The "Spartacus" Workout

[Go Blue]

Ok, we all know the movie 300 produced some fun & brutal workouts. There's a new series on Starz called Spartacus: Blood & Sand which has produced a new workout that was posted in a Men's Health Mag. Normally I don't give the time of day to those mags, but this workout was a challenge.

Here's the link to the original workout:
http://menshealth.coverleaf.com/menshea ... =102#pg102

I did it last week & it was a challenge. Having said that, I can't leave well enough alone, so I modified it & re-did it today:

#1 deep squat w/ 40 lbs dumbbell in each hand (deep as in a$$ comes w/in 3-4 inches of ground)
#2 slow mtn climber - but back straight & shoulders above hands, i.e. a straight vertical line from your hands to your shoulders
#3 kb swing - same ole same ole
#4 push up, keep back straight, keep hips squared to grd, then grab a 5 lbs weight & do an arm raise to hit the front delt, switch hands, push up, rinse & repeat. Keeping your back straight & your hips squared are crucial (& killer)
#5 lunge walks w/ 40 lbs in each hand - knee to grd each step
#6 bend over row, same ole same ole (though I'm thinking about modifying this)
#7 side lunges w/ single 40 lbs dumbbell - all the way down
#8 push up row - once again ensuring that back is straight, hand to shoulder vertical line, hips squared
#9 twisting lunge w/ 40 lbs dumbbell - making sure that your elbow crosses your center line & knee goes all the way down
#10 pull ups w/ alternating grips. This was .... horrible.

I found this workout to be brutal. The small little details such as keeping your hips squared & making sure your shoulders were directly over your hands whenever you are in a push up position make a world of a difference in the difficulty. Not so much on that first round, but boy oh boy round 2 & 3 produced an obscene amount of sweat!

BTW - I love the show. I know it's gotten grief for the nudity & sex scenes, & frankly I don't disagree. It just a great entertaining show (I know it's not accurate & don't care) that combines 300, Gladiator, Rome all together.

[Roadrunner]

I'll bet this is fun. After I left Raphael Lovato's gym in Oklahoma City back in the late '90s I joined a gym in Del City, Oklahoma called "Spartan Academy". The core curriculim was JKD concepts oriented but the exercise portions were some of the toughest I've ever seen. The guy had just recently retired from the air force and had been on security in the air police. He opened the gym when a few of us from the Lovato gym were looking for a bit more extreme hard contact training. Lovato had taught JKD concepts but when he became a Machado representative he slowly turned his gym into a more bjj sport oriented club.

Thus the reason for the Spartan Academy. In the spirit of the Spartan training we went at it about as hard as a bunch of guys could. What Kelly McCann calls "banging". Anyway I moved away to Dallas in 1999 and the gym closed a couple of years later due to the lack of students. Problem a little too extreme for most. We fashioned our early club in Dallas after the Spartan Academy. Good times.

Probably the best pure training I ever participated in.