Unleash the Monkey Army

The burpee year is beguiling. It is a simple enough idea – although you probably wouldn’t be surprised to learn how many questions people can generate before starting. (For those of you who haven’t been paying attention, it start  on April 1 st  with one burpee, and escalates by one burpee per day until we perform 365  on 31 st  March  next year). The first 20 to 30 days are easy. Suspiciously easy. Disappointingly easy. Almost too easy for a lot of people. Definitely within reach for the vast majority. Even the detrained and out of shape can manage this, albeit they need to pick their burpee variant carefully and they may find it to be as much a physical challenge as a mental one.   But this “too simple” thing is intriguing. It shouldn’t come as a surprise but when I hear people say it, it does catch me out really often, in every walk of life!   In a lot of group settings (or on your own if you listen to the negative voice you carry around with you) the simple solution is wrong. You m

The numbers are nudging up. My predilection for rounding up has seen me rattle along the tracks, past 11,000 for the year to date. That's more than 900 more than double regulation in the 100-day challenge which I completed in January.  There are days when I am stiffer and achier than others. On those days the burpees start wooden and clunky, you know, like watching Kristen Stewart "act". However, so far at least, even at its worst the first 50 seem to knock the rust off. My in-laws stayed with us for a week during the period since the last blog post and I can't decide whether it is a sign of everything else they have going on at the moment, or more that over the last 17 years of knowing me they have developed a high threshold for concern. Even after wandering into the utility room midway through my double-bill day (280, thanks to an accidental night off the day before), or even enduring the edifying sight of watching me sit still for 30 minutes afterwards with the

...as you've got older? I was asked that today and thought that it's not a bad question (damn whippersnappers!).  Yes and no. Firstly, I'm at that age where I have to work out how old I am! It just doesn't feature in much of anything! I don't feel old, most of the time, and as such occasionally have to remind myself, or silently shake my head when it comes up! Just for the record, at 36, I'm not old [36? How the hell did that happen?!] there's still plenty of testosterone kicking around my system and my hormonal profile has not been completely obliterated by working life and other abuses heaped upon it. So, I think I'm doing alright. On that basis, I'm not really sure that I'm best placed to talk about getting older! But, I'll throw my perspective out there for you anyway! I stack weight and body fat on quickly these days, that's for sure. What I can get away with, dietarily speaking, has shrunk in stark contrast to the growth

126 days down 18 weeks have passed. 8260 burpees performed (thanks in part to an inclination to round up) Over the last couple of weeks this post has started and drifted away again in my head, several times. Not altogether unlike my love affair with burpees over the same time really! At one point this piece was going to be titled "Because...". I decided against that, partly because I doubt anybody really wants to read me wrestling with angst (again) and partly because "because" is the answer to the question "why?". I know and accept that disappointment takes preparation. For newcomers to the concept, let me explain. In order to be disappointed about something you need two conditions: first, an idea or an image however vague and cloudy, of how you thought it would be. Second, what you are actually facing to be different to that expectation.  Often we have the bitter taste of disappointment in our mouth without ever having been conscious of what we were expe