I hate doing 100 burpees a day for a month
But I love having done 100 burpees a day for a month
I’ve read often of writers who say they hate writing but love having written. Not me. I like writing. I hate revising but love having revised. My point is, often in life, there’s an inverse relationship between the misery of a task and the joy of having completed it. That’s what makes MABA—Make America Burpee Again—memorable.
MABA is an annual challenge in which participants attempt to complete 3,100 burpees in January. Do I want to do 100 burpees every day in January? Heck-to-the-no! But I will because I already know the good that will result. Sign up here, and by the end of January you’ll know why last year 500-some men and women from around the world completed 1.5 million burpees and why this year we hope to surpass both of those totals.
We did the burpees to build resilience and discovered they gave us much more than that. They gave us a way to shed light on, and fight, the epidemic of loneliness. The theme is Fall Down. Get back up. Together. We all fall down. We all get back up. We must not do either one alone.
MABA is not about the burpees. They are the means, not the end. The end is the relationships that result.
There’s a line between pushing yourself and being stupid; I don’t always know where that line is, and when I do, I (usually) don’t mind crossing it. In fact, I often enjoy it, by which I mean I enjoy telling the story afterward. When people who haven’t done MABA hear of MABA—100 burpees a day for a month, outside, in the freezing cold?!?—the word stupid might come to mind. They’re not wrong, exactly, but the rewards—stronger relationships, better fitness, accomplishing a difficult task—are well worth it.
There’s another line shortly after stupid where pushing yourself transcends being stupid and becomes unsafe. In St. Louis this week, the “feels-like” temperature could drop as low as negative 37. I know from experience that my cold-weather gear can’t handle that extreme. It’s 24 right now. The difference between 24 and negative 37 is the difference between 24 and 85. If it actually is that cold, I’m going to skip my outdoor workouts.
Normally I would say I hate doing cold weather workouts and I love having done cold weather workouts. This week I’m modifying that to simply, I like not freezing to death and I love not having frozen to death.
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I was interviewed recently by the Outdoor Writers Association of America, of which I am a member. I attempted to explain my passion for the intersection of fitness, being outside, and mental health, three crucial pillars of MABA. Here’s an excerpt about a MABA original, and you can read the rest of it here.
“I write about those themes constantly, and I daydream about starting an adventure company devoted to strengthening male relationships. For now, I’m content to organize trips for me and my friends and write about them with an eye toward fighting loneliness,” said Crossman.
“A friend and frequent adventure companion was recently diagnosed with cancer. The end of his radiation treatment corresponded with the start of a yearly trip I organize called 50-50-50, in which we hike 50 miles, bike 50 miles and canoe 50 miles. He went on the trip in spite of, or maybe because of, his treatment”.
“He told me that for much of his life, he lacked strong male friendships. But he joined a men’s fitness group five years ago, and he has more deep friendships now than in the rest of his life combined. And that has made a huge, huge difference as he has endured the strain of the diagnosis and treatment. There’s evidence that a person’s mental well-being, forged by strong relationships, helps them face hardship better. We talked about that during our long miles on the bike.”
“As we rode, he said something that floored me. I get choked up just talking about it.”
“He said: ‘Even if it doesn’t help – even if I die a few years from now – how do I want to spend the last few years of my life?’
“As he pedaled, he reviewed the options. He could sit around alone, feeling sorry for himself, sullen and withdrawn, angry at the world, angry at God, jealous of all those people who don’t have cancer. Or he could get outside and bust his rear end with his friends. ‘To do hard things with a bunch of great men is what I like to do more than anything else,’ he said. Even with all that, maybe the cancer will take him anyway. ‘At least I’ll be happy,’ he said. ‘Either way, it’s a win.'”