Bonk!
Right when I stopped the workout. Note the healthy red glow on my face.
January 1 I decided to start the year off with a bang and document my first workout. I’m prepping for a tournament in three weeks and have a plan to get my legs in good enough shape to make it through that weekend. This first workout was not supposed to be too difficult, but still challenging.
Here’s what it was:
25 minute EMOM (every minute on the minute. Means that you do the required number of reps when the minute starts, and rest for whatever part of the minute is left once you finish the reps. So, if it takes you 10 seconds, you get 50 seconds of rest). So each set will be done 5 times total.
10 each leg of explosive step ups
10 burpees
30 rope climbers (upper ab workout)
30 each leg mountain climbers
30 squats
I knew the first two exercises would be a challenge, but also knew the second two would go quickly and leave me at least 30 second breaks each time. In a normal flow of working out, this would be no problem for me.
Well, this was not a normal flow. The holidays had done their normal interruption of workouts and questionable eating and then I got omicron. So, I was not at 100%, but honestly felt fine. Oh, also it was unseasonably warm and in the 70s.
Here’s how the workout went:
Round one was no problem, but as I did it I knew rounds four and five would be interesting. Finished the step ups with just 10 seconds to spare and the burpees with I think 20 seconds. The rope climbers and mountain climbers gave me nice breaks as expected.
Round two went a little better, I got through the step ups faster and got to breathe a little more. Then round three I started slowing down on the burpees and didn’t really catch my breath even with the breaks in the climbers. I felt a little dizzy during the squats, so opted to skip the step ups in round 4 to recover.
Took the minute, then started the burpees. But the time I finished those, I could feel myself bonk. “Bonk” is a fun sounding term that means your body just gives up on you. Mainly experienced on long endurance-type workouts, it is most likely caused by lack of proper nutrition. When it happens during a short workout, it’s usually a combination of factors, like being overly tired, just recovering from an illness, not great nutrition, temperature. You know, everything I was dealing with.
When I was younger, I’d often ignore the signs and push through. Not these days. As soon as I knew it was going to be a bonk, I just stopped. No point risking injury just to finish a workout.
It is important for us to know our limits and listen to what our bodies tell us during workouts. I’ve been doing intense workouts long enough to know the difference between my body just feeling tired (which happens all the time) and bonking (which rarely happens). Tiredness tends to be my brain telling me that this is no longer fun and we ought to stop. Bonking is my brain not caring if we go on or not and my head spinning.
Oh, and to top it off, the audio for the video is unusable due to high wind noise. I will probably still post the video at some point as a learning tool.
Despite not “finishing” the workout, I still got a lot of work in and still feel wonderfully sore from it. Some yoga the past two days to help muscles recover and I’m ready to get more intense again. Here’s hoping that’s the last bonk for a while.
