I was browsing the main Crossfit.com site at lunch time and the workout for last Saturday was:
– For time: 100 Inverted burpees
I’ve never heard of inverted burpees before and they look like an interesting thing to try (click image for the big version):
“The Inverted Burpee: starting supine, kip (or sit-up and roll) to standing, kick-up to handstand. This burpee derivative involves similar amounts of work and greater skill than the traditional burpee.”
So I tried them tonight. That’s the great thing about Crossfit, there are plenty of times you don’t actually have to go to the gym to do the workout, I did this on the landing at home! After the first 10, you soon realise it’s going to be a slog. My time: 21:35
As I was at home, I decided to check my heart rate recovery. When I first started exercising about 30 months ago now, I recorded what I was doing, what my heart rate was immediately after “exercise” (really it was just a warm up back then, and what it was again 10 minutes later. Here’s what I did on the 15 October 2006, 2 rounds of:
- Samson Stretch
- 10 Squats
- 10 Sit-ups
- 10 Push-ups
- 10 Supermen
My heart rate immediately after was 140, and ten minutes later was 112.
Now today, that “workout” was what I did for the warm up for my 100 inverted burpees! Anyway, after the upside down burpees I immediately took my heart rate, which was 132. Note that I counted 33 beats in 15 seconds. The reason I did this was, as I continued, I counted 63 beats in 30 seconds. So in just that extra 15 seconds, my heart rate has already dropped by 3 beats. If that makes sense? Actually I’m not sure which measurement is the correct one, anyone?
The 10 minute mark also saw a drop, at 92 beats, a full 20 bps less than when I started. That’s tangible
