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You are here: Home / Mindset / 4 Killer Workouts from Living with a Seal That Will Push Your Limits

4 Killer Workouts from Living with a Seal That Will Push Your Limits

September 8, 2016 By Joel Runyon 10 Comments

I finished reading Living with a Seal in about 3 hours this week. It’s a good read and you can read my main takeaways here.

The quick rundown is Jesse Itzler has done quite a few things (former rapper, sold a private jet company, ZICO, Hawks owner, and married Sara Blakely of Spanx to name a few), but he got a little too comfortable.

So he hired a former Navy SEAL to come live and train him for a month. He doesn’t mention who SEAL is by name in the book (he literally just calls him “SEAL” throughout the whole book), but as soon as I heard about the book and Jesse describe SEAL (massive Navy SEAL who runs ultra marathons with broken feet and doesn’t talk much),  I thought to myself, “that has to be David Goggins.”

If you’ve been following IMPOSSIBLE for any amount of time, you’ll know who David Goggins is. I’ve written about him here, here, and here. I even had the chance to interview him a couple years ago when he was setting the world record for the number of pullups in 24 hours (along with a few other posts about him on Nerve Rush).

He’s one of my favorite athletes in the world and hiring Goggins to train you for a monthwould be a ballsy move.

After doing some digging, it turns out, the SEAL in the book was David after all. #boom

jesse-itzler-david-goggins-seal

The book is worth a read if you’re interested in pushing your limits, but I thought I’d share some of my favorite parts of the book – the workout challenges Jesse actually completed throughout the month.

Keep in mind, these are not prescriptions or workouts you should do (if you do this, do it at your own peril – and don’t sue me or Jesse).

That said, they’re interesting challenges and if you’re crazy enough to try them out, have fun 😉

Burpee Test

Table of Contents

  • Burpee Test
  • 1-18’s
  • Nickles + Dimes
  • 4/4/48

100 Burpees

If you’ve ever done this before, you know how much it sucks.

Then you realize the time constraints that David put on it.

  • <10 Minutes – Solid
  • <11 Minutes – Acceptable
  • >13 Minutes – Unacceptable (do it again, faster)

Yikes.

I’m doing this this week – I’ll let you know what my score is here.

1-18’s

1 pushup. 15 second break. 2 pushups 15 second break. 3 pushup 15 second break. You get the idea.

You go up to 18 pushups (171 total).

No time limit, but keep time & try to beat your previous score.

Have fun.

Nickles + Dimes

5 pull ups / 10 pushups EMOM (every minute on the minute)

10 minutes (50 pullups, 100 pushups total).

Go.

4/4/48

4 Miles every 4 Hours for 48 Hours.

This is ridiculous. They were training for it by running 4.25 miles 4x in 24 hours (so a run every 6 hours).

While you can do this if you’re in ultra shape, this is one of those ones that sounds sort of easy at first (4 miles isn’t that bad) and then you quickly realize it’s torture given the frequency & length of time you have to do it over.

The only reason this is manageable is because it’s so spread out. You’re running 2 marathons in a day (48 miles essentially). Plan on saying goodbye to sleep for the weekend.

living-with-a-seal

Bonus: Jesse mentioned that this was the hardest workout they did throughout their whole time. Gnarly.

BOOM

So what do you think? if you’re looking for a workout to throw into your routine to shake things up, think about one of these challenges. Do them at your own risk.

Be sure to thank Jesse & David when you’re done.

If you like this…

  • You can get Living with a Seal here.
  • Follow Jesse on twitter & instagram
  • Find out more about LWAS here.
  • Read David Goggins’s site when it goes live here.
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Filed Under: Mindset Tagged With: david goggins, jesse itzler, living with a seal, mental toughness, no bs, push your limits

About Joel Runyon

I started IMPOSSIBLE to push myself to try to live a life worth writing about by pushing my limits, living an adventure & telling a great story by doing the impossible. You can get free updates in your inbox via your new favorite newsletter, free fitness training tutorials, and see all my businesses at Impossible X and our philanthropic efforts at Impossible.org

Comments

  1. Israel says

    September 11, 2016 at 5:25 pm

    I liked the 4/4/48, but I’ll convert it to kilometers first…

    Reply
  2. Chakravarthi Narukurthi says

    September 12, 2016 at 8:12 am

    I took 13 minutes to complete 100 burpees yesterday and was still panting like a dog. I definitely have to work on my fitness.

    Thanks for the workout Joel !

    Reply
  3. Steve says

    September 14, 2016 at 2:17 am

    Hey Joel,
    This is great! Thank you.
    I particularly like that you gave a lot of background to the work previously done by David Goggins, but that you also issued enough disclaimers as to the amount of effort required if someone really does want to take on the challenge.
    One more thing I like about the blog is that it inspires one to go for these seemingly impossible goals simply for the sake of proving something to yourself. It resonates with me on many levels, not purely the physical.
    I look forward to reading more of your posts.
    Steve

    Reply
  4. Jonathan says

    June 14, 2017 at 8:21 pm

    6:27 100 burpees

    Reply
    • Sean says

      April 5, 2019 at 1:41 am

      Were they proper burpees with a push-up?

      Reply
  5. Riley says

    February 25, 2019 at 2:42 pm

    It took me 5 minutes and thirty seconds to complete one hundred burpees! I love burpees because of the intensity and burn and the push in the mind.

    Reply
  6. John says

    April 30, 2020 at 7:41 am

    Can you explain the 4/4/48 in more detail? You say “You’re running 2 marathons in a day (48 miles essentially).” By my math you are running 48 miles in two days not a day, what am I missing?

    Reply
    • Joel Runyon says

      May 12, 2020 at 7:58 am

      “essentially” not literally.

      That said – if you just do one extra “4” – then you’re right at at 52 (that’s what I did here – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afjpoLRgJOY).

      Reply

Trackbacks

  1. do you hate your life – beeeee says:
    June 22, 2018 at 11:14 am

    […] https://impossiblehq.com/living-with-a-seal-workouts/ […]

    Reply
  2. Hell on the Hill 4 ➤ IMPOSSIBLE ® says:
    January 8, 2019 at 10:21 am

    […] You can also read Jesse’s book (it’s a quick read) Living with a Seal – about the time he invited David Goggins to live & train with him for a month. If you want a quick version, here are 4 horrible workouts from the book that will kick your butt. […]

    Reply

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