How hard can this be..?

My wife has been doing strength training for quite some time. She actually was a client at Body Construction a few years ago with trainer Marja Blitz. That was a 4 month ordeal that totally changed her mind in fitness. Over the past few years that I have been doing CrossFit she occasionally looks at my log book and offers a "this looks like an interesting workout..." comment. Well over the past few weeks she has really been letting me design workouts for her.

She is very strong lower body, but needs to work on strength and upper body muscle. Nothing puts muscle on the body faster than compound exercises.

Today I did a workout for her called Breathing Ladders. This is a very deceptive work load. You do your exercises one rep each...take a breath... do two reps... take two breaths... work your way up and down the ladder.

Cindy's workout 2-1-09
"Breathing Ladders"

1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 reps / breaths

95# deadlift
25# plate front squat
full body pushups

Her total time for this workout was 19:12 minutes. At the beginning when I assigned it to her.. she was not sold. When she was done, I asked her if she had had enough... the bent over posture, hands on knees, red face, full body sweat was the only answer I needed.