The Third of the Terrible Trinity:  The Statue of Liberty

I love New York City…the architecture and the noise; the energy; the intersection of so many different kinds of people and cultures.  I love the theatre district and Central Park; I like the Hudson River and Soho; I love just wandering around China Town getting lost for hours in the maze of narrow streets and alleys.  And I have always loved the Statue of Liberty.  Since I first saw it at age 12 I have been mesmerized by its majestic presence at the southern tip of Manhattan. A gift from the French to the U.S. in celebration of our victory for independence from the British, it is the landmark I always look for as my plane is approaching La Guardia.  I’ve visited the Statue five or six times, and am proud to say that I have climbed to the top to look out through Lady Liberty’s crown.  And even though post 9-11 has put an end to visiting Liberty Island, I still like to take the ferry to Ellis Island just so I can cruise past her.

Despite my love for the Statue of Liberty I was completely ignorant that lurking somewhere out there in the world of “physical fitness for the insane,” there existed an exercise by the same name:  the Statue of Liberty.  It has quickly become one of my least favorite exercises and it comprises the third component of the “Terrible Trinity.”

Basically, the Statue of Liberty demands that you begin by holding a weight in your right arm ABOVE your head.  Apparently the “above your head” portion of this exercise is critical as Ryan screams, “Arms up! Arms up!” over and over as we struggle to maintain form and composure.  From the standing position you are to move to a sitting position.  Note:  there is no chair J  That would be too simple.  Nope, you have to go from a standing Statue of Liberty pose, (although I’m pretty sure her lamp weighs a lot less than the weight in my trembling right arm seems to weigh) to a sitting on the floor move…oh, and did I mention you need to keep the arm with the weight in it above your head (insert sound of Ryan screaming, “Keep your arm up over your head!  Keep that arm up!).  Then, with the weight STILL in your right arm you lay back and extend your arm, yep, that very one with that very weight, over your head.

Now, if the exercise ended here I might be able to endure it.  But no…you have to sit up from that “but I just got as comfortable as humanly possible here on the floor with a weight extended over my head," to a STANDING position once again…and guess what…YES…you keep the weight in your arm which is extended…you got it…ABOVE YOUR HEAD.  From that point you MOVE the weight from your right arm to the left arm and repeat the whole process, including the part about the WEIGHT ABOVE YOUR HEAD.  You do this over and over again until a) Ryan tells you to stop, b) you can’t move at all or c) your dead.

I pretty much have been scoring a consistent B on this exercise.  It hurts just about every muscle I possess.  I shouldn’t be surprised…it’s designed to use pretty much every muscle I possess!

The experts sing the praises of the Statue of Liberty as “complete” core exercise.   

These same experts agree that to have a strong core, you have to do strong core exercises.  It's not enough to just do ab crunches and sit ups.  Hmmm…that sucks…I don’t mind ab crunches and sit ups as much as I do the Statue of Liberty. 

Oh no…to build a strong core you need to exercise a variety of muscles from your hips to your shoulders. Most people think of the core as a nice six-pack, or strong, toned abs, but the truth is that the abdominal muscles are a very small part of the core. The core consists of many different muscles that stabilize the spine and pelvis, and run the entire length of the torso. Benefits of "Good Core Strength" include the following:

1.  Strong Core Muscles Make it Possible to Stand Upright and Move on Two Feet

Hmmm…prior to doing this particular core exercise I WAS ABLE to stand upright and move on two feet.  It’s after doing them that I seem to have the problem.  My immediate impulse after I drop the weight I’ve been holding ABOVE MY HEAD for at LEAST 5 minutes is to keel over at the waist and stagger towards my water bottle.

2. A Strong Core Distributes the Stresses of Weight-bearing

While that may be true, the core strengthening exercises  we do at NLXF CREATE stress for me; it’s stressful to have Ryan yelling at you to keep your weighted arm above your head when every fiber of your body wants to lower that very weight…onto his head!

3. A Strong Core Reduces Back Pain
Abdominals get all the credit for protecting the back when in fact, it is weak and unbalanced core muscles are linked to low back pain. Balanced core muscles help maintain appropriate posture and reduce strain on the spine, thereby reducing back pain.

Note that nothing in the above statement talks about the “new pain” the Statue of Liberty does generate in ones abs, glutes, quads, shoulders and arms (yep, the very ones holding the weight ABOVE your head.

4. A Strong Core Improves Athletic Performance
 All powerful movements originate from the center of the body out, and never from the limbs alone.

I don’t want to be powerful…I don’t want to be athletic…I just want to look good in my clothes AND be able to move my arms like a NORMAL person after I’m done working out, as opposed to a …oh I don’t know…stubby-armed Tyrannosaurus.

End Note:  You should be able to breathe evenly while doing the Statue of Liberty.  Good luck with that!

 

The Second of the Terrible Trinity:  The Gutbuster

Prior to my enrollment at NLXF I had never heard of a “gutbuster.”  I’d happily shopped at “Doorbuster” sales.  I’d enjoyed bargain fuel prices courtesy of “gas busters.”  But a “gut”-buster…well, our paths had never crossed.  Of course all that changed within a nanosecond of enrolling in the NLXF program.  And gutbusters are second only to burpees as my most loathed of exercises that we do at the gym.  And for that reason it holds the Number Two spot in the Terrible Trinity.

What exactly is a gutbuster?  Well, truth be told, the Gutbuster defies definition.  Really!  A google* search of the term “gutbuster” will not provide you with a Wikipedia description, a YouTube demonstration, or a succinct definition of this most favorite NLXF exercise.  What it will get you is thousands of hits describing ways to torment your body, elevate your metabolism, utilize an “ab” machine (of the same name I might add), or relegate your diet all in the pursuit of a finally toned core.  It will also produce a plethora of fitness challenges ranging from foot races, to uphill sprints, to triathlons, as well as pages and pages showcasing any number of epicurean delights guaranteed to stretch your stomach and cause heartburn for weeks!

Oh no…if you want to find out anything about that god-awful exercise Ryan fondly calls The Gutbuster, you must search for it by its real name:  The Squat Thrust Burpee. 

I knew it was a member of the Burpee family!  Will this insanity never cease!

Basically, the Gutbuster, a.k.a. The Squat Thrust Burpee, is a burpee WITHOUT the jump.  Whose idea was that!?!?  Let’s be real here…the JUMP is the EASIEST part of the whole damn thing.  I mean, c’mon, if you’re going to eliminate something from the regular burpee, how about…oh I don’t know…how about the catapulting of your body from a standing position to a belly flop?  Or what about that pesky plyometric move????  I think I could probably live without BOTH of those moves. But of course if you did that, then it would simply be a jump squat.  Or a push up plank.  Or foot fire into a push up.  And naturally, we do those as well!  I’m beginning to think that the Burpee is the seed that has spawned just about every exercise I really, really don’t like.

Anyway, I’m convinced that some person with too much sweat in their eyes, and too many exercise generated endorphins screaming through their body thought that eliminating the jump was THE essential element in creating THIS alternative to the burpee.

Sigh…a

 

And so we do them…lots!   And I suppose what annoys me most is that each and every time we do them I can’t help but feel that Ryan thinks he’s doing us a favor by “letting” us do gutbusters instead of burpees.

News flash Ryan:  the bigger favor would be to not have to do them at all!

Tomorrow starts week three of session nine.  I’m pretty sure that some gutbusters are in my immediate future…

 

*Note:  A google search of gutbuster WILL get you a direct link to my blog…you have no idea how that made my heart sing!

**Note:  see previous blog for description of other “fun” burpee variations.

The Terrible Trinity:  Burpees, Gutbusters and the Statue of Liberty

Okay…I know this won’t come as a shock to anyone reading this blog or any of my posts on the NLXF Facebook wall, but I really don’t like most of the exercises we do in class on Tuesday and Thursday, our “cardio and strength training” days.  But there are three that I really, really, especially, and completely dislike:  Burpees, Gutbusters and the Statue of Liberty.  I fondly refer to them as the “Terrible Trinity.”

Each of these exercises is designed to provide a complete body workout by working a multitude of muscle groups with each series of movements.  There is no other set of exercises we do at NLXF, with the possible exception of Bear Crawls, that so frustrates me, so torments me, so demoralizes me as these three.  They are hard.  They frequently defeat me.  And they always make me sore.  Individually, they remind me of how far I have yet to go on my fitness journey.  Collectively, well, let’s just say that they make a root canal look like a walk in the park.

Today we did FOUR MINUTES of burpees in a flurry of 30 second sets scattered throughout the workout.  To be honest, I was ecstatic after my first 30 second set…I did FIVE decent burpees.  True, they will never be as good as Nick’s or as fluid as Kristen’s but for me…well they were pretty darn decent.  I was so excited that I shared this happy news with both Creed and Ryan.  Creed gave me a BIG beautiful smile and a high five.  Ryan hit me with his signature chiseled glare and told me I should be doing at least eight.  Sigh…and he wonders why I like Creed way more better than him.

I feel that each of these exercises deserves further discussion and exploration.  In this installment I consider the Burpee.  Now…I know I’ve posted some of this material before but here’s the deal:

1. not everyone read last year’s post

2. we have lots of new people this session

3. I’m hoping that Jake Lewis will finally realize that I already know LOTS about Burpees and he will cease posting information about them on my Facebook wall and instead, send me love notes…I don’t think it’s fair Erin Hinton is getting all the love.

 

So…here we go:  My tribute to the Burpee.

Prior to my enrollment in NLXF I was a Burpee Virgin.  Somehow, I had managed to live more than 50 years in pure ignorance of their existence.  I sure as hell had never done one.  And I’m pretty sure I could have happily lived another 50 years blissfully unaware of them.

Sadly, all of that changed in October 2011.   I distinctly remember the exact moment Burpees entered my life.  It was week three of my first NLXF session.  Ryan announced near the end of a Thursday class that we would do Burpees.  And by the way, he doesn’t just say the word Burpees…he ROARS the word Burpees, making the U-R sound resonate like the engine of a small aircraft taking flight.  Then he demonstrated one.   You can imagine the look of shock on my face as I watched this exercise unfold before me.  I looked around.  Surely this was some kind of cruel hoax and in a minute everyone would start laughing and tell Ryan that was a pretty good trick.  But no one did.  Everyone just started flopping to the floor and then pushing themselves up to a jump, repeating the entire process over and over again. 

So I jumped in, too.  I had no problem hitting the floor; that was the easy part.  It was the getting back up just using my arms and toes and then leaping up again that created the all the problems.  By the time I was done my knees were bruised, my arms hurt and I HATED Ryan; I didn’t talk to him for two days.

What are they, you may ask?  Well first, a bit of history.  The exercise was named in the 1930s for American physiologist Royal H. Burpee who developed the Burpee Exercise as part of his PhD thesis as a “quick and simple way to assess agility, coordination and strength.”  Royal’s “invention” required simply that the exerciser move a “large load over a long distance in a short amount of time.”

A CURSE ON YOU AND ALL YOUR OFFSPRING DR. BURPEE!

Of course the true irony is that Dr. Burpees research didn’t remain obscure like 90% of that carried on by most academician annually, my own included. The US military LOVED The Burpee and immediately adopted it as a way to assess the fitness level of recruits during WWII. And then atheletic teams adopted it as well.  I don’t care if Navy Seals and the Green Bay Packers do them; I Hate Burpees (although I LOVE watching Clay Matthews [insert big swoon and sigh] do them before a game J).

For the unenlightened, a Burpee is pretty much the most work you can do just using your body for resistance.  It begins from a standing position. From there you simply prepare to die.  You move to a squat and then fling your full body weight all the way to the floor by way of a single quick plyometric move in order to assume a plank position.  From there, in yet another one quick plyometric motion I might add, you return to momentarily to the squat position and from there you “jump up” in order to move your entire body weight off the ground before landing in an upright standing position, eager to begin this sequence from hell once again.

A PLYOMETRIC MOVE!  Just bite me!

I can do the start from a standing positon but from that point on, the entire process becomes a cluster of painful disasters.  Trust me, the only quick motion I’m good at is inserting and withdrawing my Visa card into the ATM machine.  And of course it doesn’t help my process at all to have Ryan hovering over me from start to finish yelling “get lower,” “faster”, or “jump higher.”

Burpees continue to haunt me at NLXF since my first encounter with them four months ago.  I continue to hate them and every single permutation of them that Ryan brings to the NLXF workouts including but not limited to:  the Squatting Burpee, the “Burpee Pushup,” the “Baby” Burpee, the Burpee in our kickboxing gloves while our partner “works the bag,” and my most recent nemesis, the Pyramid Burpee.  I am HIGHLY ANNOYED that Burpees are infiltrating additional workout days.  It used to be that Thursdays were Burpee days.  Not anymore…we do them on Tuesdays…we’ve done them on Wednesdays.  Is nothing is sacred anymore!

Sadly, a recent internet search reveals that there are NUMEROUS variations on The Burpee including these sick and disgusting permutations:

The Jump-over Burpee

The athlete jumps over an obstacle between burpees.

The One-Armed Burpee

The athlete uses only one arm for the whole exercise.

The Parkour burpee

Following one burpee on the ground, the athlete jumps upon a table and performs the second burpee on the table, then jumps back to the initial position. (I’m sorry, but clearly alcohol consumption must be a factor with this one!)

And finally, the Chirpee Burpee

Combine a pull-up from a bar extended from the ceiling with the jump.

I’m guessing that until I see tables and pull up bars in the gym, I’m safe for a little longer!