If any of you read Men’s Journal, there’s an article in it this month about Roger Clemen’s training program, which he calls, affectionately, “The Seal Deal.” What it is exactly printed, I don’t have the magazine in front of me, but its something like the following, all of which has to be done in under 30 minutes:
-
Run 1 mile under 8 minutes.
-
Jog in place for thirty seconds.
3 Sprint 100 yards. Jog back.
-
3 sets of 25 Burpees.
-
Jog in place for thirty seconds.
-
3 sets of 25 crunches.
-
Run side to side 25 yards, twice, switching sides after each 25 yards.
-
More Burpees?
-
Jog 200 yards.
-
Stretch.
I may be missing one or two other tests. The magazine writer brags about the toughness of doing all of these sprints, and “Burpees,” on the overall impact on the participant, although this actually is very doable and easy to many of you, who could do the above right now, in your work clothes and not break a sweat. But we are dealing here with baseball players, not triathletes.
At any rate, Clemens was taught this routine by a strength coach at Toronto, and, after one of the players saw Clemens going through this regimen, the player said, “what is that, some kind of Seal Deal.” Since that time, Clemens calls the regimen, “The Seal Deal.”
My problem with the piece was I had never heard of what a “Burpee” is, nor did the piece explain exactly how one “does a Burpee.” The article kept saying how tough “Burpees” were. That these are done in high school athletics. I sure don’t remember doing them. I remember doing “death marches” in football, pushups and what not, but not Burpees.
So, if you run into a book or article which mentions the exercise Burpee, dont’ know what they are, I’ve tracked it down for you, kind of, here’s something called an “ultimate Burpee”. If you take the push up out of this and jump up, that’s a Burpee:
Learn something new every day.
