Numbers For Step Ups

 The number 500 seems to be the "gold standard" for certain exercises, mainly bodyweight like Squats and such so why have such an arbitrary number? Karl Gotch believed 500 Squats was to get into the door even though some guys were doing far more than that at one point like up to 1000 or more. He himself could do that in his sleep, I never truly understood it but it has been the go to number in many wrestling schools like Verne Gagne's camp back in the day when guys like Flair & Steamboat trained under him. 

For someone like Bob Backlund who was doing bodyweight stuff and weight training throughout his career, forgot more about conditioning than most people will ever know but his true calling when it came to Fitness was the Step Ups & Ab Wheel. He would do hundreds of either one with ease almost daily and is still considered to this day one of the most conditioned athletes of any era and he's in his 70's. I like the Ab Wheel and have done hundreds of reps myself but the Step Ups are a godsend of an exercise. In my opinion, it's not how many reps you can do, it's really how long can you go. Backlund could go for an hour or more if he felt like it, for me, 30 minutes to an hour is more than enough lol.

Once I set a goal for myself to do high reps, I just went for time from then on. Sometimes I'll see how many reps I can do in a certain amount of time or just pick a number and go. I don't go for more than 1000 in a workout and the fastest time for me was about 41 minutes. In most workouts whether in a row or over the course of a workout, 500 Step Ups or more seems to be the norm and I get more out of that than doing 500 Squats. In reality, 500 Step Ups is really just a number that just happen to be a certain standard that I made for myself, I never found in my research someone doing 500 reps in a workout as a number someone has to achieve to make anything worthwhile, it was just a choice. 

In my Dopa Workouts (10% OFF using Discount Code POWERANDMIGHT), I would superset the band with bodyweight Step Ups or do an exercise for a few minutes and then do sets of 25-50 per leg of Step Ups. In 3 workouts for example, the numbers came out to 500-800 Reps total. Some days, I just do Step Ups for one workout and do other the things at different times in the day. When I do circuits that are inspired by Darebee, I would substitute the squats with Step Ups and end with 300 or more total reps at the end. When I do Step Ups for time, some days I'll do 10-30 minutes and just go with it. My fastest 500 in a row was around 23 minutes and that was doing a countdown. When I do 1000, I'll use my deck of cards for that workout. 

I don't have any desire to go for hours like Mr. Backlund because for one, ADD and two, I don't want to so damn high that I can't even think straight the rest of the time. I want to do other stuff too and enjoy being in the moment and not stare at the ceiling. Is there really a "Gold Standard", not really because everybody is different and it's important to have a variety to do. If you want to do 100 one day, 300 the next or 500 or more, that's up to you, do what you can for that day and know you got something in. This is probably the only exercise now that I like to do 100's of and feel happy about it, others whether for upper body or lower body is really roughly 100 or more and don't go beyond a couple hundred if that. 

Step Ups can be done with bodyweight, with weights, a weight vest, a backpack; they can be done slow or fast. They strengthen the legs, less impact on the knee joints, great for conditioning for any sport. They are truly underrated and have enormous benefits for your health. Get in some Step Ups today and have fun with them, not ready for high reps yet? That's ok, start with small numbers and work your way up, don't rush it and be mindful. They will test your conditioning that's for sure. Be amazingly awesome.

Should You Count Your Steps Or Reps In Animal Workouts?

During workouts, we utilize a set/rep scheme to determine our fitness levels whether for strength, conditioning, endurance or how much we can handle during a certain set. In most circles, this can be good to figure out where you are and how you progress but sometimes, reps don't really seem to matter because the main focus is improving your technique, utilizing tension or using timed sets. Red Delta Project emphasizes those three methods together to help you get the most out of a workout.

When it comes to Animal Workouts, most of the time, rep counts don't really matter but more how long can you last before you start breathing hard. In many cases, a few seconds is all it takes. When I play my Animal Dice Game, it consists of using a step method to count how many times you move throughout an exercise. It can be used as a rep count as well but you don't always have to keep a record of how many steps or reps you do during rounds. In some workouts, you can time it and just play around until the time is up or you can just go until you can't move anymore; either one will get you results fast. 

For a period or ever so often, I do keep a record of how many steps/reps I do in a workout especially if the amount is doubled per animal. I kept a record for a month to see how many I can do and during that month, I recorded over 10,000 Steps/Reps of Animal Exercises. The most I ever recorded in a day was around 2000. Consider that some of those rounds have you doing up to a hundred reps or more depending on if you multiply the dice and you keep going. The highest multiplier I did during certain workouts was around 5 times of what the round called for, so if let's say I rolled a 20 for the bear crawl, I would have to take 100 steps and they can be either fast paced or just "walking" it for that amount. In most workouts, I don't do more than doubled the amount which can still kick your ass in less than a few minutes.

Considering that you don't count your reps and do timed rounds for different animals, you can still end up doing up to several hundred to a thousand or more in a workout. That can be brutal but effective training and developing levels of strength and conditioning that would just astound people. When it comes to the ADG, you never know when you'll start to fatigue, it can happen in one round or 30, you never know. I'll always say that's the beauty of it, no workout is ever the same twice and you never know what you'll have to prepare for cause it can be a breeze one minute and stupid exhausting the next. The bear crawl is considered the foundation for Animal Movements and the easiest to start with; with that in mind, if you had to do even 20 steps of the bear crawl, the next one could be 20 Frog Jumps and you can wear out your legs and be huffing and puffing like the Big Bad Wolf needing oxygen after trying to blow the brickhouse down. 

The thing to remember with this specific Animal Workout is that the more times you multiply the amount per animal, the less rounds you'll end up doing. In one sense if you just did the regular numbers and went for 15-25 rounds or rolls, doubling the amount can take you down to less than 10 and you'll be done. Doing multiple rounds or rolls with a 5 times multiplier can be considered a superhuman feat but until you actually do it, you'll never understand the feeling of it. 

One of the perks of the ADG is that you can do this with a partner and do all sorts of games like Tag, Medley, how many yards you can go for and so on. If you're playing tag, roll for an animal and whatever comes up, both parties have to do that animal. If you're doing distance like a race, roll for an animal, next roll is how long the distance is and it can be feet, yards and if you're insane, go for kilometers. Imagine the amount of reps/steps you take with those kind of games. If you were to do these games for a week, the numbers can rack up in the tens of thousands possibly, talk about being in shape or getting in shape pretty damn quick. 

So with that in mind, should you really be counting? IMO, that's up to you but it's also not entirely necessary unless you have a specific goal in mind like doing 5000 Reps in let's say ten days or you want to average out a certain amount per workout. Regardless of what you do, with consistent training using animal movements, results will come fast and you'll develop skills and other attributes that other methods are obsolete to. Get strong, be wild and be amazingly awesome.