The Killer Guppies Dragon Boat Team

It takes about 4 - 6 weeks to build muscle and we actually have 5 weeks left before San Fran.  It’s time to vamp it up if you haven’t been working out.  This week, we’re focusing on the upper body!  Here’s this week’s work out:

STRENGTH:
for time- do 50 pullups, 50 pushups, 50 situps, 50 squats
- you can break these up any way you want it. (i.e. 10 sets of 5,5,5,5,
or 5 sets of 10,10,10,10 - 50 sets of 1,1,1,1 whatever works for you!)
This is do-able by ALL Guppies!

For those of you looking for an extra challenge - the original workout
prescribed was 100 pullups, 100 pushups, 100 situps, 100 squats.

CARDIO - “WE WILL FINISH STRONG”:
3 x 800m, 2 min rest in between — Bring your pace up in the last 200m.
This should mimic what we did on the water Sunday.
Yes - a watch w/timer is best way to get the most out of this workout!

And if you don’t have one - try
a) buying one
b) borrowing one
c) do the best you can w/o one, but not having one isn’t an excuse to
not do this workout Guppies. Winners find a way, not excuses!

We don’t have mandatory practice this weekend, but we’re still going to be out on the waters.  Get some more paddle time in before San Fran.  Also, there’s a slight chance we’ll be able to take the boat out on Monday.  Check your emails and reply to the eVite by Saturday morning!

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Alright Guppies,w e meat our points goal last week, but not our people goal.  Remember, the more people participating, the easier it is to reach our point goals.  Also, there’s that Guppy slimming $5 incentive.  Just think, if you win that money, you can buy a new paddle with it :).  So contact Harry if you’re interested in the slimming program.

As for this week’s challenge:

- 20-29 minutes cardio (2 pts)
- 30+ minutes cardio (3 pts)
- Wed practice (3 pts)
- 100 strokes or 3 min pool paddling (1 pt; earn up to 6 pts per day)
- Gold boat challenge (3 pts)

Gold boat challenges:

- (Strength) “Tabata Something Else” - Consecuetive Tabata rounds of: pullups, pushups, situps, squats.  One Tabata round is 8 reps of 20 sec work/10 sec rest
- (Cardio) Run a total of 6 miles over the week. You can do it all at once, or break it up into 2×3mi sessions or 3×2 mi sessions, or if you really hate running, half mi sessions in the morning, lunch and evening for all we care - just get that distance down in 5 days!

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Alright Guppies, we came, we saw, and we conquered Long Beach.  But this time, we want to amp it up for SF, which is right around the corner.  Each and everyone is amazingly strong, time to show SF what we can do!  For this week’s fitness challenge, we’re focusing on AB work.  Here’s what you can do:

planks
crunches or situps
twisting crunches or situps
bicycle crunches
side bending (for obliques)
leg lifts
and many more…
And let’s not forget, we paddle as one boat, we earn teams as one boat:

(per day)
2 points for 20-29 min cardio
3 points for 30+ min cardio
1 point for every 30 ab reps (or 1 min plank), up to 5 points/day
3 points for each gold boat challenge (see below)

Let’s aim for 30 participants and 200 points this week!

Gold boat challenges
——————————–
cardio:
high-intensity interval run (similar to the 3-2-1 from practice):
800m, 1min rest, 400m, 1min rest, 200m, 1min rest
rest 4 minutes, then repeat

strength:
Armstrong pushup/pullup program
http://www.4mcd.usmc.mil/AOP/OSOHyattsville/Armstrong%20Pullup%20Program.htm (ask Ellen or I if you have questions)

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We’re getting awfully close to the Long Beach race! And just intime for some good ol’ summer racing! I’m excited!! Here’s the challenge for this week:

Each day, earn:
1 point for 12-19 min cardio
2 points for 20+ min cardio
1 point for 50+ twisting crunches or twisting situps, or 2+ min of planks
3 points for Wed practice
1 point for 2 min paddling visualization
2 points for 5+ min paddling visualization
3 points for gold boat challenges (see below)

Gold Boat Challenges from Ellen
———— ——— ——— ——— ——–

Endurance- Choose one sport:
Swim: 5×75m SPRINT. 2 min Recoveries
Bike: 3×3k SPRINT. 4 min Recoveries
Run: 4×400m SPRINT. 4 min Recoveries
C2: 4×500m SPRINT. 4 min Recoveries

Strength-
crossfit “Annie” — 50 jump rope “double unders”, 50 situps,
40 double under, 40 situps, 30/30, 20/20, 10/10 for time.
(a “double under” means passing the rope twice under you during one jump)

substitution for double unders — tuck jumps:

http://www.asimba.com/video/ small/tuck_ jumps.avi

“Stand with your feet slightly inside the width of your shoulders. Bend
your knees and lower your body down 8-12 inches. Explode into the air and
bring your knees up to your chest in a tucked position. Upon landing, your
feet should be in a strong, dorsi flexed or “toes up” position. Use your
whole foot to generate power not just your toes! Maintain good posture in
your upper body. Keep your chest and head up. Don’t let your shoulders
lean out beyond your knees. This can stress your lower back. Explode off
the ground as quickly as possible and repeat for the required number of
repetitions. ”

Also, Coach Kevin asked each and one of us to try a coaching challenge. Try to see if you can teach someone how to paddle in 5 minutes. You’ll start to notice that you know a lot more about paddling than you think.

Best of luck everyone!!

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Alright Guppies. The weather is cooler, which means it’snice enough to run a mile or two. Here’s this week’s challenge:

Lower body strength. Our goal again will be to have 30 participants log 180 points.
Here’s how to earn daily points:
1 point for 12-19 min cardio
2 points for 20+ min cardio
3 points for attending Wed. practice
1 point for 40+ walking lunges with twist (count each side as one)
3 points for each gold boat challenge

Gold Boat Challenge:

STRENGTH
20 rounds for time of:
5 pullups
20 twisting lunges (count each side as one)

ENDURANCE (2 workouts - 1 long, 1 short)
long interval
2 mile run: Run at 80% for first mile and then 90% or more one 2nd mile.
Swim substitute: 1000 yd/m swim

short interval
Tabata sprints (any sport)
3 rounds of 4 reps of 20sec/10sec rest, 1 min rest in betweeen each round.
So 1 round would be 20/10 20/10 20/10 20/10 (1 min rest)

Also, Coach Gary has announced the schedule for mandatory practices for SF’s race. Here are the dates:

Aug 23-24
Sept, 6-7
Sept 13-14
Sept 20-21
Sept 27-28

Good luck Guppies!!  Don’t forget to update your response to the eVite for SF!!

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Calling all Guppies, have you started working out yet? This week’s practice was pretty intense, but the more you work out on your own off the boat, the better endurance you’ll have on the boat. Besides, shedding some winter weight is good. So here’s this week’s fitness challenge:

Goal: 30 participants, 180 points
Earn:
1 point for 12-19 min cardio
2 points for 20+ min cardio
1 point for climbing 10+ flights of stairs
3 points for attending Wednesday practice
3 points for each gold boat challenge

Gold boat challenges:
- 30+ min hill-climbing workout (includes stairs or hill workouts on exercise machines)
- 3 x 1/2 mile run, with negative splits

Rest with 1/4 x (your best mile time this season) in between. Foul if any time gets slower. So aim for each set to be faster than the next. So if my mile time is 10 min, my rest time is 2min 30 sec.

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It’s been a while, but hey, memories are a good thing.  Check out the Tempe Race pictures, courtesy of our resident papparazzo in the Download page.

And P.S., are you keeping up with your workout?  You’d better be!

For this week, our goal is again 30 participants and 180 points.

Per day, earn:
- 1 point for 12-19 min cardio
- 2 points for 20+ min cardio
- 2 points for doing 300+ strokes of pool paddling
- 3 points for either of the gold boat challenges (or 2 points for the rec challenge: Tabata protocol - sprints)
- plus earn 3 points for attending Wednesday practice.

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Alright, just as Coach Gary said during the Spring Race, it’s only a rehersal. Time to put our game face on and let’s get psyched for the Long Beach race! In keeping with the spirit, let’s focus on this week’s Cardio Challenge with a goal of 30 Guppies particpating and 180 cardio points total. Here’s how you can earn points:

Per day, earn:
1 point for 12-19 min cardio
2 points for 20+ min cardio
1 point for 20+ reps of tricep exercises (chair dips, regular dips, weight exercises for triceps)
3 points for attending Wednesday practice
3 points for doing a gold boat challenge (see below)

Rebecca also has a video that you can watch on proper technique for chair dips see:
http://www.youtube. com/watch? v=nx9gVDCnT84
(make sure you have sound, because he also shows the wrong way to do them)
And let’s not forget the Gold boat challenges:
- 3 mile run
- pushups in ‘Tabata’ intervals: max reps in 20 sec, rest 10 sec, repeat for 8 rounds, score only the LOWEST round.

Good luck Guppies!!

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Holy cow! Where has the time gone? It felt like it was just yesterday when we were departing for the Tempe Arizona race. I can’t believe it has been a month since then and we have another race coming up! I’m super excited because it’s going to be hosted in Long Beach!! So for all of you who are curious to see what a dragon boat festival or to see a real live dragon boat race, come down to Marine Stadium this Sunday, just next to Mother’s Beach! (see directions to our normal practice site here: http://killerguppies.org/blog/join-us#directions . Take the same route, but instead of turning right on Appian Way, make a left and head up towards Bay Shore Ave. You should see signs for festival parking).

And Guppies, what’s another week without another Fitness Challenge! It looks like the “Physical” points are really working out, since we surpassed our goal of 300 points last week by logging in a total of 330 points! Good job Guppies!! Keep up the STELLAR work! For this week’s challenge, here’s the break down:

“PHYSICAL” POINTS
————
Earn up to 2 points/day for cardio:
1 pt for 12-19 minutes
2 pts for 20+ minutes
Bonus: earn 3 points for attending Wednesday practiceEarn up to 1 point/day for strength by doing 20 reps or 1 min of any strength exercise (or any combination)
examples:
- 20 pushups
- 5 pullups, 5 pushups, 10 situps
- 1 min plank
- 30 sec plank, 30 sec wall sit
- 30 sec plank, 10 bicep curls
…”MENTAL” POINTS
———— ——— ———
Earn up to 1 point/day for race visualization
Earn up to 3 points (for the week) for listing “things I will work on in the race” (1 point each)

Since we have a race coming up this Sunday, we’re encouraging that you continue doing your cardio and workouts until Thursday. Also, don’t try new workout routines this week! We don’t want any Guppies injuring themselves before the big race! We’re also including some mental challenges to get us psyched up for the race. Remember, if you can do anything just so long as you put your mind to it!

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Have you been doing your push ups? If so, please contribute them to our push up challenge. No real number goal has been set, but this should be a personal goal we want to hit. Want to achieve 500 push ups this week? Then set yourself up and get pumped! This is a perfect time to test yourself mentally and physically.

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