The BeWOW Breakdown: “An Hour Later, the Soreness Was Already Setting In”


 

This Week’s Workout: Shred Your Abs in 15 Moves


The Breakdown
Total time commitment: 40-45 minutes
Difficulty (out of five): 4
Soreness factor: Squat jumps + lunge jumps = sore legs tomorrow.
Overall grade (out of 5): 4. This workout was deceivingly hard, especially with all the jumping around.

First impressions:

Rebecca was on her last day of vacation in Austin when this workout was tested, so Alon and Emma worked out in Philly while Rebecca worked out alone in Austin. Alon had messaged Rebecca letting her know (being one time zone ahead) that the workout didn’t seem that bad while they were doing it, but an hour later, the soreness was already setting in.

How we felt afterwards:

Holy. Heck. Maybe this workout felt extra tough because Rebecca did it alone in a hotel gym. Maybe it was because, at this point of her trip, her blood was 50 percent vodka and 50 percent queso. Alon and Emma really left out (blocked out?) the 75 squat jumps in the first round that made this workout a doozy. A good amount of cardio and core added up to one tough workout. And Audrey played a cruel trick on us, decreasing the reps as the workout progressed, but throwing in some brutal exercises, like the infamous one-legged burpees, and some medieval torture she calls “in-and-out ab twists,” just to make sure we didn’t slack off. Somehow we all survived to workout another day.

About our testers: 

Rebecca Barber is the founder of the Rocky 50K Fat Ass Run, a just-for-fun 50K run that follows Rocky Balboa’s footsteps in Rocky II. She’s a 16x marathoner and 14x ultra marathoner, having started running when she was a kid. She’s an active volunteer with Back on My Feet Philadelphia, where she works to help the homeless community use running as a means to better their lives and find stable employment and housing. When not running all the miles, she is the social media coordinator for The Wharton School.

Alon Abramson is the founder of the West Philly Runners, the creator of RunPhil.ly – a web resource for running in Philadelphia – and the organizer of a number of running events in Philly, including the annual 26×1 Mile Team Marathon Relay, Beat the Bus, and Beat the Commute. Running since high school, Alon is an on-again, off-again runner with ebbs and flows to his mileage and commitment. More recently however, he’s taken a new approach to training, emphasizing cross-training and speed work as much as building up mileage and this has dramatically improved his running performance. When he’s not organizing and running, Alon works as a research project manager at Penn’s Institute for Urban Research, studying energy efficiency best practices. He’s on a number of non-profit boards and works on his whole-home retrofit project whenever there’s free time.

Like what you’re reading? Stay in touch with Be Well Philly — here’s how: