MABA: Today will be the worst day
And this week the worst week. Keep going anyway.
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My car door was frozen shut. Ice covered the windshield, inside and out. The grass crunched below my feet as I arrived at The Last Stop for the workout.
I didn’t bother trying to plant the shovel flag because I knew I wouldn’t be able to dig into the icy earth. Instead I leaned it against a pole. When I unfurled the flag, it appeared to be blowing in the wind; in fact, it was frozen like that, stiff as cardboard.
Forty-five minutes and 200 burpees later, the temperature had yet to reach the teens.
I had today marked as the hardest day of MABA, and it had nothing to do with the weather. It had to do with the grind.
It started this morning.
MABA launched on Saturday and I was so high on adrenaline all day I was talking 1,000 miles per hour to my wife, gesticulating so widely I barely noticed her rolling her eyes as I geeked out. A co-launcher told me his wife told him to calm down as he described the morning. Sunday was exciting, too, a chance to follow up a great approach by draining the birdie putt.
This morning though, yikes. My shoulders hurt. My back wanted to go back to bed. I wanted to take the day off. But if I know anything about momentum, it’s that sometimes it disappears, and I have to keep going anyway. Action precedes motivation.
I’m sure you’re feeling the same. A rest day is fine. I have no argument with that. Take one if you need one. But get back after it.
Just as today was and will be the hardest day of all of MABA, this week will be the hardest week. You’re (probably) questioning why you signed up. Keep after it! You’ll be glad you did. After this week, you’ll have completed so many burpees that you’ll finish just so the first 700 aren’t meaningless.
Brick joined F3 after wandering by a post-workout breakfast we cooked to celebrate the AO’s one-year anniversary. He showed up at a beatdown the next week and has been a leader ever since, in all three Fs. He created this excellent MABA video. That’s him above, 15 minutes after he completed 24 consecutive 45 minute workouts.
He was pretty fit when he joined us. Early on, we did a circuit workout that involved a ton of running. On the last lap, I was close behind him, and I thought I would test him/push him (and myself). I pulled close. I thought, I’m going to go catch hi—and before I could finish thinking “him”—he took off like the freaking road runner. All that was missing was meep-meep. Basically the same thing happened two months later. A few weeks ago I had him in my sights a third time and some jackwagon yelled to him that I was coming, so he took off again.
The moral of the story is I hate young, skinny, fast, strong, good-looking PAX.
Anyway, despite all that, I admire the hell out of him because he’s a kind, caring, compassionate, intelligent man, which he shows here.
1. Burpees: Pro or con?
Definitely pro. Burpees are the perfect exercise, in my opinion. You meld strength and cardio into one movement that builds overall endurance. They are also scalable and portable. On the way home from visiting my parents for Christmas, I did 20-25 burpees each time we stopped for fuel. Falling down and getting back up repetitiously was far more effective than coffee or an energy drink for overnight traveling.
2. You’re a MABA original and deeply involved in this one. At what point did you want to quit last year? Why didn’t you?
Being a MABA original happened by running in a group of High Impact Men (a.k.a HIMs) and a good dose of luck. When a bunch of sweaty, tired and slightly agitated dudes dream up something that has a catchy title and embraces shared suffering, it’s way too hard NOT to commit to it. For me, the hardest part was this question: could I even do 100 burpees in one day, let alone 100 a day for 31 straight days? I remember taking a Q (F3 lingo for leading a work out) and specifically doing a routine that caused us to do 96 burpees in about 30 minutes. I figured I would discover it was possible or fail miserably. I felt invigorated at the end … largely due to the men around me that day encouraging each other to keep going.
Three weeks into January, I was hitting a physical and mental wall. My body ached in places I was previously unaware of and I was really starting to hate the grind. And by grind, I mean, “this sucks. I don’t want to do these damn burpees anymore.”
In our F3 region, we use Slack to communicate and a number of PAX (more F3 speak here. This time means people or men) began posting songs that you could do many burpees to as they had repeating words. Think “Thunderstruck” by AC/DC. Every time you hear, “Thunder,” drop and do a burpee. I figured someone should combine all these songs into one big, burpee-themed workout. Thus, “Soundtrack of MABA,” was born and I was able to Q it at an AO we have called the Awakening.
It was over 325 burpees when you tallied it up. Mind you, this was right when the physical and mental fatigue was at its strongest. That beatdown was/is among my all-time favorites. The mumblechatter (F3 translation = smart aleck comments and encouragement) was pure gold and we all bonded a great deal. I think that beatdown was the turning point for me. I stopped longing for an opportunity or excuse to quit and really embraced the spirit of doing this together with the man on my left and the man on my right. If they were willing to show up at 5:30 in the morning and burpee themselves to death for me, I am duty bound to do the same.
3. You’ve done MABA, GrowRuck, every beatdown in a 24-hour CSAUP and other crazy shit. Compare and contrast those events.
Each year, I try to pick out a word, or a theme, for the year—something I am trying to actively do over the course of the year. I picked, “uncomfortable,” for 2021. I wanted to make myself as uncomfortable as I could to push the boundaries of what I could do/say/achieve/experience.
To your question-
1. Doing 24 consecutive 45-minute boot camp style workouts was intimidating as it was purely a grind-it-out situation. The Q line-up was a murderers row of the toughest leaders we had. It was survival and nothing more. Do each and every one of them. When it was over, you were done and you could go home. Uncomfortable here was knowing what was coming and having to endure it.
2. A large group of us did a Tough Mudder this year. You climb over/under/around things while getting muddy/wet and more. The cold and the rain made that event uncomfortable from an element standpoint. I achieved a shiver so violent and sustained that my jaw literally locked up as I crossed the finish line. To add a point here—the warm shower after that event is the most enjoyable rinsing off I have ever had.
3. GrowRuck was about being completely scared beyond reason about the unknown. I was uncomfortable with all the yelling in my face, running around with my heavily weighted bag over my head, wading creeks with sand bags, getting blasted by a fire hose while doing calisthenics, doing push-ups and flutter kicks in a cow pond and the sheer chaos that is this event. I’m a type A personality, and I plan meticulously. Not knowing what we were doing, where we were going or even the reason behind a lot of it really messed with my mind. I remember coming close to completely tapping out because of mental and physical fatigue.
4. MABA was unique. The physical load, for me, wasn’t as much as the previously mentioned CSAUPs. I hurt and ached yet finished with a little fuel in the tank. So, while not a complete fitness burner, what made me uncomfortable about MABA was the 31 days (far longer than any of the other CSAUPs previously mentioned) of group text threads and accountability that comes with guys checking in on you to see if you did your burpees.
Throughout my life, I have struggled with social anxiety and relationship building. I don’t know/didn’t know how to form and maintain healthy relationships. I was a lone wolf. What breaks my heart, today, is seeing my four-year-old daughter struggling with the same issues.
Having guys check in showed me that I could be truthful and honest with them about the burpees first, and then so much more later. It inspired me to reach out to other men out of the blue to check on them as I had men check on me. It eased my anxiety. Provided me with social confidence. Rooted me into a social network where the desired behavior is the normal behavior. A group of us, about 11 or so, started a text thread during MABA that has carried for almost a year now. I built real, meaningful relationships with multiple men for the first time in my life.
I am very happy, grateful and humbled that they kept after me. Was life changing. As the author of this newsletter often mentions, male loneliness is an extremely big problem, and one that largely goes unnoticed or undiagnosed. I certainly don’t feel lonely anymore and I attribute that to MABA.
4. You’re a motorsports nut who has traveled the country covering races, working at tracks, working on teams, etc. If you could get every fan at one race to do 100 burpees with you in cadence, which race would it be and why?
Oh gosh, this is a fun one. I had the great honor and pleasure of spending my early 20s as a PR rep and broadcaster for various forms of motorsports. One of the coolest jobs I had was being a public address announcer at Eldora Speedway near Rossburg, Ohio.
It’s a world-famous dirt-racing facility carved out of desolate farmland in the western section of the Buckeye state. You have to drive a good clip in any direction to find a collective group of more than a few thousand people in one area. Yet for multiple events a year, 30,000+ people pack the joint to see modern-day daredevils test their skill and resolve around the renowned high banks. Racing enthusiasts from all over the world converge on the half-mile track and help create one of the most unique atmospheres I have ever witnessed in all of my travels. It’s a sensory overload of campers, bon fires, flag poles, coolers, accents, race fuel, dirt and brightly colored t-shirts.
My favorite event is the Kings Royal. It’s a $175,000-to-win event for winged sprint cars that draws the best drivers in the world. It also pulls in the best fans in the world. Clad in the previously mentioned shirts, dirt goggles and with beers or mixed drinks in hand, they add a supernatural element in the form of cheers, boos and gasps. If I had to pick one race to do 100 burpees with my fellow race fans, I would choose the 20-minute break before the A main (a.k.a. big money race) where the electricity generated in that facility at that time could power southern California for a few thousand years. It would be an out of body experience.
In F3 St. Charles, because of stellar parenting, our 2.0s love burpees. Yours will, too. Sign them up and log their burpees.
Do burpees in weird places, send me proof, and if it’s deemed the weirdest by our esteemed panel of judges, I’ll buy you a MABA shirt. Deadline for submission is January 20. I have two burpee scenarios I’d like to see: From the altar/front of the church during a service, and in a hospital/doctor’s office while wearing gowns as a patient when you’re there to have work done.
If you’re nervous about doing 100 burpees per day, toggle down. The point is not the burpees. The point is the relationships you build and strengthen with the people you do them with.
Still not convinced to join MABA? Watch this.
And you’re not going to do a month of burpees and NOT buy a t-shirt, are you? Order your shirt here.