Workout Description

Why This Workout Is Very Hard

This workout combines moderate-heavy dumbbell loads with extreme volume over 20 rounds and minimal rest. The 30-second bike creates lactate buildup before immediately transitioning to max thrusters, creating severe metabolic stress. With only 60 seconds recovery between rounds, fatigue accumulates dramatically. The forced pace prevents proper recovery, and most athletes will hit failure on thrusters early, requiring significant scaling or rest extensions.

Training Focus

This workout develops the following fitness attributes:

• Stamina (9/10): High volume dumbbell thrusters performed to failure after bike calories will severely test upper body and leg muscular endurance over multiple rounds.
• Endurance (8/10): Twenty rounds of bike calories with minimal rest creates significant cardiovascular demand, testing aerobic capacity and heart rate recovery between intervals.
• Power (7/10): Bike sprints for calories and explosive thruster movement pattern require significant power output, especially when fatigued from previous rounds.
• Flexibility (6/10): Thrusters demand good overhead mobility, ankle flexibility, and hip mobility for proper squat depth and overhead position throughout high volume.
• Speed (6/10): Fast transitions between bike and thrusters, plus maintaining high cycling speed on calories, are crucial for maximizing thruster reps.
• Strength (4/10): Moderate dumbbell loads (50/35) require decent strength but focus is on volume rather than maximal force production.

Movements

• Air Bike
• Thruster

Benchmark Notes

This workout is scored by total reps of DB thrusters completed across 20 rounds. Each round consists of 30 seconds of 7/5 calorie bike followed by max DB thrusters (50/35 lbs) with 60 seconds rest. The bike calories are fixed, so the variable is thruster reps per round. Movement analysis: - 7 calories on bike takes elite athletes ~12-15 seconds, intermediate ~18-22 seconds, novice ~25-30 seconds - This leaves 15-18 seconds for elite, 8-12 seconds for intermediate, 0-5 seconds for novice to perform thrusters - DB thrusters at 50 lbs: elite ~2 sec/rep, intermediate ~2.5 sec/rep, novice ~3+ sec/rep Round-by-round breakdown: - Elite (L9-L10): 7-9 thrusters per round in remaining 15-18 seconds = 140-180 total reps - Advanced (L7-L8): 5-7 thrusters per round in remaining 8-12 seconds = 100-140 total reps - Intermediate (L5-L6): 3-5 thrusters per round, some rounds may be bike-only = 60-100 total reps - Novice (L1-L3): 1-3 thrusters per round, many bike-only rounds = 20-60 total reps Fatigue considerations: The 60-second rest allows partial recovery, but accumulated fatigue will reduce thruster output in later rounds. Elite athletes may maintain 8-9 reps early rounds, dropping to 6-7 in final rounds. Lower levels will see steeper decline. This format heavily favors bike efficiency and thruster power endurance. The workout is essentially a bike/thruster interval with the bike acting as active recovery between thruster sets. Final targets: L10: ~460 reps, L5: ~300 reps, L1: ~140 reps

Modality Profile

Bike is monostructural cardio (M) and Thruster is a weighted barbell movement (W). Two modalities split evenly.