Pushing, pulling, and squatting with Tabata intervals

This is going to be a way for me to see what happens if I try an idea I've read about. August 2005, I finally got off my sedentary skinny butt and started up with walking and golfing. Late 2006, I began running, broke my leg, oops, began doing upper body stuff early 2007 and last year I did running and the upper body work.<br><br>
One thing I've found over time is that my idea of fitness continues to evolve. So I don't know if I ever was a runner runner, now I'm tending to see running as a component to help achieve the fitness I would like to achieve. So I've been digging around and googling and all kinds of stuff.<br><br>
But let's get to the more specific point of this here thread -- for those unfamiliar with the idea, Tabata intervals are named after the Japanese researcher who found that a protocol of 20 seconds maximum effort followed by 10 seconds of easy effort/rest and repeated 8 times would produce significant gains in subjects' VO2max values. I've been playing around with these some since early in the month, mixing up various types of exercise activities to get some new workouts in. I've done them with sledgehammers and tires, medicine balls, push ups, pull ups, and I've thrown some Tabatas into runs.<br><br>
I came across an interesting message board thread yesterday:<br><br><a href="http://board.crossfit.com/showthread.php?t=20405" target="_blank">http://board.crossfit.com/showthread.php?t=20405</a><br><br>
I read and I thought, kewl! Or cool! I don't know. So I've decided to see if I can do the same idea with push ups, pull ups and squats. I'm hoping that it may help me some with the power part of strength, if I can get a static hold with something I can do well, but I'm not so good at explosively moving myself or an object.<br><br>
Yesterday, I did the push ups and pull ups --<br><br>
Push Ups<br>
Rd -- #<br>
1 -- 15<br>
2 -- 15<br>
3 -- 10<br>
4 -- 8<br>
5 -- 3<br><span style="text-decoration:underline;">6 -- 6</span><br>
T -- 57<br><br>
Here's where I learned that it's in the 3rd round of intervals that it begins to suck. This is where I began to feel like my muscles wanted me to stop. It just kind of hurt. You can see in the 5th round I could hardly do anything, my body had begun to feel noodle like. That gave me some recovery I guess because I was able to squeeze out 6 reps in the final round.<br><br>
Pull ups<br>
Rd -- #<br>
1 -- 9<br>
2 -- 5<br>
3 -- 4<br>
4 -- 3<br>
5 -- 4<br><span style="text-decoration:underline;">6 -- 3</span><br>
total -- 28<br><br>
This was kind of humbling. But this ends up requiring a bit of different pull up maybe. My first round of 9 were pretty much deadhang pulls, but in the second round I started kipping a bit. I'm not good at kipping pulls, people say you shouldn't kip on pull ups but actually it's a nifty bit of whole body coordination, one that I would do well to learn here. I was bloody glad when this was over -- my arms were throbbing.<br><br>
Today I did the bodyweight squats, with a medicine ball to ensure even descent level for each rep.<br><br>
Squats<br>
Rd -- #<br>
1 -- 11<br>
2 -- 11<br>
3 -- 11<br>
4 -- 10<br>
5 -- 9<br><span style="text-decoration:underline;">6 -- 9</span><br>
Total -- 61<br><br>
Not such a big drop off here from the first round to the first, but by the 3rd round it definitely became uncomfortable with each time going up feeling like a little bit of hell on earth.<br><br>
It'll be interesting to see what happens. I wonder if over time the whole it starts to feel sucky feeling will come later or if the 3rd round will always mean welcome to the suckfest.<br><br>
This may or may not have any effect on running skillz, but I figure it fits in well into what I want out of becoming fit.