Lyle McDonald has a thought-provoking piece up titled Pole Vault your way to a Hot Body. Good for me to read this, as I'm always singing the praises of intervals. I'm not giving up my intervals anytime soon, but it's nice to have a little perspective.

Boy, it doesn't get any simpler than Stew Smith's push-up workout:

On ODD days: Do 200 pushups in as few sets as possible in addition to your regularly scheduled workout of cardio exercises. You can still do upper body workouts on these days if you are already on a program. This is a supplemental 200 pushups using maximum repetition sets (4 x 50, 8 x 25 ... it's your choice how you get to 200).

On EVEN days: Do 200 pushups throughout the day. This can be little sets of ten done every half hour or fifty pushups done four times throughout the day.

RULE: If your maximum is under 50 pushups, do 200 a day. If your maximum is above 75, do 300 pushups a day.

Repeat the ODD/EVEN routine for a total of 10 days. Then take three days off and do NO upper body pushing exercises that work the chest, triceps, and shoulders. Then on day 14, give yourself the pushup test.

He says folks who start at 50 pushups end up at 80 (generally, I'm sure). Pretty nice return on two weeks work.

P.S. I know it sounds like overtraining, but he discusses that in the article.

Same drum I've been beating here from the get-go, but it's always good to reinforce it. Vern Gambetta on the myth of the "aerobic base". Plus, even better, his follow-up post on the subject:

I asked Jack Blatherwick to address his viewpoint on establishing an aerobic base. Jack is with the Washington Capitols and was conditioning coach for six American Olympic Ice Hockey teams including the 1980 "Miracle Team"). The following is his response:

Definitely click through and read the rest.

1. 135 lbs. on the overhead/military/shoulder press (whatever you call the thing that's harder than a push press or a push jerk). I'm particularly happy about this because I can now just leave a set of 45s on the bar all the time. Hooray for laziness. :-)
2. Broke 1:30 on the C2 500m row. Specifically, 1:29.6. Owwwww. I never want to do that again; the 1.4 seconds I needed came really hard. I think deadlifting, even though I'm fairly new to it, helped with this one. More power in each stroke. Also, this workout of mine may have helped, as it really gets you pulling hard.

The 500m reminded me of a really weird symptom I get when I really push myself to the brink: my teeth feel weird. Like a numb ache. Very unpleasant. Lasted for like 20 minutes after this effort. It's probably a heart attack warning sign, or something.

Okay, that's more than enough about me.

Sorry, another link backlog:

• The NY Times has a nice piece on the humble push-up.
• I somehow missed this CrossFit video of cool towel pull-up variations (Quicktime video).
• Coach Sommer's hamstring stretch.
• StrongLifts on glute activation. Lots of good exercises there.

Chris at Conditioning Research embeds a smooth Turkish Get-up variation by Scott Sonnon.

• John Berardi posted a comprehensive, balanced piece on soy at his forums.
• Coach Sommer describes a brutal abdominal exercise, "The Crank".
• I'm getting started with barbell training, so bought a copy of Starting Strength by Mark Rippetoe and Lon Kilgore. Looks fantastic. And I just learned you can ask questions of the man himself at the Mark Rippetoe Q&A Strength Mill Forum. I would definitely read the book, the stickies, and take advantage of the search feature before posting (here's why).

Here's a workout I've tried a couple times now that I like. I apologize, but it does call for a C2 rower, although you could simulate the fatigue with a 20-second all out exercise bike sprint (on a Schwinn Airdyne would be even better). Still, your gym may have a C2. Check the dusty, unused corner of the gym reserved for pieces of equipment that cause real misery.

Anyway, the workout probably doesn't seem like much (and maybe it's just that my off-season conditioning slide is worse than I thought):

• 100 meter sprint on the C2 (I do it in 18 seconds)
• 10 max. speed/jump burpees
• Rest as long as you want
• Repeat 10 times (I only did 5 today)

By round three I could feel the burn in my legs, and round five was pretty darn uncomfortable. Surprising, given how much rest I was allowing myself. I think what made it so hard was giving a true maximum effort. I can't pull 100 meters any harder, and on the burpees I made a concerted effort to (a) do them as fast as possible and, this is key, (b) jump as high as possible with each jump.

I don't know if you're like me, but when I do burpees I tend to short-change the jump in favor of getting the reps done faster (after all, more time in the air hurts your reps/minute). Burpees with a max. effort jump torch the legs in a hurry (and they are already fatigued from the C2 sprint).

Anyway, give it a shot, report back!

Three goodies today:

• Crossfit Seattle's athletic skill levels. In particular, this PDF.
• Coach Sommer, author of the popular articles Building an Olympic Body through Bodyweight Conditioning and Developing the Hanging Leg Lift has been working on a book for a very long time. It looks like it might finally be on the verge of coming out. He has a new website, Gymnastic Bodies, which claims the book is ready to order (although that doesn't seem to be the case quite yet)
• Ross Enamait links up a slick Excel Deck of Cards workout generator. Just hit F9 to get a fresh workout generated from a variety of exercises. Customizable.

I've started deadlifting for the first time. Bought a 300 lb. Olympic weight set from Dick's, and dove right in. After a couple weeks I'd worked myself up to 330 lbs. (strapped another 30 lbs. onto the bar) and was feeling all proud of myself. I mean, at a bodyweight of 200 lbs. I know I'm not even approaching respectability until I get to 2xBW (400 lbs. for me) but I was still pleased since I'd never done anything but dumbbell work before, working at much smaller loads.

Then I did what I should have done in the first place. I re-read these three fantastic articles on the deadlift by Eric Cressey:

• Mastering the Deadlift: Part I
• Part II
• Part III

... and I shot some video of myself.

Holy crap, MY BACK! Slightly rounded at the bottom, very rounded at the top, and my shoulders were practically hanging from their sockets. Humiliating. I'm going back to 135 lbs., going to video every session, and only move up as good form allows. I consider myself lucky I didn't hurt myself over the past couple weeks.

I know I've read somewhere that you really can't coach yourself when it comes to lifting, and after this experience I can see why. If you're lifting without feedback it's really hard to know what your body is really doing. However, I do think the combination of excellent freely available information on the Internet and home video get your pretty darn close. I can look at a good deadlift and compare it to my deadlift and see quite clearly where I'm lacking, and what adjustments I have to make. The video was such a stark contrast to the picture in my mind. Really essential, I think, if you aren't being coached.

So, a couple quick equipment recommendations:

• Flip Video Camcorder. That's the basic 30-minute version for under $100, or you can spring for one of the newer versions. This has got to be one of my favorite gadgets of all time, purely for its simplicity. There's just a couple buttons, the USB connection is integrated into the unit, and the software for managing your videos is stored on the camcorder itself, so there's nothing to install. You literally buy it, put in batteries, and throw away everything else in the box. Beautiful.
• Joby Gorillapod. Set your camera up anywhere. For my video I set it up on the wheel of my rower, and it was totally secure. Great tool. There's also the Monsterpod, which looks very cool, but I've never tried it myself.

I enjoyed this post by Mehdi over at StrongLifts: How to Get a Body Like Brad Pitt in Fight Club. Not what you think. Give it a read.

Another good post from Mark Sisson: Chronic Cardio.