For those new to the series, make sure to check out last weeks entry where I nearly experienced the true death.

In each release, I’ll be performing a new workout designed by some of the world’s best trainers and strength coaches in an attempt to…well, break me. This is just a way to add some variety and fun to my sessions (and give you something to laugh/cringe at) while giving all of you Sexified readers out there some ideas to inject into your own workouts every now and then.

Today’s entry is brought to you by the one of a kind Nia Shanks.

Don’t let the smirk, amazing posture and incredibly cool t-shirt fool you, because somewhere out there in the world Nia is warming up with your max.  As a personal trainer, writer (check her out here) and author, Nia is committed to empowering women both mentally and physically through strength training, but she was kind enough to take time off from her noble cause to crush me.

Here’s the workout:

Squat 225lbs for as many reps as possible.

Rest 10 minutes

Deadlift 315 for as many reps as possible.

When Nia sent this to me I figured it wouldn’t be all that bad, but the smiley face at the end of her message should have tipped me off.  I actually liked this challenge…for the first 10 reps, and everything after that was just stupid mean.

The first thing that kicked in was my lack of conditioning, which I expected, then on the 11th rep my quads started to realize that they’d exceeded their 10 rep norm and start yelling at me to stop.  By rep 20 they were just rolling on the ground in gasoline soaked underwear on fire, and by 25 they were just dead.

I see why she said rest 10 minutes, because the quad pump was incredible, and as an added bonus my glutes decided to speak up and express their disdain for Nia about 5 minutes into the rest period, twitching like a psycho killer. Lovely.

The deadlifts sucked right from the first rep. My quads still hadn’t truly recovered from the squats, and each time I locked out my butt felt like it was being tazed. Eventually my grip started to give and I was finishing some reps without my glutes and started to feel some low back pain, so I called it before my form got too ugly.

The only good  thing about this challenge is that it was over in less than 2 minutes per exercise, but as any gift that keeps on giving I cursed Nia Shanks by shaking my fist angrily at the sky every time I tried to stand up for a few days afterwards.

I won’t feel truly Sexified until I get 30 reps on everything, so until then…

Status: Broken

Next week we’ll have a challenge from the illustrious Marianne Kane of MyoMytv and possibly a guest victim to suffer alongside me!