Death By Assault Bike

CONDITIONING WEEK 3: 320 reps in 15 minutes. Torture by assault bike.

Video Instructions by James (The Athlete Centre, Oxford)

Team Workout

In the original workout session, everybody performs the exercises individually. Let’s call them the rounds of 10s, and they are:

10 wall balls
10 kettlebell swings
10 burpees
10 hand-release push-ups

How many rounds of 10s? How long do we repeat them? James, from the Athlete Center in Oxford and the trainer of the conditioning classes, invented the assault bike timer to measure the duration of a set.

So this is how the assault bike timer ticks: one athlete is sitting on the assault bike, while all the others keep on repeating the rounds of 10s. This lonely hero is biking as if his life depend on it — which does — and until he reaches 30 calories. It takes 3-3.5 minutes to finish (there are breaks inserted, but let me not over-complicate this – check the video below).

Are you with me so far?

So if there are 10 athletes, and one sits on the bike suffering for 3 minutes, there will be 9 other athletes who try to squeeze out as many rounds of 10s as possible. Everybody can surely finish at least one round of 10s, some can master two rounds of 10s, so let’s say the average is 1.5 rounds of 10s. Which means 60 reps in 3 minutes.

Now, do not forget that every athlete gets his / her turn on the assault bike. Which means that every athlete tries to conquer the round of 10s 9 times. Which means that they will do 9 x 60 reps = 540 reps. Plus 35 horror calories on the bike.

Individual Workout

I asked James, to come up with an individual version of this workout.

Warning: make sure before you start, that you know your limits and needs – check out the assessment post in this blog before you start.

Workout 1 – Assault Bike, 20 calories

We reduce the 30 calories on the assault bike to 20 calories. You jump on the bike and max-out for 30 seconds. Regardless how many calories you have achieved you take a 30-second break. Then back to the workout and bike as hard and fast as you can for another 30 seconds. Keep on repeating this 30 seconds on-and-off until you reach 20 calories

Workout 2 – 2 rounds of 10s

10 wall balls
10 kettlebell swings
10 burpees
10 hand-release push-ups

Rest 3 minutes, and then repeat the whole workout 3 more time times.

So altogether you have 4 sets of all workouts:

bike 4 x 20 calories
perform 2 rounds of 10s 4 times
with 3 minutes of rest in between each

Female: 6 kg/14 lbs wall ball, 16 kg/35 lbs kettlebell
Male: 9 kg/20 lbs wall ball, 20 kg/44 lbs kettlebell

Target & Tactics

The major difference between the individual workout and the team session is that you do not have an AMRAP. We do not time the rounds of 10s in anyway, we just perform them as fast as we can 2 times in one round. So the 4 sets include 8 rounds of 10s, which means that 320 reps (4 sets x 2 rounds x 10 reps x 4 exercises).

Try to hit at least 90% of your maximum speed on everything. You have fairly long breaks in between the sets — 3 minutes — which helps to recoup. You will work about 25-30 minutes and rest 9 minutes, altogether. So if you finish in 40 minutes, you have an ok result – but check the table below to find your personal targets.

Personal targets

Foodies ♂
Jack	King	Ace
<300	300-320	320<

Foudettes ♀
Dame	Queen	Ace
<300	300-320	320<