Norwegian 4 x 4 Workout – The Scandinavian Mistress Guaranteed To Make Your Knees Tremble

Here at Super Fit Dad HQ we’re all about longevity, and one of the key determinants of that is your body’s (or specifically, your heart’s) ability to work under duress.

After all, a dicky-ticker is one of the so-called “Four Horsemen of Death” identified by Dr Peter Attia (a world-renown longevity guru and favourite podcast guest of folks like Tim Ferriss, Andrew Huberman et al, and now a podcast host in his own right, that being The Drive with Peter Attia).

[The Drive is a veritable treasure-trove of deep-science around exercise, longevity, health & performance, and is one of the nerdier and more data-driven pods out there. Find a topic that you love and you’re set. Others might get a bit far into the weeds for you.]

The aforementioned “Four Horsemen” are heart disease, cancer, neuro-degenrative disease and type-2 diabetes. The data suggests that these wrong-uns account for 80% of all deaths in people over 50 who don’t smoke. I didn’t fact-check this but it seems plausible.

And so, VO2 Max, which is a measure of how effectively the body processes oxygen, and is said to be one of the, if not the, most accurate indicator of longevity.

And what better way to work towards increasing your longevity – assuming you think that is a good thing – than by being flogged by a Scandinavian dominatrix, in the form of an exercise protocol called the Norwegian 4 x 4?

The Norwegian 4 x 4 Workout

You may remember a recent-ish post about The Sugarcane Workout which is a 10 minute HIIT hit-out that does a number on you. 

Well, this makes that look like a proverbial cake-walk because it involves 28 minutes of pain, self-doubt and questioning your life decisions.

Here’s how to do it:

1. Warm up for 5 minutes on your chosen torture implement. (I chose the Assault bike as my gym equivalent of the St Andrew’s Cross)

2. 4 mins of high-intensity cardio at 85%-95% of your max heart rate 

3. Rest 3 minutes (this should possibly have been 4 mins)

4. Repeat for 4 rounds, totalling 28 minutes

My 4 x 4 Experience

I knew this was gonna be tough so the plan was to get straight to the bike, spend 5 mins warming up and choosing some hectic tunes to get me through, and then rip into it.

The HR objective was around 147-150 for the working sets – about 85% – 90% of my max.

The first round was a punish as I went a bit hard out of the blocks, it also took me around 45 seconds to get up to my target HR. 

By 2 mins, I was feeling cooked and doubted if I’d finish the workout, but then the tunes caught me and I reigned in the watts but still maintained the HR at over 150bpm.

The goal for round 2 was to get to the half-way mark. The set became a bit easier as I settled into a groove.

Round 3 was more of the same, first minute building, mins 2 and 3 hanging on and then sheer momentum / will getting me through the final minute.

The last round was almost euphoric as I knew I’d conquered this little Sunday lunchtime mountain and survived. Tunes were cranking and the HR was around 160bpm as I hit the home straight.

The 3 minute rest blocks between sets were just enough to get my HR down and shake out the legs and take on some Staminade.

Summary

Make no mistake, this is a hard workout at 90% of max heart rate for 16 minutes – the HR will drop-off during the rest periods, but slowly.

I’ve been spending a lot of time on the Assault Bike lately (including a 1 hour effort) and so I knew what was coming my way.

If you did this once a week or even once per fortnight, you’d see some serious improvements in your VO2 max, your overall health & physical performance. 

It’s relatively quick – you can be in and out of the gym in 40 mins, and whilst not as much fun as an actual Scandinavian Mistress (or so I’m told), it is a pretty fun intermediate workout (or a beginner’s benchmark workout where you start aiming for circa 70% of max HR (or something like that – check with your doctor etc etc).