Ruck It Out

    I woke up at 6 a.m. this morning to go meet some friends in Griffith Park. The plan was to go on a little ruck (a hike with weight) and get a solid workout in for the day. After almost 5 hours on the mountain, and 8.4 miles later, it didn't feel so little. A friend of mine took it upon himself to lead the group through the park. And by lead, I mean he turned into the drill sergeant that none of us wanted to deal with. Every mile he told us to stop. We stopped, and he allowed just enough of a pause before his next order that everyone began to hope that he might give us a break. He didn't. Instead, he had us doing every and any random form of exercise that popped into his head. There were a lot of burpees and wind sprints and wheelbarrows and inchworms and a whole bunch of other exercises that I'd either never done before or had never considered doing after 2 hours of rucking. It was terrible, but it was great. The kind of hurt that feels good--though it seems a few hours later that the hurt is just that, hurt, and it don't feel so good. Having said that, I'd be back on the mountain in a second. Hell, who wouldn't want to spend their Saturday morning on a vacation being yelled at to do a crab walk on the type of cement that will rip your hands open? Psh, crazy people, that's who.

The Inchworm: A wonderful human-centipede-like exercise where you line up as shown, and then do push-ups in unison. It's fun. Get a group of 20 people and try it. Chances are you won't thank me.