough to point my face at the table. My stomach muscles DID apparently decide to rest, and refused to do simple things like help me lean forward. They made this refusal clear by stabbing themselves with extra shark teeth they found laying around my spine area. It’s not really a big deal though, because my arms wouldn’t have been able to lift the plastic fork all the way to my mouth anyway. So I fasted. Slowly.
If you’re thinking I gave up, well, you’re right. On life. On ever being able to move again. I gave up my belief that Michael Aliotti is human. But I did *not* give up on the 100 burpee schedule, because again, OCD. The next morning, I did 11 burpees. Sort of. See, Wednesday evening after not-dinner, I googled ways to adjust burpees for people with jellyfish spines. It turns out you can “walk back” to a plank position instead of jumping (or thrusting, or whatever crazy crossfit term is correct for jumping into a push-up position). And then you can either walk back to a squatting position, or “explode” back from the plank position. The term “explode” seemed to indicate what my back would do, but nevertheless, I did jump back after walking into the plank position. And I did it 11 times.
This time, I WAS out of breath. I’m not sure how it happened, because while carefully walking back into plank position, I paid very close attention to not snapping in two, and I didn’t realize I was huffing and puffing. But I did all 11 SadBurpees, and I called it good.
Look, day 2 hurt. I won’t give you details. If you want an object lesson, just like, drop bricks on yourself in your various tender parts. It kinda felt like that.
Today is day 3. Oh, again, you were looking for a motivational blog post about how the destination was worth the journey and crap like that? I just want to wear a Reptar shirt. I don’t care about existential bliss. Also, this morning I did 14 burpees. I didn’t walk them back, because my spine felt strong. (LOL LOL, no it didn’t, nothing on me feels strong, except my cynicism muscle.) I did regular burpees because I’m lazy, and the walk-back thing took longer than normal. It’s been about 20 minutes, and I won’t lie, my back hurts. Today it just regular-hurts though, not “I think I’ve severed my spinal cord” hurts. We’ll see what lunchtime brings. But tomorrow is a “rest day”, so I figured if I had to schedule a rest day, I should expect it to be a day of hospitalization and regret. But that’s tomorrow.
So what’s the point of this post? I have no idea. I’m in my recliner, questioning my life choices, and my laptop was within reach. I probably won’t blog about my 100 burpee schedule again, because I suspect tomorrow’s day of rest might be a biblical rest metaphor, and I’m going to die sometime this evening around dinner. Nevertheless, if you see me around town in a super awesome Reptar shirt, you’ll know the burpees worked. Or that I gave up and found an XL somewhere online.
I think it’s still “Mental Health Awareness Month.” Or whatever it’s called. This post is the 38,000ft edition of, “Crazy Things About Shawn.”
In an unexpected announcement today, the Plant Kingdom spokesman, Fern Dirtlicker, told press, “providing oxygen free of charge no longer fits into our business plan.”