Workout: Burn the Ships December '24
A December to remember BTS event
Housekeeping
Burn the Ships is our monthly group workout. Want to burn the ships with us? Become a Member of Two Percent.
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Podcast/audio edition
The post
It’s the first Friday of the month. Which means it’s time to Burn the Ships.
Burn the Ships is our workout of the month. Members of the Two Percent community do the Burn the Ships workout every weekend.
This month, we’re combining some of my favorite exercises into a total-body thresher to end the year on a high, sweaty note.
This workout is particularly great at building fitness you can—um—actually use. It’ll help you move, breathe, look, and live better.
The workout is adaptable no matter your fitness level or schedule. You’ll select the number of rounds of the workout you’d like to do. This way anyone and everyone can burn the ships.
Like last month’s workout, you can do this workout nearly anywhere. It also requires little equipment.
If you’re a regular participant in Burn the Ships and know why we do this workout, scroll down to “This Month’s Workout” to get the details.
If you’re new (or want a refresher), start here to understand the origins of Burn the Ships and the case for doing one tough workout a week.
The case for one tough weekly workout
Section summary: Doing one tough workout a week seems to be the sweet spot for health and fitness.
I started doing one tough workout every Friday after my time reporting inside Gym Jones roughly 12 years ago. I’ve maintained the practice.
There’s magic in pushing it once a week.
First, there are the brain benefits. The practice makes me less insane.
Scientists at King’s College in London analyzed 53 studies on how intense exercise impacts mental health.
They found that it led to “improvements in mental wellbeing, depression severity, and perceived stress compared to non-active controls, and small improvements in mental wellbeing compared to active controls.”
In other words, intense exercise has a mental edge compared not only to not exercising (duh), but also to regular-paced exercise.
Intense exercise also—obviously!—comes with physical upsides.
It has a slight edge over less intense exercise for increasing VO2 max, which is associated with all sorts of good physical outcomes. A rule of thumb: the higher your VO2 max, the farther you are from death and disease.
TL;DR: All exercise helps. But it makes sense to go hard sometimes.
What’s “sometimes?”
The smartest trainers I regularly speak with suggest that one tough workout a week is the sweet spot for health and performance (more info on that here).
More than that, and we tend to get burned out and beat down. Less than that, and we miss out on some health and performance upsides.
Enter Burn the Ships.
Burn the Ships: How it works
On the first Friday of every month, we publish a new workout for Members only.
Members of the Two Percent community do the workout every weekend—a bunch of us satellites, all sweating and improving together as one extensive network.
Burn the Ships workouts are safe and effective. They improve your strength, cardio, movement quality, and—in turn—your life.
We’ve provided scaled versions and exercise swaps, so anyone and everyone can do them.
We’ve included videos of each exercise so you know how to do them.
In other words, we’re pushing edges and improving safely. It’s easy to be hard but hard to be smart.
This month's workout: A December to Remember BTS Event
Why the name?
Park yourself in the garage and get after it this holiday season.
Where to do this workout
Anywhere that has something you can step onto.
E.g., a bench, plyometric box, stair, flat rock, sturdy chair, Yeti cooler, the bumper of your insufferable neighbor’s car, etc.
Equipment needed
Something to step onto.
Either a dumbbell, kettlebell, sandbag, or anything else that weighs something.
(Optional) A pullup bar.
Time commitment
10 to 40+ minutes, depending on the amount of rounds you choose to do.
What I’m listening to while doing this workout
Louis Armstrong, Louis Wishes You a Cool Yule.
They don’t make them like that anymore.
How to do it
Here’s the standard version of A December to Remember BTS Event.
The warmup
Do this exercise and any other warmup exercises you’d like.
The workout
Do the exercises in the order shown, one after the other. Watch the video below to learn how to do each exercise.