The Gas Station Ready Workout

Editor’s note: This is a guest article by Adam benShea of Jailhouse Strong. Their motto is being “gas station ready” — which is to say, if you’re filling up on gas at three in the morning, and some wild-eyed degenerate accosts you, demanding your money/ride/lady, are you prepared to handle the situation? This workout will help get you there.

At home or a hotel and looking for a workout?

This is an excellent interval session for when you’re short on time, but you want a good bang for your buck. It could be done as a workout on its own, or as a way to finish a pig iron session. Unlike MMA and boxing intervals, this interval circuit prepares you for the type of altercation you would find yourself in after a night of tomcatting at your local beer peeler bar. That is, violent and quick.

The movement of the sprawl (basically a burpee, without the pushup or jump, where you let your hips fall to the ground, while arching your back upward) is included because of the way in which it mimics the process of defending a takedown (a common feature of any no-rules fight). The sprawl also helps you get used to fluctuating between moving on your feet and on the ground (an often overlooked aspect of a real knock-down, drag-out fight). For those who have not trained this movement, in real unarmed combat they will be doubled over and out of gas. To make the workout more difficult, a standard burpee can be substituted for a sprawl.