It’s Not Whether You Win Or Lose...

In some sports overtime is referred to as sudden death, which is pretty much what happened to me on Sat. I’d done a hard brick workout (running and biking); that was pretty much a 100% effort and then decided, just for kicks, to follow it straight away with Asylum’s Overtime workout. Safe to say that I didn’t win the game, but at least I was in it.

Overtime is the shortest workout in the Asylum series. It was meant to be done after another workout, specifically Game Day (but could be added to any workout) when either is starts to become routine or you just feel the need to put the hammer down. Overtimes are generally shorter than the actual periods of a given game, too, but they are usually the most painful period. This is the thought process behind the Overtime workout and it doesn’t disappoint. You come out of the gate at full speed and don’t stop until “the game is over.”

For some of you it may be over before others, like it was for me. That isn’t true as I finished the workout but if it had been a game it would have been over long before. After about five minutes of Overtime things turn cruel as you begin a series of 100% explosive jumps. As I “exploded” (Shaun’s word, not mine) on the first of them I had nothing left to give. Directed to hang in the air and switch my legs I found that I could barely get into the air at all, much less switch my feet. I felt like BYU superstar Jimmer Fredette in the NCAA tourney during the second overtime against Florida when his shot stopped falling. “That’s it,” said the announcer. “The legs are gone. Game over.”

The cool thing about games, however, is that they never really end. Win or lose there’s always another one to play, which is pretty much the hook of playing sports. Like the saying goes, “it’s not whether you win or lose but how you play the game that counts”. We play games because we like to see ourselves improve. Asylum Overtime leaves plenty of room for that.

pic: kemba: more fun to win but the physical pain is the same either way.