2010.10.14

Today's WoD was affectionately called "Pick Your Poison." That's because you get to choose for one of the exercises. The fun part, though, is that once you start, you have to stick with that exercise. So pick wisely, because you're going to be doing a bunch of reps of that exercise (150 in total). Times fluctuated a lot based on which poison people picked, but the longest time was about 20:30.

The warm up involved a new exercise, the Inchworm. It's a little odd at first, but once you get the idea, it's fairly straight forward. We had to do laps along the short side of the room we were in, and it was about 20 feet from one end of the room to the other.

For the WoD, make sure you keep good form on the squat cleans. You're not really doing too many of them, but the idea is to use the heaviest weight you can handle. Particularly in the later rounds, you're bound to be tired; if you get sloppy about your form in that condition, you can hurt yourself. Slow down if you have to, but make sure you don't sacrifice form when you're lifting non-trivial amounts of weight.

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Warm Up

• 2 full laps of Inchworm (about 80 feet total)

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WoD

• 10 high hang squat cleans
• 50 thrusters OR 50 burpees OR 50 weighted step ups (6 levels) OR 50 weighted lunges (right/left = 1)
• 8 high hang squat cleans
• 40 thrusters OR 40 burpees OR 40 weighted step ups (6 levels) OR 40 weighted lunges (right/left = 1)
• 6 high hang squat cleans
• 30 thrusters OR 30 burpees OR 30 weighted step ups (6 levels) OR 30 weighted lunges (right/left = 1)
• 4 high hang squat cleans
• 20 thrusters OR 20 burpees OR 20 weighted step ups (6 levels) OR 20 weighted lunges (right/left = 1)
• 2 high hang squat cleans
• 10 thrusters OR 10 burpees OR 10 weighted step ups (6 levels) OR 10 weighted lunges (right/left = 1)

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Exercises

• Inchworm
  Squat down, and touch your hands to the ground. Keeping your feet on the ground, move your hands forward a little bit at a time until you end up in a push up position. Do 3 push ups. Keeping your hands where they are, step forward so that you end up bent over touching your hands on the ground. Most people have to bend their knees to do this, but if you're flexible enough, lock your legs at the top position. From here, you basically repeat what you just did; you start the next set by keeping your feet on the ground and walking your hands forward to start your next set of push ups. Do this repeatedly until you finish all of your laps.
• High Hang Squat Clean
  Grab two dumbbells (heaviest anyone used was 30lbs, lightest was 10 lbs). Stand with your feet about shoulder-width apart, and hold the two weights at your side. You want the weights to be as high as the middle of your thigh.
  
  From the start position, aggressively shrug your shoulders while keeping your arms locked. It might sound silly, but that shrug is what kicks off the momentum for the rest of the lift. It's far more important with heavier weight, but you want to build good habits regardless of how much you're lifting. Most people actually bring their heels off the ground to add even more momentum to the shrug, so it almost feels like you're jumping.
  
  The next step is to do something very similar to a high pull. If you're used to doing sumo deadlift high pulls, it's the same idea; you literally pull the weights straight up. The "straight up" part is important; the weight should not move horizontally at all. If you were to watch from the side, the path of the dumbbell should be a straight line up. If there's any arc, you end up doing more of a bicep curl, which isn't what you're aiming for.
  
  At this point, the weight is on its way up, and you want to position your body below the weight to catch the weight. You want to quickly bring the weights to right about shoulder level, almost pressed against the top of your chest. As you're doing this, you want to very quickly squat down. Your knees actually come out and point outward as you do this, so your legs should end up a little farther apart than when you started. You should end up at the bottom of your squat with the weights held at about shoulder level, with your weight on your heels. If you did it correctly, you should be able to actually hold this position without any trouble.
  
  One thing to keep in mind is that even though it looks like you're "lifting" the weight, it's more like you're catching the dumbbells. Your hands don't lift the weight as much as they adjust themselves to hold the weight differently. You can almost think of it as letting go of the weight in midair, and positioning your body underneath the weight so that you end up with the weight at your shoulders. Don't actually let go of the weight, that's all sorts of bad. However, it feels a bit like you're racing to get to the bottom before the weight comes up to the top.
  
  From the bottom of your squat, stand straight up without moving the weight. Once you stand completely, you can then reposition your feet so they are shoulder-width apart. Only once your feet are completely set should you bring the weight back down to the starting position. Otherwise, you can end up in an awkward position that can lead to you dropping weights inadvertently.
• Thrusters
  Use the same weights that you were using for the squat cleans. Hold the weights up near your shoulders so your knuckles face away from you and the weights are resting against the upper part of your chest (this position is often called "racking" the weights).
  
  Do an air squat so that your thighs end up parallel to the ground; if you can "break parallel," that's even better. 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 5 step motion: 1) squat down & touch the ground, 2) kick your legs out into a push-up position, 3) do a push up, 4) jump back to the squatting position, 5) come up from squatting and jump 2 inches off the ground.
  
  Scale down: Step back into the push up instead of jumping. Same goes for when you go back to the squatting position (step 4); step forward instead of jumping.
• Weighted Step Ups
  Set up a platform with 6 stackable risers on each side. Use the same dumbbells you used for the cleans. You can either hold them at your sides or on top of your shoulders; so long as you're weighing yourself down, it doesn't make a difference. With the weights in position, step up on to the platform. Each time you come up and come back down is a single rep.
  
  You can step up with either leg, but remember that the leg that steps up is doing the most work; it's a good idea to alternate which leg steps up onto the platform.
• Weighted Lunges
  Hold the weights at your side, one on each side. You can also hold them on top of your shoulders, if that feels more comfortable. The idea is to weigh yourself down with the weights, so both ways work.
  
  Do a lunge with either leg forward, and then do a lunge with the opposite leg forward. Each time one of your legs comes forward, that counts as a rep (we call this "right/left = 1" for short). Make sure you plant the heel of the leg that comes forward, and bring the knee of the back leg (the one that's bending) as close to the ground as possible.

As always, have fun with it.