TABATA is the Devil

Long story short for today I attempted to go heavy on bench work. Didn't even get through my warmup sets when something felt very wrong in my left pec. Definitely a strain of some kind. Doesn't hurt at rest but pressing straight away is out of the question right now. Had to switch gears to a pull day instead. Didn't go heavy just a lot of volume work. Sets of 12 and 20s.

Then I had a stupid idea.

Let's do a TABATA finisher! But what exercise? Hmmmm.....hanging row! Yes! But hey I'm awesome at those so let's use a god damn fat bar!

I finished 2 rounds. The rest ended about as miserable as you may imagined it would. My grip gave out well ahead of my shoulders. Suppose I should've saw that coming.

FYI if you are unfamiliar with Tabata it is simply perform work for 20 seconds, rest for 10, repeat for a total of 4 minutes. Or 8 rounds. Get as many reps as possible in those 20s bouts. The simplest exercises turn into a damn nightmare.

Battling Ropes - Arms and Shoulders Conditioning

...because using 'normal' equipment is too maintstream.

Nah, but in all seriousness who like using dumbbells anymore when you can just swing around a 30lb rope? In this case its more a 25ish pounds of 1.5"x50' polyurethane punishment.

Which reminds me, quick shout out to http://www.contractorsrope.com/ for the awesome deals on ropes. If I had any place to recommend anyone to buy their new ropes I would definitely order from these guys. Not only are their prices cheaper but can't beat free shipping on orders of $300 or more. Saved about $60 bones just on that fact alone.

So, anyways, onto the workout-

This vid is me going through a quick circuit using the "Tabata Method" style of interval training.

Heres the skinny;
Each round is 20s of high intensity work with a very short 10s of rest in between.
The workout lasts a total of 8 rounds or 4 minutes in length.
You can do practically ANYTHING for the exercises but be warned there are some pretty exhausting ideas and workouts out there. Try squatting for example....bleack!

With this particular workout I just picked a bunch of random shoulder and arm movements with the rope that is looped around a weighted down box.