As a young man I often did not appreciate many of the things that were being taught to me in school. It's not until you start to age that you look back on things and wish you had applied yourself just a little more.

Just recently I stumbled onto some information about The Great Pyramid of Giza. This is something that I should have paid more attention to in school. Having friends that work daily as ironworkers and discussing what type of work goes into their daily job really makes your jaw drop when you ponder the work that was required to build one of the Seven Wonders of the World.

This pyramid has a base that covers over 13 acres and its volume is around 90,000,000 cubic feet. It is made up of over 2 ½ million blocks of limestone, which weigh from 2 to 70 tons each. This is massive. I'll bet that during its construction there wasn't a whole lot of time to play Xbox!

Well thinking about the amount of manpower that must have been used to construct this massive pyramid got me thinking about how difficult the work was. So, I decided to construct my own pyramid, through my workout that is. In this issue of Building the Beast I wanted to show off my Personal Pyramid.

THE TOOLS REQUIRED:

* a workout partner * at least 3 flights of steps (for this workout my partner and I use 6 flights) * med ball * weighted vest (this is actually optional and use judgment on the weight of the vest) * mental toughness * a touch of desire

THE THROWING MOVEMENTS:

* two-arm chest pass * over-head throw * forward keg scoop (like a granny toss) * backward keg scoop * twisting rotational side toss

THE WORKDAY:

The standard protocol for our workout has been 5 of each throw variation followed by the running of the stairs. This can be adjusted based on your current strengths and conditioning levels. The throws can be mixed up for your pleasure!

Let's get started!

With your weighted vests on we start off by simply running all 6 flights of steps 5 times. This works as a great warm-up and really gets the sweat started on the brow. We run these at a moderate pace, remember it's just a prep.

Have your partner stand at the top of the 1st flight of steps. You start by throwing the medicine ball up to your partner in a chest pass fashion and he tosses it back down to you. Continue for 5 reps of this movement and on completion you must run to the top (or what you have designated the top) of the stairwell. You will then run back down the steps stopping 1 flight short of the bottom. Your partner will have moved up one flight to be above you once more. Now you pick the med-ball back up and throw 5 more times, and then run back up to the top again. This time when you run back down you will stop 2 flights short of the bottom. You continue in this fashion until you and your partner are both standing on the top flight of steps. Now it is your partner's turn while you rest a little by catching his or her passes. BUT, that's only one movement - the chest pass. You still have 4 more movements to complete in the same manor.

The pace of this workout should be in a continuous manor. You will get time to rest while your partner is bust'n his or hers.

THE CONCLUSION:

Now I realize that this is in no way close to the amount of work that was put into building The Great Pyramid, but this workout will have a great carry-over effect to your fitness levels and drastically tests your mental toughness!

So, grab your tools and getting building your own pyramid!