Ivan’s Struggle in “the New Speed Workout”

In September we started publishing a completely new workout routine that we wanted to test with Ivan. Ivan has developed a new shape, put on a lot more muscle and we wanted to see if he is as tough as he looks now. We also wanted to offer something to both those who want to see heavy workouts and to those who want to see more posing. This is why we designed a quite brutal, but highly watchable “New Speed Challenge”. So let’s take some time and explain what is going on in this training.

The Speed Challenge takes us back to the first workouts that we filmed and it follows the same concept: the boy has only a limited time to complete a number of sets of reps. Failure to do so means additional penalty/punishment workout. But we added a twist: before getting to the next exercise, the boy needs to “rest” in one of the stress poses.

The exercise consists of 3 basic rounds and each round has 4 sets of exercises and 4 poses. In order to get to perform the next set of exercises the boy needs to keep a 1-minute stress pose. So, one set looks like this:

100 Push-ups followed by

1 minute “rest” in Wide Leg Forward Pose

50 jumping jacks followed by

1 minute “rest” in Wall Stretch Pose

200 sit-ups followed by

1 minute “rest” in Heron Pose

50 burpees followed by

1 minute “rest” in Cobra Pose

You can see that the exercises build in difficulty and the pose is aimed at relaxing and stretching the muscle group just exercised: we start by push-ups and then stretch the arms and legs in Wide Leg Forward Pose; this is followed by jumping jacks and stretching legs in Wall Stretch pose; after sit-ups the abs can relax in the Heron Pose and the boy can take his 1-minute rest after most difficult set of burpees in Cobra Pose.

This is a Speed Challenge – this means that the boy must complete the exercise in 1 hour. But 12 minutes of the 1 hour is mandatory rest, leaving 48 minutes for the exercises, or an average of 16 minutes per set. In total, the boy must do 300 push-ups, 150 jumping jacks, 600 crunches and 150 burpees.

To make the exercise watchable, the boy has stop watch, that we show in camera from time to time. As you are watching the exercise and Ivan struggling to complete his reps in time, you can keep an eye on the watch as well. Is he able to complete the challenge or will face the punishment?

The boy starts with good rhythm, cranking out 100 push-ups pretty fast, first jumping-jacks are also completed in impressive time but the first obstacle comes with crunches. This is a true stumbling block for him. We can really see him struggle through the sets, changing positions his face wincing in pain. And as if wishing to make things more difficult for himself, the boy confuses the challenges in the last set. In previous speed challenge, that we had Ivan do repeatedly, second exercise was squats. And suddenly in the third set, right after his rest pose, Ivan starts to perform squats, which is not part of this routine. His time ticking away. We do not interrupt him, only after 40th squat the boy realises his mistake. But he has already used his rest and must now get to his dreaded crunches almost immediately.

To give away the ending: Ivan loses the challenge with 17 minutes, he struggles but you can see he is clearly excited to be put on test. After workout we let him pose for you for a while. Because 17 minuets was such a big failure, the punishment will be a whole different workout!

We have also included here a preview gallery which contains each exercise and pose. Also, you can see some shots of the final flexing session.