Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Day 70 - Why burpee?

Rachel's post made me wonder: Why did I start burpee-ing? And why do I continue to do so?

Besides the appeal of taking on a challenge with a group of my friends and teammates, I started because I really hated burpees. A workout philosophy that I picked up from Kelly McMahon is that the harder something is, the more often you should do it. I think edging towards a total of 5050 burpees within 100 days qualifies as "often." And unlike trying to take yoga classes multiple times a week, burpees required no financial investment and a minimal (or so I thought) time investment. I also underestimated how much burpee catch-up days would suck and the toll burpee-ing takes on the body in conjunction with a workout; in light of these details I still would have joined the challenge, but probably with much less enthusiasm.

I continue to burpee for a few reasons. Burpees have become part of my routine. I'm kind of starting to enjoy them now that I'm getting better at them. (OK, maybe "enjoy" is the wrong word. Or maybe I just enjoy the feeling of them being completed.) Post-challenge, they'll be working their way into my warmups and workouts, though probably in maximum quantities of 50.

Mostly, though, I continue because I decided in the beginning that the only way out was to finish on Day 100. I have enough time to burpee, since I'm lucky to have coworkers, roommates, and teammates that think nothing of me dropping to the ground and pushing out a burpee or ten, regardless of the setting. My body is healthy enough and physically capable of finishing, though sometimes it tries very hard to convince me otherwise. And, while people have dropped since day 1, there are still 20+ other people doing burpees, too. I have more reasons to continue burpee-ing than I have reasons to quit.

Plus I'd be plain pissed at myself if I stopped now. 30 more days of burpees are worth the satisfaction (and the massive reward cupcake) on day 100.

3 comments:

  1. Thanks for this post Rosie. I too am only exiting at Day 100 because I like Sarah am too stubborn to quit. I can't let the burpees win - even if they make me crazy. I came into today with 105 total. I decided to do 50 right away - after that the last 50 happened easily. It feels good to go into tomorrow with a clean slate.

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  2. I agree with all of the above stated. I also must admit that another reason that I continue to burpee (I know this is VERY VERY vain, but hey I'm a New Yorker) is that I've started to see definition in my obliques and upper two ab muscles that weren't there before. In fact, the last time they were there, I was lifting regularly...now, all I'm doing is burpeeing and running on occasion. I'm contemplating doing the ladder down from 100 because it will bring me into swimsuit season. Though this is an awful reason, I must be honest that it is in fact one of the reasons I refuse to drop out of this challenge.

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  3. I'll add another agreement to the list! After taking some time off to heal, I have built up quite a deficit: 1045 as of this morning. But as you said, there are more reasons to continue burpeeing than there are to quit, and I too am much too stubborn to give up now. So tonight, I jumped back into the burpee challenge. 30 days to go!

    As for that ladder back down, JLB, I don't think I'll be joining you :)

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