Sometimes the best workouts have the simplest structures. Six rounds. Five minutes per round. Four stations of work, one minute of questionable rest. Repeat until you’ve proven something to yourself.
That’s I Deka Did This at Academy of Self Defense in Santa Clara. No complicated schemes or confusing transitions. Just you, a timer, and movements that build the exact work capacity Spartan DEKA training demands.
Understanding the Format
This workout follows an EMOM structure—Every Minute On the Minute. When the clock beeps, you start your assigned work. When you finish, whatever time remains in that minute belongs to you. Then the next minute starts and you’re back at it.
Minute one delivers thrusters. Minute two hits you with burpee to plates. Minute three offers options: ski, run, or bagwork. Minute four punishes your legs with walking lunges. Minute five gives you rest, though after four minutes of continuous work, “rest” is relative.
Then you do it five more times.
The brilliance lives in the structure. If you move efficiently and finish your reps quickly, you earn more rest within each minute. If you pace poorly or waste energy, you get less recovery before the next station hits. The workout rewards quality movement and smart pacing while punishing sloppy technique and hero efforts.
Breaking Down Each Station
Minute 1: RAM or Kettlebell Thrusters
Fifteen thrusters to start each round. Whether you choose a RAM (a weighted tube with handles) or a kettlebell, the movement stays the same: squat deep, then drive explosively overhead. This full-body exercise hammers your legs, shoulders, and cardiovascular system simultaneously.
The thrusters set the tone for the entire round. Go too hard here and you’ll pay for it through minutes two, three, and four. Move efficiently and you’ll have time to breathe before burpees arrive.
Minute 2: Burpee to Plate
Ten burpees, but with a target. You’ll place a weight plate on the ground, drop into your burpee, then jump or step up onto the plate. This adds a vertical component to standard burpees, increasing the demand on your legs and lungs.
After thrusters already taxed your quads and shoulders, these burpees test your ability to maintain explosive movement under accumulating fatigue. Your breathing will be challenged. Your legs will remind you of the fifteen thrusters you just completed.
Minute 3: Ski/Run/Bagwork
Here’s where you get options based on your goals and the available equipment.
Choose the Ski Erg and you’ll build pulling endurance while your legs get brief active recovery. The pulling motion engages your lats, core, and hip flexors while keeping your heart rate elevated.
Pick the run and you’ll develop the aerobic capacity needed for longer efforts. Whether you’re hitting the treadmill or running outside, this cardiovascular work improves your ability to sustain effort between stations.
Select bagwork and you’ll add combative elements while maintaining intensity. Throwing combinations on heavy bags or doing mitt work keeps things dynamic while building upper body endurance.
All three options serve the same purpose: keep your heart rate up while varying the movement pattern from the previous two stations.
Minute 4: Walking Lunges
Twenty walking lunges with a kettlebell. Hold it however you prefer—goblet style at your chest, racked on one shoulder, or farmer carry with one in each hand.
By minute four, your legs have already handled thrusters, burpee to plates, and whatever option you chose for minute three. Now you’re asking them to lunge for twenty reps. This builds serious leg endurance and mental toughness when your quads are already questioning your life choices.
Minute 5: Rest-ish
One minute to recover before round two starts. Catch your breath, shake out your muscles, hydrate if needed, and mentally prepare to do it all again. Five more times.
The “ish” matters here. Yes, you’re resting. But you’re also managing your heart rate, preparing equipment for the next round, and fighting the temptation to sit down and quit. Active recovery beats complete stillness for preparing your body to return to work.
Warming Up Properly
Don’t walk in cold and immediately start thrusting weight overhead. Your body needs intelligent preparation.
Begin with general movement to increase blood flow. Five minutes of easy cardio works perfectly. Follow with dynamic stretching targeting your hips, shoulders, and thoracic spine. Leg swings, arm circles, and torso rotations all belong in your warm-up.
Next, rehearse the specific movements at light intensity. Do several air squats and practice your thruster technique with an empty bar or light weight. Perform a few easy burpees. Take some pulls on the Ski Erg or do a short easy run. Complete several bodyweight lunges to activate your legs.
The goal is arriving at minute one with your nervous system activated, your joints mobile, and your movement patterns dialed in.
Pacing Strategy
Round one sets the template. Many people crush the first round trying to prove their fitness, then spend rounds two through six paying for that enthusiasm. Resist this urge. Find a sustainable pace in round one that leaves you with some rest time in each minute but doesn’t completely destroy you.
Manage the thrusters intelligently. Fifteen reps sounds manageable until you’re doing it six times. Break them into sets if needed. Three sets of five or two sets of eight works better than fifteen unbroken reps that leave you gasping. Consistent pacing across six rounds beats heroic effort in round one followed by survival mode.
Move with purpose on burpees. Don’t waste energy flailing around. Establish a rhythm. Breathe deliberately. Step up to the plate if jumping feels unsustainable. There’s no prize for style points, only for finishing all six rounds with quality movement.
Use minute three strategically. This is your chance to control intensity slightly. Push hard enough to maintain elevated heart rate but not so hard that you can’t lunge effectively in minute four. Ski at a sustainable pace. Run at controlled intensity. Work the bag with combinations that flow rather than explosive power bursts.
The lunges reveal truth. By round three, those twenty walking lunges will feel significantly longer than they did in round one. Maintain quality. Keep your torso upright. Hit proper depth. These reps build the leg endurance that transfers directly to competition performance.
Scaling Options
New to this style of training? I Deka Did This scales to meet you wherever you are.
Reduce the thrusters to ten reps instead of fifteen. The movement pattern stays the same but the volume decreases. Drop the burpee to plates down to eight or even five reps. Step onto the plate instead of jumping if that feels more sustainable.
For minute three, adjust intensity to match your current fitness. Ski at a pace you can maintain. Run at conversational intensity. Work the bag with lighter, faster combinations rather than heavy power shots.
The walking lunges can be performed with lighter kettlebells or even bodyweight. Twenty reps is the target, but if your form breaks down, stop at fifteen and use the remaining time to recover. Quality movement builds better patterns than sloppy reps.
Advanced athletes can increase the challenge. Use heavier implements for thrusters and lunges. Jump higher onto the plate during burpees. Push harder during minute three. The structure accommodates any fitness level.
Home Training Modifications
Can’t make it to the gym? You can tackle a modified version at home with minimal equipment.
Thrusters work with dumbbells, a loaded backpack, or even a sandbag. The movement pattern remains the same regardless of the implement. Burpee to plates can be performed with any stable elevated surface—a step, a thick book, even a sturdy box.
For minute three, jump rope, run in place, do mountain climbers, or perform shadowboxing if you don’t have bags. The goal is maintaining elevated heart rate for the full minute. Walking lunges work with any weight you have available or simply as bodyweight movements with tempo control.
The timer and structure matter more than perfect equipment.
Why This Workout Works
Spartan DEKA training requires sustained work capacity across varied movement patterns. You need strong legs, pressing strength, cardiovascular endurance, and the mental toughness to keep moving when everything hurts.
I Deka Did This trains all of that simultaneously. The thrusters build full-body strength and power. The burpees develop repeated explosive capacity. The third minute trains aerobic endurance. The lunges forge leg strength under fatigue. The minimal rest teaches your body to recover quickly and return to work.
The EMOM format creates built-in accountability. You can’t skip stations or cut reps short because the timer doesn’t care about your excuses. When that minute starts, you work. This develops the discipline and mental resilience required for competition environments.
Perhaps most importantly, this workout is hard in useful ways. Not crushing-single-muscle-group hard, but sustained-effort-across-six-rounds hard. It’s the grinding challenge of maintaining quality movement when your body wants to quit. That’s exactly the fitness Spartan DEKA demands.
You can run this workout solo, but group fitness classes at Academy of Self Defense provide something home training can’t replicate: shared suffering and competitive energy.
When you’re in round four questioning why you signed up, glancing over to see others pushing through their lunges provides unexpected motivation. When your thruster form starts breaking down, having a coach present means you get the correction before bad patterns set in. When you’re tempted to cut the burpees short, the person next to you completing all ten makes you finish yours.
The community at Academy of Self Defense understands that training is better together. These aren’t just people who happen to work out at the same time. They’re training partners who push you through your mental barriers and celebrate your progress.
Group fitness classes also provide structure that solo training lacks. When it’s just you and your garage gym, it’s easy to skip the hard workouts or quit early. When you’ve committed to showing up with your training crew, you show up. And you finish.
Building Over Time
One session of I Deka Did This will challenge you. Consistent exposure over weeks will transform you.
Your first time through, you’ll identify weak points. Maybe your thrusters fall apart after three rounds. Maybe the burpees expose cardiovascular gaps. Maybe your lunges get sloppy as fatigue accumulates. Perfect. Now you know what needs work.
Return to this workout regularly and track your rest time in each minute. As your fitness improves, you’ll complete your thrusters faster and earn more recovery. You’ll move through burpees more efficiently. You’ll maintain better lunge form in later rounds. These improvements are concrete proof your training is working.
Between sessions, address your identified weaknesses. Need stronger pressing? Add more overhead work. Cardiovascular system struggling? Layer in additional aerobic training. Legs failing during lunges? Include more single-leg strength work. Targeted supplemental training accelerates your progress.
Ready to experience training that actually prepares you for competition demands? Start your two-week free trial at Academy of Self Defense and access all our Spartan DEKA-focused sessions. Or explore our fitness program and discover why athletes in Santa Clara choose us for combat fitness that delivers real results.
