My Workout

It's disgusting, a little, how slavishly attentive you are to my every merest whim. Can something be a little disgusting? I think not. You should try to be more accurate. If it's not vile enough to be completely disgusting, the word shouldn't be used. It's like saying something is very unique. A thing is unique or it's not -- no modifier of degree is appropriate. I hope you remember this valuable lesson in syntactic precision that I've given you for free. I chose to use syntactic rather than syntactical because brevity is another of my many countless virtues. And I used the redundancy of many countless as a subtle and ironic witticism, because I'm like that, all generous with my humor.

My workout, then, if I may return to the point, was 3 rounds of 30 box jumps, 20 inches high; 25 jumping chinups, standing, grasping the bar overhead where it would meet the wrist; 20 thrusters with a 45 lb bar -- thrusters are a squat with an overhead press when erect; and 15 burpees -- from standing, get down to a pushup, then up with a jump and an overhead clap -- you can see it on YouTube if that's not clear.

Took me 14:49 to finish. Then I decided to calculate the total work output. And the power output as well -- how many pounds would have been moved one foot in one minute. Work is what you got done. Power is how hard you worked ... doing it faster is harder. We've been through this before, but I know how you are. The formula for Work is Force (which is weight moved times number of reps) times Distance. The formula for Power is Work (F x D) divided by total time for those movements. Convert inches into feet, and convert time from minute/seconds into minutes/decimal -- 3:30 would be 3.5.

Three rounds of 30 box jumps is 90 jumps. I moved my whole body weight, 180 pounds aprox. It's foolish to get too precise, since any estimates will automatically render any precision effectively arbitrary. You must remember this from high school, multiplying measurements -- you have to use the least accurate of your measuring tools or you get a false precision that can be harmful to the overall process. If one measurement is 9 inches, and the other is 8.292 mm, you need to express the mm as whole inches. So, about 180 pounds. Moved 20 inches. Total time was 3:40 -- 3.7 minutes. Work is 27,550 fp, rounded to the nearest 50. Power is 7750 fp per minute. Jumping chinups, 180 pounds, 75 reps, moved the length of my arm, shoulder to wrist -- work is 24,300 fp; work divided by 2.9 minutes: force is 8400 fp/m.

Burpees, 180 pounds, 45 reps ... and here it gets tricky. I'm definitely moving the whole body, but the feet move only a few inches up, whereas the head moves more than my height. So I figure it from the center of my body mass, about 0.6 of my height-- about at the navel. Sort of a seesaw calculation. Average movement, 3.8 feet. Work, 30,800 fp. Time, 3.3 minutes: force, 9300 fp/m

Thrusters are really two movements, front squat and overhead press. How much weight are you moving, with a squat? Not your whole bodyweight, since you are not actually lifting your feet or calves, and only part of your upper leg. So let's say bodyweight minus legs. How much do legs weigh? Each is about 10% of total weight -- perhaps not for apple- or pear-shaped people. Arms, about 6%. Head about 8%. Trunk then, the remaining 60%. So, 180 minus 20%. Plus the 45 pounds of the bar. Call it, uh, 190. Moved the length of my thigh, aprox 1.5, 60 times -- 17,100 fp. Then add in the overhead press, 45 pounds 60 times about 1.9 feet -- 5150 fp. Thruster work 22,250 fp, divided by 4.9 minutes -- power 4550 fp/m. These are tough for me. I'm slow. Long bones make for bad leverage

Work total, 104,900 fp -- like moving one pound 100,000 feet, or 100,000 pounds one foot. Total workout force would be the total fp divided by the total time. I think. 14.8 minutes. 7100 fp/m. A single value that reasonably approximates the actual effort. It may seem like a lot of calculating, but nowadays they have these things called "calculators" -- in my day we had to use our actual brains. It's just a few measurements, like knowing the length of your arm, for all the pulls and pushes, and knowing a few percentages, and a few conversions. It's why they still make pencils -- so you can write these things down in a place convenient to the recording of your exercise efforts. You know, records?

The value lies in the formula's use of time as a factor. That's major. The bench polishers take just as long as they feel like, to do their curls and their preacher curls, and, uh, hammer curls, and Arnold curls, and, um, curls with a fancy twist at the top ... is that Arnold curls? Dude, I worked out for TWO HOURS today. Lookit my guns!!! Sadly, no intensity -- time is a unit of intensity, and it took TWO HOURS!!! That is a bad thing. Do it in 14 minutes and 49 seconds and you would be an absolute Hercules. Hardly anyone could do that, though. Some sort of superman. A genetic freak with amazing courage and character, maybe, that all the chicks are so hot for. And he's so goodlooking too. Heroic, is what it is. The dude's a total He-Man.

Have I been misspelling aprox all this time? Approx? Why don't you people tell me these things? I was in second grade twice -- how many times to I have to say this before it gets through your thick skull? I was too much of a giant intellect for the grade, and they didn't understand me. I can't be bothered with petty details like spelling. Sometimes I just feel like giving up. You so don't deserve me.


J