How can two brothers be so different? Whilst young Peter is diving deeper and deeper into the world of blood and steel with his 100kg Workouts, I who for the better part of 10 years have worked to keep cardio to a minimum have put down the barbell and embraced the world of cross fit.  So why the change, well like my brother I too am running the Tough Mudder but unlike my brother I am, well to put it bluntly a hell of a lot less fit and whole lot older. So after studying the course I realised that need to train my body to handle real-life situations, such as say running a 12 mile assault course on the 13th May for example, not just bench or deadlift as much as possible. I needed to become, gulp, more athletic. Now anyone who knows me can vouch that the word athlete is not the way most people would use to describe me. I needed help and I found it in the form of a charming fellow called Jamie a personal trainer at my local gym. After describing the problem to him he quickly deduced that a cross fit program would be a great way to start my transformation.

After an intensive warm up including a five-minute row and 10 minutes of stretches and squats Jamie told me he was going to put me through a Cindy Work Out. This is not as much fun than or as easy as it sounds. It turns out that a lot of the cross fit work outs are named after girls to give the impression they are nice and easy, this is not the case. What Jamie asked me to do was as follows

·        5 pull ups

·        10 push ups Cross fit style (chest to the ground and full lock at the top)

·        15 Air Squats again Cross fit style so below parallel and full lock at the top.

The above is one circuit; the goal is to do as many circuits as you can in 20 minutes. By the end I was a quivering wreck, gasping for air and felt totally exhausted. That first attempt I managed a shamefully low circuit total of 8, but after just 3 weeks of doing Cindy and one other cross fit work out once a week (thank god my other half knows what Cindy is) I am up to 13 2/3 which is a grand total of 70 pull ups, 140 push up and 195 squats. My body fat has dropped by 2% my bench has gone up, my lats and abs are popping and my run times have come down. This work out is a killer but delivers.

The best thing is it is simple and customisable. Cannot do pull ups fine do jumping ones where you use a little jump to help you up. Not a fan of push up, drop the knees. Think squats are too easy fine swap them out for burpees you psycho!

As an added bonus in these tough economic times, this does not require a gym hit as the park is all you need for something to do pull ups off monkey bars, swing rings even goal posts will do. However, if you are using a children’s play area (as I do) I would suggest that you head down there early in the morning sweating, grunting and swearing in front of small children will always end badly for you!

So give it a go add Cindy to your work out for a month and let us know how you get on but please remember to warm up and cool down thoroughly.

If you want to know more about Cross Fit check out their great web site here and I will post more Cross fit work out ideas soon.

http://www.crossfit.com/cf-info/what-crossfit.html