2010.10.07

Allan's birthday is coming up this weekend, so we celebrated it in style: we did a WoD in his honor. Birthday WoD's always tend to be a little tougher than your average work out, and the finish times reflected that. The slowest time was about 29 minutes, to give you an idea of how hard the routine was (fastest time was about 20 minutes).

For the warm up, you're just trying to get your legs moving. It might feel a little odd to transition from high knees to mountain climbers, but try to avoid too much of a delay between the two. The idea is to keep your heart (and your legs) pumping, and you don't want to let up if you can help it.

For the WoD itself, none of the exercises are tricky. You just have to get through all of the reps as fast as you can (what's new?). The routine is based roughly on a "Dirty 30" style WoD; in this case, you don't have to do 3 consecutive rounds of the ab exercises.

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Warm Up
3 rounds of:

• 30 seconds of running in place
• 30 seconds of high knees
• 30 seconds of mountain climbers

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WoD

• "Dirty 40"
  
  • 40 sit ups
  • 40 elbows-to-knees
  • 40 V-ups
• 40 incline push ups
• 40 jump box
• 40 dips
• 40 air squats
• 40 decline push ups
• "Dirty 40"
  
  • 40 sit ups
  • 40 elbows-to-knees
  • 40 V-ups
• 40 incline push ups
• 40 jump box
• 40 dips
• 40 air squats
• 40 decline push ups
• "Dirty 40"
  
  • 40 sit ups
  • 40 elbows-to-knees
  • 40 V-ups

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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.
• Mountain Climbers
  Get down on all fours, almost as if you were about to start a race. It's also a bit like being in a push up position with a bend at the waist, with only one leg back. From the starting position, simultaneously bring your lead leg back & your rear leg forward. Make sure that your lead leg also slides sideways, so that it is outside of your arm on that side. Do it again to switch the positioning of your legs, again making sure your lead leg ends up outside of your arm.
• Sit Ups
  Keep your feet in butterfly position (heels touching each other), since that isolates your abs. Come up all the way so that your torso is perpendicular to the ground.
• Elbows-to-Knees
  Lie on your back, and touch your right elbow to your left knee. Then alternate, touching your left elbow to your right knee. As you’re doing that, do bicycle kicks (i.e., kick out with the leg that’s not touching your elbow). You have to touch both elbows to both knees for a single rep.
• V ups
  Lie on your back, putting our hands parallel to the ground “above” your head (if you were standing, they’d be directly over your head). Lift your legs off the ground and bring your torso up at the same time to touch your toes. In essence, your body makes a “V” shape. Go back to lying on your back to finish the rep. Be careful about slamming your legs into the ground when you finish the rep, that can hurt your lower back. Some people call these "jack knives," if that helps at all.
  
  Scale down: Bend your knees as your bring your lower body up. You only have to touch your knees this way
• Incline Push Ups
  Set up a platform with stackable risers (the most anyone used was 6). Do a push up with your feet on the ground, and your arms on the edge of the platform. Make sure you touch your chest to the platform as you come down, and fully extend your arms when you come back up. Keep yourself honest about your form even when you're tired, it's easy to not go all the way down on these reps.
• Jump Box
  Use the same platform that you used for your push ups. Before you start the WoD, 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.
• Dips
  Use the same platform that you used for the incline push ups. Position yourself so your arms are holding you up/off the edge of your platform, with your legs straight out in front of you. You should just be barely forward of the platform; your butt should practically touch the platform as you do your reps. If you come forward too far, you'll put unnecessary strain on your shoulders.
  
  Lower yourself so that your butt touches the ground, and then raise yourself back to the starting position. That's 1 rep. If you do the exercise properly, you'll feel the exercise the most in your triceps.
  
  Scale down: Bend your legs, and put your feet flat on the ground before doing your dips. Since you're lifting less weight this way, this makes the dips easier
• Air Squats
  Use the platform you set up for your thrusters, and stand in front of it. Make sure that when you go down, your bottom touches the platform. This will guarantee that you go down at least far enough so that your thighs are parallel to the ground.
  
  Regardless of how far you squat, you want to keep your weight on your heels the whole time. That will help ensure you keep a good lumbar curve & will help with any potential balance issues. For some people, it helps to look up at about 45 degrees to ensure you're not leaning forward & straining your lower back. To ensure this happens, you can throw your hands up to 45 degrees and focus your eyes on your hands on each rep.
• Decline Push Ups
  Despite the name, it's more like an incline bench press. Using the same platform that you had for the other exercises, put your feet on the platform and your hands on the ground. Your feet should be higher than your face. Do your push ups that way, with your chest touching the ground for each rep. To make sure you're doing your reps correctly, both your chest and your hips should fall and rise together; otherwise, you're leaning in and you're doing the full push up.

As always, have fun with it. And nobody turn 50 anytime soon, huh?