Dirk Benedict's "Steel Stomachs"

[Katia]

I did once say I'd post this here.  I call it "The 80s-Tastic Faceman Workout."     I tried it once.  I'm clearly not the target audience, but one of these days I'll try it again about four times through.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=tru3a1RtVE4

[HoudiniDerek]

Great find and a few things on this one:

1. I'm not sure I could do all of these moves.

2. I like how he looked normal doing them. I think most exercise people would have kept their legs straight most of the time, but he realized he was not that person and didn't try to be. I could relate to his workout. Additionally, I loved the voiceover and how sometimes it was off from what he was doing.

3. It was in 1990! I figured it was before or during the A-TEAM run. I wonder if he still does it?

4. I like the A-Team music interspersed at times.

5. I would love to get a copy on VHS and meet him at a convention for him to sign it.

Maybe we should do a Steel Stomachs workout group!

[Katia]

Apr 11, 2023 9:19:40 GMT -5 HoudiniDerek said:

Maybe we should do a Steel Stomachs workout group!

Haha, that would be great!  Okay, if any of you do it, you have to report back.  Like I said, I'm going to try it again at some point but I'll do it 3-4 times.

Some of his silly commentary is funny.

I had a look around to see if he had any other workout videos, but I couldn't find any.  I can't imagine this is the only one he did, but maybe so.  (And yes, I did look around to also see if Mr. T did any...)

[amyk]

For some reason, I can't get it to play right now...but I've seen it or portions of it previously.

[HoudiniDerek]

Some of the commentary was great.

[Katia]

The names of the exercises crack me up. Like, why not just say "a mountain climber with your foot touching the ground" or "bicycle crunches"? LOL.

Can you imagine doing this workout with other people and being like, "Let's do 'Squeeze Play' and then 'Big Leaguer' and then 'To The Showers'!" with a straight face???  (We need the "rolling while laughing so hard I'm crying" emoji...)  Oh, man.  If only we could do this all together on zoom.  We'd get our abs workout just cracking up.

Okay, as promised, I did this one again.  Four rounds (I structured it so I did the warmup four times through, then the workout itself four times through, then the cooldown four times through, rather than running the whole thing repeatedly, because I thought that would be closer to the intention of it).  I did not wear knee socks-- I couldn't have made mine look so good as he does his, anyway.  Also, y'know, I wore a shirt and didn't gel my hair to perfection.  We can't all be Dirk.  But I did keep my legs straight. 

For your further workout fun, I present my "Mr. T pushups" (I didn't do any tonight, but I did do a mess of them last night).  In a workout I once saw the exercise "T pushups."  I hadn't a clue what they were, though I decided I wanted to believe they were whatever pushups Mr. T would do.  (Unfortunately, when I googled, I discovered that all they are is what I call "rotational pushups"-- do a pushup, twist into side plank, do another pushup, go into side plank on the other side, etc.  I'd just never heard them called that before.)  But the idea was in my head to figure out what "Mr. T pushups" might be... I figured they had to be something challenging.  And finally this is what I decided on (I also call them "progressive pushups"):

--Start in high plank (pushup start position).  Go a quarter of the way down and come back up.  Go halfway down and come back up.  Go three quarters of the way down and come back up.  Go all the way down and come back up.  This is one rep.

They're a bit like four pushups in one, even though they don't all use a full range of motion (but they make up for it in requiring control).  You're gonna feel these.

I still want to go to the gym with Mr. T.

[amyk]

Oh, wow, you sound super-fit. I'm the type that just watches the video for the laughs....by the way, now I can view the video. Yes, love Dirk's comments!

Katia, are you even doing the jump-rope thing?

For me the warm-up would be a full body workout!

[Katia]

I'm definitely not super-fit! I wish.  But, I'm no stranger to the gym (hence why I wanna work out with B.A.).

Apr 23, 2023 18:02:58 GMT -5 amyk said:

Katia, are you even doing the jump-rope thing?

Yes, but I jump rope a lot (it's good, mindless cardio, doesn't require a *ton* of space, and all you need is a $5 jump rope).  I was actually thinking that for this little jumping, I should've been using my muay thai jump rope (they're thicker and heavier, and you'll feel it in your shoulders-- you won't be able to jump for as long as you can with a regular rope).  But I don't know where it is right now.