2010.03.17

Today's workout involved fun with combinations of exercises. If you haven't done these particular exercises before, worry about the form before you worry about weight. You don't want to hurt yourself with bad form.

Since the WoD was more about lifting, the warm up was meant to be more cardio-ish. In fact, we didn't even know how many rounds we were supposed to do until we were about halfway through it. You should be okay to move from the warm up to the WoD without any additional stretching or cooling down, though.

For the WoD, we actually practiced doing the overhead squat & the good morning separately at first (we ended up doing about 5 of each). The idea is to make sure you have the technique down for each. Once you've got that, you can combine them to do the WoD. The burpees don't require too much practice, but since you're only doing 5 at a time, the scale downs aren't as forgiving.

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Warm Up
5 rounds of:

• 1 minute of stepping onto platform, 25 seconds of rest

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WoD
10 rounds of:

• 5 burpees with jump box


• 10 overhead squats into good morning

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Exercises

• Stepping onto platform
  Set up a platform with 1 riser on each side. Step up onto the platform, one leg at a time, and then come back down one leg at a time. Repeat this, as fast as you can, for the full minute. Even though it's only 1 riser, make sure you look down as you're doing this. After a few rounds, your legs can feel tired enough where you'll slip if you're not careful.


• Burpees with jump box
  If you're used to regular burpees, the only real difference is you jump on to your platform at the end of it. In this case, we were only using the platform to keep ourselves honest about jumping 2-3 inches, so you only need to use 1 riser. If you're unfamiliar with the technique, start standing & then drop down to touch the ground (knees should be fully bent). Jump into a push up position, and do the push up. Jump back to your squatting position. As you stand, jump on to your box/platform. Jump back off to finish the rep.
  Scale down: Instead of jumping from squatting to push up position, bring your legs back one at a time.
  Scale down more: Step up & down from the platform instead of jumping.


• Overhead squat into good morning
  Grab a weighted bar: men used anywhere from 15 to 40 lbs (one guy gave 50lbs a shot, but it wasn't sustainable for the whole WoD), most of the women used 10 to 15 lbs. Stand with your feet a bit farther than shoulder-width apart, and point your toes outward (it'll help with balance). Hold the bar with a very wide grip, and lift it over your head. You want your arms to be fully extended and make a "Y" above your head. You also want the bar to be directly over your spine, which actually means it'll feel like you're holding your arms behind you a little bit. Your head should feel like it's coming forward, through the "window" created by your arms. Keeping your arms locked in this position, do a squat. Your heels should stay planted as you do this. Try to get down far enough so that your thighs are parallel to the ground (or deeper if you can). With your arms still locked, stand up.
  Next, rest the bar on your shoulders, behind your neck. This is the starting position for a Good Morning. Bending your knees slightly, bend at the waist (as if you’re bowing) and keep your eyes forward. Keep your back flat as you do that, and finish so that your back is parallel to the ground. Come back up to standing to finish the rep. That's 1 rep for the exercise.
  You'll have to lift the bar overhead with your arms in a Y to start the next overhead squat.

As with all of these WoD's, have fun while doing it.