Challenges

10-24-2025 Concept2 Skeleton Crew

Concept2 Skeleton Crew Challenge 2024

RowErg, SkiErg, or Bike (2x meters) 31,000m cumulative between October 25-31. If you use a C2 erg product you can log it with their apps to go on the honorboard. Comes out to about 4,500 m/day if you go every day 5,200 if you do 6 of the 7 days.

If you do the 5200m it’ll be 20 to 30 min each day. Similar effort to running a 5k, but it doesn’t beat you up nearly as bad.

If you want to do only the challenge and don’t care about the leaderboards logging 31km of running applies as well.

9-19-25 Run in the Rain

Very simple challenge this time. Go for a run in the rain. Go even if you are pretty sure it’s going to rain. This is more about discomfort and non-ideal circumstances than the difficulty of the workout. Hour plus would be good. Don’t go knock out a 10 min HIIT session and call it good. Go out, and be in it a while. It’s fine.

9-12-25 Maximum Speed

On a day where you have a favorable temperature (not too hot, not too cold), at a long stretch of flat road or track with a good surface, with your best running shoes on; run as fast as you can, where you physically cannot go any faster and hold that for as long as possible.

How far did you go? What speed (min/mi or mph)? For what duration? What did your heart rate get up to?

Note subsequent attempts this will work like a ramp test, eventually you will hit your actual maximum heart rate. Getting to max heart rate hurts. Very likely to get nauseous and light headed if it happens. Be aware.

8-26-25 1-Hour Dry-Tri

20 Minute Bike (Fan, Erg, Trainer, Outside), 20 Minute RowErg, , 20 Min on Foot (Treadmill at 6% incline or Outside). That order. 5 Minutes between events to transition. Score is for overall distance.

Some tips Some tips

DO take advantage of the full 5 min transition.
DO have your equipment pre-staged to make the transition smooth.
DO pace yourself, be thinking about zone 2-3 early on.
DO have an electrolyte drink ready for between stages.
DON’T try to make up time on an implement you’re good at to make up for one you’re not.
DON’T quit. It’s not that long, keep going, slow down if you have to, but keep going.

7-24-25 Pound a Week of Fat

Thermodynamics says to lose a pound of fat in a week it’s necessary to achieve a caloric deficit of 3500-4100 calories. That’s 585 calories per day, every day, for 1 week. About 4 cans of full sugar soda or 2 Monsters or 12 Chicken Nuggets or 2 Slices of Pizza… completely minused from your diet. Every day. Never replaced. It’s not a crazy amount, but it’s also significant, and you will be hungry. For me that takes my daily intake from 2600 cal/day down to 2000 cal/day. It’s an actual hole. I’m still lifting & running like I would be otherwise, to stay the same size I actually require 2600 cal/day. Whether you’re a 20 lb cat or 250 lb human, if 1 lb of fat needs to go, 4100 calories that are needed must not be consumed. The smaller you are (women) the harder it is to lose mass because you don’t have as big of an expenditure to work with.

The challenge is to maintain an actual 500-600 calorie daily deficit for 2 weeks. 14 days. No cheat meals. No cheat days. That’s what it takes to lose 2 pounds of fat.

If you don’t, you weren’t actually in that big of a deficit. Actually you should lose more due to loss of some water weight. Yep. It’s hard. Yep it sucks. This is why most people are overfat. Undoing it sucks, and most people generally overeat 100-300 calories daily, always. Meaning food reduction is more like 800 cal/day. Which by the way + 100-300 cal/day is a gain of a pound every 2-6 weeks. 10-25 lb per year. Yes your expenditure goes up to match your higher mass and eventually people do level out… but you can see how easy it is to end up 50-100lb overfat.

You’ll need to do this with food. Activity isn’t going to do it. A 5k ran at decent but sustainable intensity to do every day will be about 250-350 calories and take about half an hour to 45 minutes. 600 cal/hr intensity every day for an hour is very unlikely to be sustainable. Though you will question if it is worth it to work that hard to keep eating as you are… so there’s value there.

Rare product recommendation. Macrofactor absolutely rules for this. If you want control over your weight and what goes in your face it’s absolutely amazing and is worth the cost. It is absolutely diet neutral. It doesn’t tell you not to eat the cake or the pizza, just the impact it is having. Doesn’t tell you what to eat either. It’s just a log, calculator, and database. Go buy a scale for your food and yourself. Do it right.

7-09-25 One Good One

Can you do body weight or calisthenic movements with nearly perfect technique, once? No bounce, no kip except on those that require it, full range of motion? Don’t need to figure out how to rep them out. Just do one in hard mode. Deliberate with no momentum. Note I’m missing quite a few normal human movements because… to really train and test them you need weight. Note ALL of these are easier if you are lighter. Some of them stronger you are generally the harder they might be. Some you may be plenty strong to do but you’re simply too heavy, especially at the higher levels.

Level 1.

Push up from floor (to toes not knees)
Ass to grass squat
Chest to bar pull or chin up. Self generated kip from dead hang if needed (this is up by any means necessary)
Sit-up to feet without hands touching the ground (your feet do not have to be flat)
Burpee by any means necessary
15 second dead hang
Single Leg Calf Raise
Single Leg Glute Bridge

Level 2

Push up from floor with clap
Sit up to feet from floor & stand
Chest to bar pull-up strict
Knee to floor lunge, forward & backward each leg
Dip (humerus parallel to floor or further)
Single Leg Calf Raise with starting with toes about 2” elevated and heel on the floor.

Level 3

Explosive Burpee (propel yourself to squat position from the pushup)
Hanging L-Sit (1-2 seconds is enough)
5 second 1-arm dead hang (each hand)
Box step-up 1/3 your height, no using your ground leg for take off. (For 6-1 me, that’s about 24”).
All limbs leave the ground push-up (knees don’t touch)
Chest to bar pull up with a 2” diameter bar

Level 4

Front Lever (1-2 seconds is enough)
Muscle up (kipping allowed, as long as you start from a dead hang)
Single Leg Squat
Pull up where only to your first finger joint can get on the ledge. Rock climber stuff. (about 25mm depth)
Handstand wall walk
Frog Stand
Dragon Flag

Level 5

6-10-25 Heat Experience

Note this challenge is actually dangerous. It is offered because not having this knowledge or experience is arguably more dangerous

Challenge + Tutorial + Training for this one as you’re in it for the experience and to learn something. It’s best if you do fail at it a little bit. If it’s easy you didn’t really learn anything so you needed to apply more effort/intensity than you did, or it needs to be closer to 100F. Read the blog post about heat experience. The Sun itself is a big part of the challenge. A hot room works, but it’s not the same. Think about and digest those lessons and any others you may have had then head for the trailhead or track on a hot afternoon. Sunnier, hotter, the better. You’ll want a course that ideally has some climb and is the sort of thing you can do in laps so loops are best. Distance per lap based on your fitness level (less than 30 min per lap if possible). Set your car up with a cooler with cold electrolyte drinks (potent ones, Gatorade is not enough). Your car is your aid station, you should be able to re-fill your carry water, top up on electrolytes, sit in the shade, use the air conditioning, or abort entirely if wise.

Hit the trail and vary your work effort. This is really about feeling it out, trying a little too hard, and then learning how to get yourself to recover trying to not get past the point of no return. More than an hour is necessary to really test this and experience it. This is even better if you attempt multiple times so you can try out things like UPF shirts, wetting them, trying hats, making sure your sunscreen is applied well and you’re using enough… experimentation to gain knowledge and wisdom is the point here.

It’s FAR better if you can do this with a buddy that has a bit of experience and/or is fitter than you. It’s very unlikely you’ll both bonk at the same time and make stupid decisions together.

One may ask why do this? You’re not trail running for a dozen + miles. You may be called on in time of natural disaster or emergency to work outside, hard, for long periods and you need to know how it feels when it’s time to take care of yourself and how close you are to heat bonk such you do not become useless or a casualty, and so that you can see it in others to take care of them too.

5-27-25 Towel Pull-up & Hang

Pull-ups on a bar are the ideal situation. On a solid bar of reasonable diameter your brain has no reason to think that you’re likely to lose your grip, thus you can apply full force to executing the movement. In the real world you’ll find you rarely have an ideal situation for a pull-up. Over walls, climbing holds, window ledges, tree branches, ropes, etc, you’ll find that you almost never have an ideal grip in the real world. Non-ideal grip means your brain will refuse to send full power to the muscles executing the movement.

Towel pull-ups are a good way to challenge your grip and pull-up power at once. Ropes also work for this purpose. Coil up the towel like you’re going to whip someone and hang it over your pull-up bar. One hand on each leg of the towel and hang there as long as you can, or knock out some full to-chest pull-ups.

4-30-25 Endurance Challenge pt 1

Anything less than an hour is the sort of event that for most will require no support, no food, no water, no special consideration on equipment or course. Most people do not exercise, and most people that do, work for an hour or less at a time. Two hours is something else, four even more so. People are generally not used to being on their feet and under load continuously for these kinds of times. It’s why Iron Man, Ultras, Marathons, and Spartan Beasts are a big deal even just to finish.

First challenge in this series is a 2 hour continuous mid-effort ideally on trail, with significant ascent (1000’+, 1500’+ is better). No rest, no stopping unless you’re quitting. Most people when they go on a hike spend a lot of time in zone 1, and some spikes of 4 when they climb hills. For this the goal is to even that out a bit, on the easy stuff it’s still high 2 - mid 3. And allowing into high 4 for the hills, we’re trying to stay out of zone 5 like usual (though it will happen if you’re doing this right and the hills are severe enough).

You have to decide your paces and need for support, the more you know about yourself the more even your pace can be and wiser about hills. You will likely want no less than 2L of water, unless you are experienced at these times. 2.5L might be wise to make sure you don’t run out. 2 L bladder and a 500mL flask is handy, especially if the flask is electrolyte mix. Be thinking about 20-25g of sugar every 30-60 minutes after the first hour, though some will want to start the snacks about 30 min in, and put in 100 cal or so every 30 min thereafter or 50 every 15 minutes. For this challenge that would be 2-3 packs of gummy bears total. Don’t forget about electrolytes we all have different needs (genetics) here so it’s hard to prescribe and heat matters a ton. Gatorade probably isn’t right, it’s too sweet and not enough salt. It’s awesome for after. I’ve been using products from SaltStik (chewable tabs), Gnarly, Skratch, LiquidIV, and LMNT. Not enough is usually a bigger problem than too much, if you’re healthy. Potassium in particular.

3-27-25 40 Minute Steady State

On your favorite conditioning implement maintain the same pace or wattage for 40 minutes straight, no breaks. Must be zone 2 or higher heart rate. Ideally it will be zone 2 and you’ll sit there the whole time.

Where did the cardiac climb start? How long was it massively too easy? Did you blow up at the end?

2-25-25 Ascending Doubles - Bench

You’ll need a barbell, plates, and a power rack or squat/bench stand with the safeties set appropriately. Safeties set appropriately is not optional!

Each rep must touch your chest to count, butt stays on bench, and bar under control. No sternum trampolines.

Start with the bar. Each set will be a double. Jumps may be 20 lb, 10 lb, 5 lb, or 2.5 lb. Ascent ends when you fail on depth, or decide you cannot continue with good form. You may rest between doubles as much as you like. Once you switch to a lower increment you cannot go to a bigger jump again.

Score is your top weight successfully benched with good form & depth. What was that number, and how many total reps did you end up doing?

2-9-25 C2 Valentines

Concept2 Valentine Challenge 2025 RowErg, SkiErg, or Bike (counts for half) 14,000m cumulative between Feb 9-14. If you use a C2 erg product you can log it with their apps to go on the honorboard.

If you want to do only the challenge and don’t care about the leaderboards logging 14km of running counts as well. **

2-3-25 Consistency Challenge

Consistency is the key to gains. Standardize before you optimize. Gear up and make it to your workout space three times this week (preferably to plan(, even if you don’t do anything. You can skip but you still have to go. Very probable that once you’re there you will do something.

1-27-25 Ascending Doubles - Squat

You’ll need a barbell, plates, and a power rack or squat stand with the safeties set appropriately. Or a belt squat setup.

Each squat must be below parallel to count (top of hip socket below top of knee). Ass to Grass is not necessary unless that is the standard you choose for your squats. You may do the squat variation of your choice, however, once you choose you must stick with it for the challenge and depth standard does not change.

Start at one-half body weight and do a double. Add 10 lb (or 5kg) and do another double, repeat until you put it in the safeties, fail on depth, or decide you cannot continue with good form. You may rest between doubles as much as you like. When getting to the very top end you may switch to 5 lb (2.5kg) increments, once you do you may not go back to 10 lb (5kg).

Score is your top weight successfully squatted with good form & depth. What was that number, and how many total reps did you end up doing?

1-22-25 Sandbag to Shoulder

Simple but not easy. Biggest sandbag to shoulder you can muster AND be able to walk with it. Bonus points for taking it up a flight of stairs.

1-07-25 Fast Steady State

This is a 2 week challenge as you’ll need two of your “long run” days to do it. You’ll need knowledge of your heart rate zones for this to work properly.

Week one you Run/Bike/Row at your fastest comfortable pace, but you may not breach zone 4. If you get there you have to slow down, or stop (if you stop start again when you’re at the bottom of zone 2). Clock keeps running when you stop. Keep this up for an hour. You’ll notice that your pace is very uneven and overall you’ll be slowing down during your active phases. It’s very likely your speed will be entirely controlled by bumping into zone 4 and how long it takes to rest back to the bottom of zone 2. When you’re finished you need to record your average power or pace for the entire hour (including the rests).

Week two you use the same implement as last week, but this time set out at the average pace yielded from last week. Very likely this will be close to your average steady state pace, and this segment will prove out if that’s so. Hold that pace/power for the entire time. At the beginning it is likely to be too easy, end maybe a little too hard. You still should probably not breach zone 4 (but if you do it’s okay, especially at the end).

12-30-24 Should you be a Resolutioner?

Are you actually as strong, fast, endurant as you think you are?

When was the last time you weighed yourself?

Squat, Deadlift, Bench, Overhead, Chin-up for weight, not reps.

500m run for time (or row, or 1KM on bike)

1hr steady state run, row, or bike.

Is it what you expected?

11-12-2024 Running Challenge Test

It’s time to test if you actually brought down your high to max effort run time for the distance you chose. Can you cover 1.5 miles in 11 minutes or less? Or if you did the 5k version did that get faster? It’s time for a new PR.

11-05-2024 Rack-Ceiling Height Rope Progression

Finding a full height (20’+) rope to climb is really difficult. Training and practicing to be able to climb such a rope can be done with a ceiling height or power rack height rope using your secure pull up bar. All ropes are not created equal, the natural fiber thick ropes with deep groove braiding and a big diameter (but not too big) are much easier to climb than a poly ship rope or a poly rope generally like would be seen at Spartan. A belay climbing rope is incredibly hard to climb due to its slickness and narrow diameter.

The higher the rope can be hung the more productive your training will be, but on the pullup bar of an 84” power rack is good enough. Make sure the rope will not slide side to side.

Footlock from a box Sit on a box, chair, etc, with the rope hanging in front of you. Practice several different kinds of foot locks and try to push the rope away from you with your feet once locked in. Then stand up from the box to your pull-up bar to do a foot assisted pull-up. You can use your hands on the rope to stabilize on the way up, but your footlock must remain solid.

Footlock from hang Hanging from your pull up bar, establish your footlock then do an assisted pull-up by standing up on the rope.

Plank-ups Lay on your back with the rope hanging such that it dangles down to hit you about at the belly button. Grab the rope and climb it with only your hands keeping your body rigid and rotating up on your heels. Then walk yourself back down. If you’re not strong enough to go hand over hand, do a single pull up on the rope while planked then let yourself down.

Genie See the earlier challenge on this one. This will convert the hand conditioning and row type pull from the plank ups to a more vertical grip overhead power application that is needed to rope climb.

Putting it all together With a rack height rope you should be able to practice the take-off from the ground. Unfortunately converting that to the next climb will have to be done at your event or when you do have access to a full length rope. But, if you can do the above your chances are good that you’ll get it.

Here are two videos for some technique & instruction. This is one of the places that the CrossFitters have a lot of positive things to teach. These are both pretty long.

10-21-2024 Concept2 Skeleton Crew

Concept2 Skeleton Crew Challenge 2024

If you do the 5200m it’ll be 20 to 30 min each day. Similar effort to running a 5k, but it doesn’t beat you up nearly as bad.

If you want to do only the challenge and don’t care about the leaderboards logging 31km of running applies as well.

10-14-2024 Grip Dyno

Objective, independent measurement of grip strength using a dynamometer. These are available fairly inexpensively from Amazon and will work sufficiently well. They’re about $20-30.

Level 1: Less than 100 lb

Level 2: 125 lb

Level 3: 150 lb

Level 4: 175 lb

Level 5: 200 lb +

For reference many of the Ninja Warrior guys are level 3-4, strongmen will be level 5, most women will not break level 1. Average dude will be level 1-2.

10-7-2024 Overhead Plate Walk

Hold a 45 pound bumper plate overhead and walk as far as you can. Plate must remain above the level of your head, it may not rest on your head. Your total distance is from where you lock it out overhead to where any part of the plate drops below the level of your head.

9-30-2024 The Genie - Rope Climb

On a rope suitable for rope climbing, sit with it hanging between your legs sitting criss cross and rise.

Level 1: Reach up and do a single pull up.

Level 2: Pull yourself up maintaining the criss cross legs.

Level 3: Pull yourself up and keep climbing without using your legs.

Level 4: Pull yourself up and keep climbing while maintaining the criss cross.

Level 5: Pull yourself up, keep climbing, maintaining the criss cross to the level that you can fully extend when you’re done and your feet are above the floor.

9-23-2024 Spray Bottle Challenge

Get as much volume of fluid out of the sprayer as possible in 1 minute. You may not switch hands before the minute is up or support the bottle on anything (including yourself). Modification of the first challenge in this video:

9-10-2024 Police 1.5 Mile Improvement

1 easy (zone 2-3(, 1 fast (zone 4), 1 long run (over an hour) every week for the next 10 weeks. Goal is to do 1.5 miles in less than 13 minutes (sub 8:40/mi pace sustained). Or, improve your 1.5 or 5k pace overall if you’re already that fast. Bonus if you can do sub 13 min on the spot without zone 5. As in, not specifically tapering or resting for the test event.