It’s been a while since you’ve heard from me on the Monthly Fitness Challenges. As you might remember, I’ve been setting these personal challenges for myself where I test myself on a particular activity, train for about month and then re-test myself. It’s a fun way to stay fit.
Well, my goal was to train for the flagpole. If you don’t know what a flagpole is, it’s where you grip an upright pole and pull yourself horizontal. It requires a lot of core strength + alternate bicep/tricep strength (depending on what side you push/pull on).
I’ve never been a particularly fast runner and even after training for and completing a marathon, I’m still pretty slow. So my March Fitness Challenge is a single mile.
A mile is 1609 meters, about 30 feet more than 4 laps around a standard track, which is 400m on the inside lane. I did my test run on March 1st and surprised myself by running it in 6m 50s. My friend Jason Evanish, who ran cross country in high school and ran something like a 4:45 mile, gave me me some tips on training for a fast mile. Maybe not revolutionary stuff, but as someone used to training shorter distances, it was helpful:
Intervals workouts: run 1 laps at the track at your goal pace (mine is 6min, so slightly under 1:30 for the single lap). Repeat 4-8 times, with a few minutes of rest in between. Last one should really hurt. Once or twice a week.
Longer runs: 4-5 mile runs, don’t worry as much about time, just get some endurance in
Fartleks: Swedish for “speed play”, this is something inbetween intervals and long runs, a mix of easy running, with bursts of faster pace interspersed. I’ve read a lot about these and need to actually try doing them
Swinging arms: it’s important to swing your arms straight forward and not cross your arms across your body, which wastes energy. Also, swing your arms back hard enough that your hands meet your hips. This opens up your chest so you can breathe better.
I’ve been trying to follow his advice and also modifying my workout routine a bit: doing heavy lifting only one time a week, down from two (which helped for improving handstand pushups) and doing moderate biking on the days I don’t run or do track workouts.
The month is already over half over so we’ll see how it goes. I’m hoping to crack a 6 minute mile. Let me know if you have any other tips or advice for me in the comments.
Edit – Final Mile Time
So I finished my mile challenge with about a 20 second drop, from 6:50 to 6:30. I was hoping to drop it further, to the low 6 minutes and perhaps even break into 5, but it was not going to happen.
The day was a little cool and I wasn’t feeling my best, but you just gotta make the most of testing day. Was definitely wiped at the end. My friend Jason tells me a 20 second drop is pretty good for a month, probably because when you’re training a ton like he was, you didn’t see drops that big, that quick.
Anyway, here it is!
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So my Fitness Challenge for February was max handstand pushups. I did 19 in my initial test and throughout the month I’ve been doing handstand pushups at the end my regular workouts. Started with 3 sets of 10, ended the month with 3 sets of 15. My goal was 30.
Well, I ended up doing 25. Not quite what I was hopping for, but still a ~30% improvement. In retrospect, I could gone a little bit harder in training, and warmed up a little bit more the day of, before my attempt.
My March challenge is the mile. I remember sucking at the mile in high school, and when I started running back in 2010, my first mile was around 12 mins. I’ll post my video attempt of that soon…
I am writing a book called Winning Isn't Normal. Check it out.
I asked you guys in my max sit-ups finale whether I should go with burpees or handstand pushups next. When all the votes were tallied, I heard more for handstand pushups so that’s what I went with.
Calling my first round “pretrained” is a bit of a misnomer. I did lots of handstand pushups as a nationally competitive gymnast, and even did a few while on stage at the Palms in Las Vegas singing Brown Eyed Girl with my buddy Ryan Hupfer.
But regardless, the point of these challenges is to see how much I can improve over the next month. I did 19 ast my start, and my goal is 30. I’d love to have you train along. There are a couple handstand pushup tutorials on Youtube you can check out.
I am writing a book called Winning Isn't Normal. Check it out.
So, it’s February 1st – which means I need to see how I’ve done with my monthly fitness challenge. The focus on January was as many sit-ups as possible in one minute.
Training
As I mentioned before, sit-ups aren’t actually a great ab workout in themselves. They use the hip flexors and only work the top part of your abs, not the bottom. So when I was training, I started out by focusing on planks and slow butterfly sit-ups. On somedays I would do my old gymnastics routine of 35 V-ups, 50 tuck-ups and 100 hollow back kicks.
Then someone emailed me who had been in the army and gave me some advice: Continue reading →
I am writing a book called Winning Isn't Normal. Check it out.
Jason Shen is the co-founder of Ridejoy (YC S11). A former gymnast turned marathoner, his writing has appeared in Forbes.com, Lifehacker & The Huffington Post.
The Art of Ass-Kicking is about starting things, conquering fear and kicking ass in work and life. Learn more.
Jason Shen is the co-founder of 