Photographing the Survival Workout

Sunday, August 14, 2011

I’d been bugging Heidi for some time about coming to the Metropark with me and taking pictures of the Survival Workout. She’d agreed to Sunday morning and had enlisted her boyfriend, Matt, to join us in the endeavor. He’s only 23 and in good shape, so I figured he’d look good in the pictures…which is all I really wanted…otherwise they would be of me.

We started in my usual place and I began by explaining to Matt what he was getting into. He didn’t seemed concerned and so after a little stretching (by him…not me) we began with the pull-ups from the tree branch. I went first and when he saw my palm-away grip, he started to worry. “I do them with my hands in,” he said. I explained that those were easier and involved the biceps more at the top of the pull and I wanted the emphasis to stay on the back. He went with it and looked good doing them. We moved to the push-ups and then the log lift…which is where his troubles began.

I outweigh Matt by…oh…40 pounds or more and I’ve been doing this for some time. The log is heavy and when he went to work with it, felt a twinge in his back from a previous injury he’d not told me about. Heidi would tell me later that he didn’t want to disappoint me and seem like a wimp by not doing the things I was doing. I suppose he had a right to fear my mocking…I do it all the time…but never of him. Oh well.

We moved down the trail for more exercise and pictures and on the second rock lift, his back told him enough was enough. Wisely, he opted out of further low back work, but did all the other moves including the cliff climb, high skips, 50-yard sprints, log lifts and carries, pole climbs-arms only, push-ups in the stream, and the fireman’s carry…to name a few. Normally, I wouldn’t do all of these in one workout, but I at least wanted to get pictures of all the different exercises we perform in the woods. Heidi ended up with over 500 pictures before we were done.

I was sorry Matt hurt his back…but we got some great shots and he’s young and will heal. I was particularly encouraged by the sprints we did. My knee was feeling rock solid and we were doing some all-out efforts. Add to that the high skips, jump ups and some other interesting side-step running we were doing uphill, and I was feeling like I was ready to run. I’ll give that a try soon.

I wasn’t so good at the dinner table, though. Holly made a lot of evil food…like mashed potatoes and fried noodles…which I sampled. The real issue came after dinner. She’d made some fresh peach cobbler and I had a large serving with whipped cream on top. I’m not weighing in for a while.

Survival Workout duration: 90 minutes.
Training Heart Rate: 100 to 150 bpm.
Calories burned during workout: 800.