Bill... (FireDragon update)

[gmattson]

any plans for making the "FireDragon Challenge" more interesting?

I'm bringing 100 Firedragon crests and 100 belt or lapel pins. (see picture on the firedragon site) These will be awarded to last year and this year's qualifiers.

[Bill Glasheen]

Actually I wanted to keep it pretty much the same this year. Having a stable test entity is a good thing.

The question is, can the records from last time be bested?

- Bill

[gmattson]

He's the man to beat!

Gary Khoury will also be tough. He's been in training all year!

Joe Belone should do well. What about Joe Pomfret???

Lots of really physically fit people at camp this year. Should be interesting.

[Bill Glasheen]

It'll be tough beating Fedele on pushups. And let's not forget Kevin Guse's performance on the standing broad jump.

The record for the mile run should be broken. I can imagine we have a harrier or two out there who can best that.

- Bill

[Bill Glasheen]

Here are last summer's people to beat. These are the "adjusted" scores with 100 being the max. (I had to cap obscene performances like Fedele on the pushups.)

SummerFest 2005 Results

I believe we will have one slight change on the time allowed in one of the events. Rich and I are going over it. Basically we've been drawing from a number of standard fitness tests used by the military.

- Bill

[Bill Glasheen]

BEST PERFORMANCES - 13/Aug/2005

One-Minute Push-up Max
Fedele Cacia - 124 reps


One-Minute Pull-up Max
Fedele Cacia - 21 reps


One-Minute Sit-up Max
(tie)
Dan Munger - 61 reps
William Schneider - 61 reps


Standing Broad Jump
Kevin Guse - 9 feet 4.5 inches


One-Minute Air Squat Max
Fedele Cacia - 73 reps


Mile Run (done after all other events)
Bridget Stevens - 6:24

[RACastanet]

The original test included two minutes for push-ups and sit-ups. The squats were tossed in later at one minute to get the thighs burning before the run.

There was another evil exercise in there as well that was done in lieu of the pull-ups. Hard to explain but Bill saw me do them. That exercise was done for a minute.

For consistancy I'd stick with the one minute time.

However, making push-ups, sit-ups and pull-ups a two minute event would be intersting. To account for the Fidels of the world the Marines cap pull-ups at 20 and crunches at 100. Marines do not do push-ups in their test and I do not remember offhand what the army caps them at. So, do 20 pull-ups and you get a perfect score - 100 points. Do 30 and you get the same score.

The Marine's score 5 points per pull-up and one for a sit-up. Instead of the cap you could also just give points for the total.

The killer part of the Marine PFT is the 3 mile run after the pull-ups and sit-ups. A perfect score of 100 requires a time of 18 minutes or less!

Rich

[gmattson]

My Florida "warriors" were complaining that they couldn't find information pertaining to the Challenge they are preparing for. That reminds me... Bill, can you email me the results for the 2006 Challenge so I can post it?

[TSDguy]

I've heard rumors that doing squats quickly is bad for your knees? I know my kind of feel funny if I rush them; I assume because my techique suffers.

I thought sit-ups were a no-no all together?

[fivedragons]

"The killer part of the Marine PFT is the 3 mile run after the pull-ups and sit-ups. A perfect score of 100 requires a time of 18 minutes or less!"

Three six minute miles in a row, pretty impressive.

That's twelve laps around the track at an all out run.

That is why people shouldn't smoke cigarettes.

[Bill Glasheen]

I've heard rumors that doing squats quickly is bad for your knees? I know my kind of feel funny if I rush them; I assume because my techique suffers.

If you go all the way down and slam your butt to your calves, you will hurt your knees. If you go down to thigh parallel and then back up again, you will do fine.

It's a one-time measurement, and only for a brief interval. It's something you do for a test, but not necessarily something you do in the training. A good example of this is that a marathoner never runs a marathon except at race day.

I thought sit-ups were a no-no all together?

If you do them with bent knees and you don't yank on your head, you'll do fine.

People who hurt themselves doing sit-ups or squats are people in poor shape who do them with poor form. Like a lot of things, you need to train properly and over a reasonable period of time to get yourself in proper shape for an athletic endeavor.

Even as an old fart, I find all these events reasonable to do. I train consistently, and I don't really do any of these events. Rather I work with weights and the eliptical trainers. I wouldn't have any problem doing these events for a one-time deal. For example after doing power cleans, a standing broad jump is fairly easy. After doing squats with weight on my back (or front squats), the quick squats are no big deal. After doing all kinds of abdominal work on myriad machines, a sit-up with good form isn't difficult. After doing lat pull-downs and pullovers on those respective weight machines, a chin-up is fairly straightforward.

The mile run is the only thing that I wouldn't care much for. Go figure... I was once captain of my high school cross country team. But I've been w/o cartilage in the right knee since 1974. I prefer doing the eliptical trainer instead of running these days to protect a knee that already has a touch of secondary osteoarthritis. But with a good set of shoes and a smooth gait, a mile run is doable. The smooth gait of course comes from good form and having all the leg muscles properly balanced in their conditioning.

Is there a pattern here?

- Bill