For the last several weeks I’ve worked out during my lunch break. What I do is take a full hour lunch break, spend the first 20-30 minutes working out, then find something to eat, and get back to my computer.
When I first started doing this about 6 weeks ago, my kids decided they’d join me while I worked out.
I expected that to last about 2 weeks. Was I ever wrong. Here we are 6-7 weeks later and those kids are killing it.
They’re as consistent as the sunrise. If I take my lunch late they come in and ask when I’m going to work out because they love it. What is happening?
Youth Has It’s Advantages
When they first started working out with me I could destroy them. They could not hang. My, how the mighty have fallen.
The kids in question are four boys:
- Grayson, 13
- Teagan, 11
- Hudson, 10
- Lincoln, 8
I do have a six-year-old daughter as well, Emmeline, but she hasn’t really gotten on the bandwagon, yet.
What I did not have sufficient respect for is a combination of three factors:
- They weigh but a fraction of what I weigh.
- The gains that they’re seeing in strength and stamina are coming much faster for them than for me.
- When we have a really tough day, I’m sore for two days thereafter, while they’re sore for about 7 minutes.
The result? These kids are destroying me. Straight up kicking my ass. Let me provide a few examples:
- Yesterday we were seeing who could hold a plank the longest. This was after a full workout, mind you, so I was beat. I could only hold one about 90 seconds. Teagan wasn’t too far behind me and Hudson didn’t quite make it as long as I did. Grayson and Lincoln went for over 3 minutes! They held a plank more than twice as long as I did.
- Today we finished our workout with stationary pushups–think of a plank but in a standard pushup position, arms fully extended. We were doing a tabata style stationary pushup: 20 seconds on, 10 seconds off, 20 seconds on, 10 seconds off, for 8 rounds. After four rounds I was dying. Again, this was the last exercise in our workout and I was done. My shoulders were aching, my elbows were shaking. All four of my boys decided it was too easy and switched to holding a one-armed stationary pushup instead of a standard stationary pushup.
I can still destroy them when it comes to feats of strength: pushups, pullups, etc. But even on those exercises they’re catching up fast. And when it comes to test of muscular endurance? I’m done.
Featured image by Ansgar Scheffold on Unsplash