If you can pick something off of the ground you can do a Burpee! In this video I demonstrate an easy version of the Burpee and a more dynamic, or the classic, Burpee.

Don’t be alarmed with the sore muscles you may experience 24 to 48 hours post first Burpee session. This is your body’s way of letting you know that you did a good thing and that you are getting stronger! That being said, go easy to start if you have not been working out.

The beauty of the 30 seconds of Burpees, 30 seconds of rest is that you do as many as YOU are capable of. The key is to just start. Get up off your chair, drop down and DO IT! One. Just do one. Once you are down and realize how simple, fun and easy it is, go ahead and do another, and another and then you realize 30 seconds has passed and it is time to rest. A rest you earned! Then at the top of the minute, drop down and do another 30 second round! The clap at the finish is to celebrate! Go ahead and celebrate! You will be stoked you did! If you are an experienced athlete/person who works out, Burpees are a great warm-up exercise.

Burpees: Total time…10 Minutes a day! 30 seconds of Burpees, 30 seconds rest. Repeat 10 times (go for 5 minutes…2:30 of actual exercise time…to start). Key to do them again when sore in a couple days! The movement and use of the muscles that are sore vitally need to be moved again. You will be less sore after working out again anyway! Drink plenty of water. Water is the medicine.

And most important of all, listen to your body. If you are feeling faint/super fatigued etc. stop. Chill. Walk around the room/house/car/block. Breathe, relax and feel your heart rate drop.

That is enough for now. Now, drop down and do some burpees!

Petzl Tikka 2 Headlamp

Help support StephenKoch.com with a Petzl Tikka Plus 2 Headlamp for your no excuses in the dark Burpee session!

ABOVE: Stephen in the gym.

VIGILANCE
by Stephen Koch

Vigilance is alert watchfulness. And as a climber it is paramount to be vigilant, not only for my own safety, but for the safety of my partner. Through the act of belaying, or protecting a partner with the rope, is when I am most watchful. My partner calls out, “watch me” and my total focus returns (if not already there) to safeguarding their every move by constantly giving and sometimes taking in (when they climb down) rope. My mind wanders often while belaying. Belaying can be the most exciting thing ever and a moment or two later, the most tedious activity known to man, sometimes the activity of belaying can go on for hours on a challenging lead. Belaying is usually more exciting when I can observe my partner. This direct observation makes it easier for me to be encouraging and I regularly say with all my heart and hope and belief, “I’ve got you” or “I’m with you” or “You’ve got this!” or “You’re doing great!”

Belaying is a love hate thing for me. On the one hand I love being in a position to encourage and coax my partner up. On the other I have intense feelings of impatience, and become critical and think, no KNOW, how much faster things would go if I were on the sharp end, only to climb up and realize first hand the challenge my partner faced on lead. This mind dance could be credited with my success as a mountaineer, but can also be credited with my continued suffering. Would I benefit from less vigilance in the mountains? The bottom line with belaying is that you better be vigilant because your partner’s life literally depends on it. If they fall and you have too much rope out due to lack of vigilance, they may hit a ledge or the ground. There are numerous examples of this occurring throughout the climbing world and I would venture to say this is one of the leading causes of injuries in climbing.

Before a climb I vigilantly select the gear, taking the bare minimum to increase the chances of success. This might be contrary to some people’s thinking…why not take more, that way you will have it if you need it. Well the more you take, “just in case,” the more you carry. The more you carry the heavier you are. The heavier you are the slower you go. The slower you go the shorter distance you cover in a given amount of time. Classic example…if you take bivouac gear, you will use it. If you don’t take it, you won’t use it and probably won’t need it. You will climb faster as a result of being lighter and also being more committed. Are you willing to go there? The risks may be greater, but so are the rewards. It is also important to check the weather. An example of being vigilant and getting stung by going light on a long and difficult route at altitude, with Jimmy Chin, Kami Sherpa, Lapka Dorge Sherpa, I was climbing the North Face of Everest. We took only one two man tent, two sleeping pads, two stoves to melt snow and cook food, two days of food, a 100′ 7mm rope, a few nuts and titanium pitons, a few slings and carabiners and that was pretty much it…oh yea, and my snowboard. Had we brought more food we would have been in a better position to continue to 8,000 meters, with the summit attainable from there, two thousand feet above our current position on the massive face. BUT, we also would have been slower as a result of carrying more food. And we may all be dead if we had continued up. After retreating from about half way up the face we saw a fracture in the snow where an avalanche had ripped out, right above our high point.

Vigilance goes hand in hand with intensity for me and everything I love. While climbing I do EVERYTHING that I am capable of to move faster and be more efficient…

Go to Mountain Athlete for the rest of this essay (here), bottom of the page. And while you are at that page on Mountain Athlete, check out the other essays by the sponsored athletes at MA.

…giving a courtesy hold on rappel, making a V-Thread while belaying my partner, eating, drinking, pissing, shedding layers, donning layers, organizing gear, stacking the ropes, giving a consistent and snug belay, giving encouragement to the second as well as the leader, shutting the fuck up when that “helpful” voice that loves to justify the criticisms with “it’s for your own good”, and other drivel; keeping my criticisms to myself, trying not to beat myself up for having the criticisms dance around my head, keeping the psych high and the true belief in our ultimate success paramount, until it becomes so, all play into the separatelessness of life, thought and climbing.

Am I soloing? Do I need to be completely secure? Can I survive a fall here? How important is speed here? What time is it? Do we have a headlamp? Extra batteries?  What phase is the moon today? Is it clear enough for us to be granted moonlight? What is the temp? Is ice likely to fall naturally from above?  Am I climbing below others who may not be as vigilant about knocking down ice? Even if they are, the ice still falls, always falls, no matter the completeness of the vigilance. That is one sketchy aspect of being in the natural, uncontrollable world of frozen water. Will I find safety from the threatening projectiles beyond shrugging my shoulders, trying to fit my entire body under my helmet?

Vigilant listening: Survival in the mountains often depends on listening. With avalanches, my earliest signs are usually auditory. Jet airplanes sound like avalanches, so I pay attention every time I hear something. And fortunately it is usually just a plane. I listen to the sound of the ice axe as it makes contact with the ice to determine my next move: whether to remove it and swing again for a more secure stick, or commit to ascend.  It’s a decision in the moment to “go” or “no go”, and in that moment I trust the sound more than the feel of the axe. So while I am vigilant about conditions around me that I can see and touch, I also pay utmost attention to what I hear.

Even when vigilant to the last detail, shit still hits the fan.  And once that happens, you take in all the data around you to get yourself through, and may it be with vigilance!

Hi Stephen,

Thanks for keeping your blog, its a good diversion from my current horizontal life. I am writing to ask you about your experience with dealing with your injuries after your accident on Mt. Owen. I have not-so-recently acquired some injuries from a fall I took, and they are especially slow to respond to treatment. I have developed some residual back pain that occasionally progresses to the point of spasm, and a torn hamstring that does not seem to want to heal. It has been almost 4 months since the fall, and I am currently limited to yoga as my physical activity. While nowhere near the injuries you sustained, I wanted to ask your perspective on dealing with this forced inactivity. How did you cope, and what strategies seemed to help? Thanks for your time.

-V

Hi V,

I can relate to your being injured and know it is challenging. First thought is yoga and hamstring injury do not mix. I would guess your hamstring and lower back are all tied together and causing you the suffering. I suggest trying deep tissue massage on your psoas. This will likely relieve your back pain and put less pressure on your hamstrings. Only my intuition/thoughts based on what you are telling me.

To answer your questions about coping with forced inactivity…I did not do it very well. I was so injured at first that I was in hospital for several days on morphine and pretty out of it, next I was out of surgery and all jacked from the knee surgeries (both knees…left ACL (with a bunch of meniscus damage cut and sewn) and right reconstructed MCL (which was pretty much obliterated) and meniscus which was torn as well as patella relocated (it was on the side of my knee, they discovered only after viewing the MRI due to all the swelling). My back had two compression fractures also. The plan was to have the ACL / PCL in the right knee, the one that was dislocated, repaired a couple months after the surgeries mentioned above.

My right knee after my second round of surgeries to repair the ACL and PCL.

I did watch several movies and had my mother come out for three weeks to help me! Thanks Mom! Also worked on a story for Men’s Journal about the experience.

What I did was focus on what I could do physically. As soon as they let me go to Physical Therapy I went (with Percocet), worked as hard and as often as I could, came home and went to sleep, repeating 2x in a day when I eventually had the strength. I was as positive as I could be…thankful to be alive after such an event (I do not call it an accident because I do not thing there is such a thing…it is a term we use to describe cause and effect that we do not like). Fact is I was on slope when it avalanched. Avalanche hit me. I fell over 2,000 feet, sustaining injuries. Spent night out without shelter and in only a long underwear shirt. Took things one step at a time. Prioritized really well, which was not too hard at the time and is not difficult for me when climbing or doing physical things. Other things are more challenging for me to prioritize and execute, that is for sure! Survived night out. Got rescued. Was stoked to be in emergency room getting hot blankets from hot nurses!

I also thought a lot about risk and risk management.

My suggestion is for you to try meditation (audio guided meditation with John Travis here), or to find a way, if you haven’t, to get quite inside your mind so you can settle and feel what is inside of you. You have the answers inside of you already, waiting for you to feel them. The next step is to then trust what you are feeling. Not an easy task, but a worthy one! The mind likes to get in the way through distractions/neurotic thoughts. Let the distractions go and get back to the settled place, like a pond after a stone (neurotic thought) has made ripples. In time the pond will be still, like your mind. This comes with practice. That is why meditation is called a practice. Like anything new, you will improve with practice.

The other suggestion is for you to trust your body. It is, like your heart/inner self/sixth sense, full of the answers you seek. The challenge is to listen.

To be gentle with yourself and not hammer down that you are a wimp or weak for being injured/not healing as fast as you would like (a judgment). You are healing at the perfect rate. That is a fact. Cause and effect. Be gentle. Not easy, like much of what I am writing about, but ultimately very worthy! You will benefit, as will those around you. So be selfish and the world will benefit!

I have found that keeping my back strong through regular exercise (in mountains or gym at Mountain Athlete) has kept the bulging/herniated disks at bay. They may come back eventually and if/when they do, I will try to take it in stride and not beat myself up about this or that and just except the reality of my situation. Life is nicer this way, for me and those around me.

May you be well,

Stephen

www.stephenkoch.com

If you are interested in strength training for your sport, whatever sport, check out Rob’s Blog at www.mtnathlete.com. He takes your questions about your sports and answers them. If he can’t answer them, he finds the answer from someone in his vast network.

Mountain Athlete (www.mtnathlete.com) recently opened up shop in Boulder, CO and is being headed up by Connie Sciolino, a smart, strong and outstanding coach with a strong medical background, who is married to a derelict and friend of mine…Tom (who has climbed the North Face of the Eiger!). So if you are in the Denver or Boulder area and looking for a different way to train or get stronger, go watch a session and see if you think it is for you! I love it!

“Kick in the Nuts, III”

10 Rounds
30 second hang
30 second burpees (If the athlete doesn’t get at least 8x, add a round)

10 Rounds
1 minute System Board Crimps
1 minute plank walk up

10 Rounds
1 mintute HIT Strip
Run 200m

Comments:

More brutal work for my climbers. I’m working to get them to the wall/system board/hang, etc., breathing hard.

Here’s what Stephen Koch had to say about “Kick in the Nuts III” –

“Thank you for today’s workout. I liked how it combined heart thumping cardio with hand and forearm training.

“During the latter rounds of the warm up I could hear my heart pumping after the burpees as I was on the hang board, and it was intense to hang on towards the end of the minute during the last two rounds.

“The crimp workout was absolutely perfect duration and intensity for me. I was very near failure at 50 seconds of the 10th round. And the planks were really wicked, especially the first couple rounds until warmed up!

“As you know I pretty much only run at Mountain Athlete due to all of my knee injuries. But I enjoyed the quick burst of a run around the building, into the sunshine and was able to push it throughout the 10 laps. The HIT strip was more mental than anything. I was thinking I needed to get on the system board until you said to just try, which I did. Thanks for that. It worked out well and I found my groove in the third or fourth round of the ten. It was intense jumping immediately from the run (running all the way to the HIT strips) onto the HIT strips. My blood was flowing nicely, to say the least!

“I find getting immediately into the next exercise without thinking about it or waiting for the clock to hit the next 5 or 10 second mark is better training, both physically but especially mentally. At some point I would like to do one of the timed workouts with Curtis P’s, where jumping immediately into the next exercise is very helpful for a lower time. Again…good mental training.

“Well, we finally have mostly clear skies and sunshine today for the first time in a month! So I look forward to a mountain bike ride later today, after the trails dry out.

“Thanks for the great workouts Coach!

- sk