"HAMMER & SICKLE"

OBJECTIVE: Strength Endurance

WARM UP: 3 Rounds
30m Lunge
20x situps

TRAINING: 5 ROUNDS
Row 250m
20x GHD Situps
20x KTE
20x Weighted back extensions
20x Russian Twists (10x each side)
20x Weigthed Situps @ 45#

Comments:

Don't be lulled into over confidence by Hammer & Sickle. This effort regularly leaves me wasted and my stomach sore for 3-4 days. You're looking at 500 reps of weighted core exercises.

Need inspiration? British cyclist Rebecca Romero is well on her way to the Olympic medal bicycling podium in China this summer - just 2 years after getting on a bike.

Romero, 27, was a Olympic rowing silver medalist in 2004, and retired from rowing in 2005 after winning a world championship.

Thursday, she won another gold medal in the individual pursuit event at the world track cycling championship in Manchester, England.

On her website, rebeccaromero.co.uk, she writes that in 2005, after retiring from rowing, "I was approached by British Cycling and there began a whole new beginning for me! I was put through a testing procedure and told that I had the potential to succeed at a high level in cycling."

I read several interviews with Romero, and she noted that several in the cycling community aren't too happy with her rapid success. Apparantly, she "tested" so well, she was placed on a "fast track" program, which she validated this week with a world championship.

Romero's rapid transition from the elite world of rowing to that of track cycling seems to demonstrate that success in these two endeavors has more to do with lungs, legs and mental toughness than technical skill.

I remember watching Eric Heiden win 5 speed skating gold medals at Lake Placid in 1984. Later, he was one of the first cross over athletes when he switched to road biking.

His biking career wasn't quite as successful. Heiden was a founding member of the first 7-eleven biking team and competed in the 1986 Tour de France - but didn't finish. He did win the first US professional biking championship.

He went on to become an orthopedic surgeon, and interestingly, opened The Orthopedic Specialty Hospital (TOSH) in Murray, Utah, which Norene Christensen works with.

I'm also a crossover athlete! One week when the weight room was closed for renovations at the Coast Guard Academy, I did 1,000 pushups, in an hour, 5 days in a row. (stupid muscle head)

Then, in Pinedale, I have the current record for climbing Half Moon Mountain with 40# of rocks - 27 minutes - barely staying ahead of Curtis P.

- Rob Shaul

You can skate the row, or hammer it like Janinne, and curse it after the 5th round.

Added weight greatly adds to extension difficulty.

She'll feel these later.

5 rounds of 20x KTEs in a row is no joke.