I can’t take the credit for the idea to write this post, it actually goes to my good friend, and cheat day pizza eating partner, Matt, who turned to me (after we were both deep in food coma) and said…, “Ya know, pizza eating is a lot like doing burpees.” The funny thing is, he’s absolutely right! 🙂
Almost every Saturday for the last 6 months, Matt and I have met up for our cheat day pizza at our favorite Seattle area New York style pizza place called Turnpike Pizza. When we go to Turnpike, it’s usually the same deal every time…we each get a large pizza, and the Turnpike staff watches in awe as we take them down. Yesterday was a bit of an epic event because we ordered 3 medium pizzas (instead of the usual 2 larges), because of a coupon Turnpike was offering. Our eating adventure got even crazier when one of our pizzas came out as a large instead of a medium!
When going for a new pizza eating PR you need a strategy, and it turns out that the pizza eating strategy that we went with was amazingly similar to our burpee doing strategy.
Let’s compare pizza eating to doing burpees:
Speed
With pizza you need to eat quickly, but not so fast that you choke on your food.
With burpees you need to go quickly, but not so fast that you choke on your air.
Rhythm
With pizza you need to make sure that you’re grabbing that next piece while you’re swallowing the previous piece to keep up your pace.
With burpees you need to make sure that you’re falling into your next burpee right after you clap your hands behind your head to keep up your pace.
Breathing
With pizza you need to take in the optimal amount of air during your chewing and swallowing to make sure that you don’t have to slow down and breath between bites.
With burpees you need to take in as much air as possible during the burpees so you don’t have to stop and breath between burpees.
Water
With pizza you don’t want to take in too much water because the crust will expand in your stomach and potentially cause puking.
With burpees you don’t want to take in too much water because your stomach hitting the ground at the bottom of the burpee could cause puking.
Mental toughness
With pizza you need to focus on the goal of finishing every last bite and not letting the idea of upchucking your food all over the table enter your mind.
With burpees you need to focus on the goal of finishing every last burpee and not letting the excruciating pain in your quads and arms or the thought of losing your last protein shake all over the gym floor enter your mind.
Cool down
With pizza it’s very important that you go on an easy walk after finishing to keep your metabolism up, so you don’t pass out at the pizza place.
With burpees it’s very important that you go on an easy walk after finishing to keep you blood pumping back up to your heart, so you don’t pass out on the gym floor.
As you can see, it’s almost scary how similar the strategies for successful pizza eating and doing burpees can be. I’m confident that if you follow these tips to the T, and practice them every week, you will become great at both eating pizza and doing burpees!
Notes:
If you go to http://TurnpikePizza.com you can sign up for free coupon offers.
If you hire me as a personal trainer I can teach you the burpee strategy myself! Click here for info.
Now get outside and have fun by working hard! 🙂
