2010.03.03

Today's WoD was a version of "Drop 10." If you've never done that before, it means that you do less 10 reps of everything, minus the jumping jacks, after each round. For convenience sake, I just wrote up all 5 rounds.

You'll notice that means that the WoD actually gets easier as you go along. Finish times ranged from about ~12 minutes to ~23 minutes, to give you an idea of how easy/tough today's WoD was.

The warm up is very leg-intensive, so make sure you cool down & stretch out after you do that. The first few exercises of the WoD are also focused on your legs, so you'll want to stretch to prevent injury. We actually threw in an extra 30 seconds of running in place after the 4 rounds of warm up, just to cool down a bit.

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Warm Up
4 rounds of:

• 30 seconds of running in place


• 30 seconds of high knees

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WoD
Round 1

• 50 lunges (both sides for 1 rep)


• 40 jump box


• 30 thrusters


• 20 burpees


• 10 sit ups


• 25 jumping jacks

Round 2

• 40 lunges (both sides for 1 rep)


• 30 jump box


• 20 thrusters


• 10 burpees


• 25 jumping jacks

Round 3

• 30 lunges (both sides for 1 rep)


• 20 jump box


• 10 thrusters


• 25 jumping jacks

Round 4

• 20 lunges (both sides for 1 rep)


• 10 jump box


• 25 jumping jacks

Round 5

• 10 lunges (both sides for 1 rep)


• 25 jumping jacks

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Exercises

• High Knees
  It's pretty much what it sounds like; run in place, only bring your knees up as you do that. You want to bring your knees up as high as possible. Also, stay on your toes the whole time. If you do land on your heels, it'll likely hurt, and it'll also slow you down.


• Lunges
  Make sure you go all the way down on your lunges, and do a lunge on each side for a single rep. Your knees don't quite have to touch the ground (you might get burns/scrapes that way), but come as close as you can to that. If you need extra support as you get tired, you can use your hands to push up off of your lead leg.


• Jump Box
  Set up the stackable risers with a platform on top of them (most people usually use about 4, 6 is the highest anyone ever goes). Before you jump on it, stomp on it really hard. You want to make sure it'll support your weight & won't move around when you jump on it. Just in case, look down at the platform when you jump. If it does move around at all, keeping your eyes on it should help prevent injury.
  
  Scale down: Step up & step down instead of jumping on the platform. If you do step, make sure you alternate which leg is stepping up. Otherwise, you're only working one leg the whole time.


• Thrusters
  Grab two dumbbells - most guys used 15-25lbs, and most women used 8-10 lbs. Hold the weights up near your shoulders so your knuckles face away from you (this position is often called "racking" the weights). Do an air squat. As you come up, press the two dumbbells over your head, until your arms are fully extended. Push the weights straight up & down, since any horizontal motion will put undue stress on your shoulders. Bring the dumbbell back to the “racked” position to finish the rep. For this, you can actually make it a smooth motion, and go straight into the next squat instead of stopping at starting position. This is fine so long as you fully extend the dumbbells, bring the weights back down before you start your next squat, and keep a good curve on your lower back the whole time.


• Burpees
  It’s a 4-step motion: 1) squat down & touch the ground, 2) kick your legs out into a push-up position & do the push-up, 3) jump back to the squatting position, 4) come up & jump a couple of inches off the ground (touch your hands above your head).
  Since we only had to do 30 of these total, you're not allowed to scale down that much.
  
  Scale down: Cut out the push-up, so for steps 2 & 3, you just kick out your legs and then jump back to the squatting position
  
  Scale down some more: Instead of kicking your legs out in the second step, step back with one leg & then the other. The end result is the same, but it’s not as tough. Still no push-up


• Sit ups
  Keep your feet in butterfly position (heels touching each other) if you can, since that isolates your abs. Also, don’t go past 90 degrees as you sit up. In fact, try to stay at about 45 degrees – it forces your abs to stay contracted, so it works them harder.