The warm up was pretty straight forward, just do the exercises to get your blood pumping. On the last round, we actually scaled up for the last 10 seconds of each exercise. For example, when running in place, switch to quick feet for the last 10 seconds. I listed the way to scale up for the exercises where it was possible. It's not like it'll make or break your work out, but it does get your muscles warmed up just a tiny bit more.
For the WoD, make sure you do your squat cleans with good form. As with many of the lifts, you can hurt your lower back if you do enough repetitions with poor form. You'll also want to alternate hands/sides between the two sets of dumbbell swings and dumbbell chops. You want to work both sides of your body, and it's easiest to do one entire set with one side. We usually do the weak side first (e.g., your left hand if you're right-handed), but so long as you work both sides, it doesn't much matter.
Lastly, you should only do jumping jacks if there isn't a jump rope available. It's a legit substitution, but it's arguably harder to jump rope. For the same reason, you're only allowed to do single-unders if you can't do any double-unders at all. Otherwise, do double-unders.
Warm Up
3 rounds of:
- 30 seconds of running in place (scale up: quick feet)
- 30 seconds of high knees (scale up: double time)
- 30 seconds of jumping jacks
WoD
- 50 high hang squat cleans
- 40 one-handed dumbbell swings
- 30 dumbbell chops
- 20 burpees
- 10 double-unders OR 50 single-unders OR 20 jumping jacks
- 10 high hang squat cleans
- 20 burpees
- 30 dumbbell chops (other hand)
- 40 one-handed dumbbell swings (other hands)
- 50 double-unders OR 250 single-unders OR 100 jumping jacks
Exercises
- Quick Feet
You're sort of running in place, but the idea is to step as many times as possible in the allotted time. That means that you're taking really small, quick steps, and you should stay on your toes the whole time. Most people end up hunching over slightly to help facilitate this (it's hard to do this while standing straight). Try to maintain the same speed for the entire time. - 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. - High Hang Squat Cleans
Grab two dumbbells (heaviest anyone used was 25lbs, 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. - One Handed Dumbbell Swings
You only need a single dumbbell, so just put one of the weights from the high hang squat cleans down. Do a squat, keeping a good lumbar curve, and hold the dumbbell between your legs at about knee/thigh level. Stand up from the squat, and as you do that, swing your arm upward in an arc until your arm is directly over your head. If you do the motion correctly, your legs will drive most of the momentum, and you're essentially just standing & squatting.
Your arm should stay locked the whole time, so that you're actually swinging the dumbbell. If you start bending your arm at the elbow, you're doing more of a bicep curl. That's not what you're after in this case, so that's wasted effort.
At no point should you bend over, that can hurt your lower back. You always want to be facing forward, with a good lumbar curve. If you get tired, it's preferable to stop for a bit than to do these reps with bad form. - Dumbbell Chops
Use the same weight that you had for the dumbbell swing. Hold it in your strong/dominant hand, and then wrap your weaker hand around your strong hand. Really, your second hand is just there for support.
For this exercise, your lower body is the key. You'll want to pivot your feet, or you can hurt your knees pretty badly. The first part is to swing the weight up to your shoulder. It doesn't matter which shoulder (you'll end up doing both sides anyway), but what does matter is that you pivot your feet as you do that. If you swung the dumbbell towards your right shoulder, your left heel should come off the ground, and your left knee should move down & to the right a bit. You also want your right knee to move a bit to the right and open up your hip a little bit to the right. Both of these things make it so that you're not planting all of your body weight and the dumbbell's weight on one leg and then wrenching it to the side. After enough reps, that'll hurt your knees. If you're bringing the weight up to your left shoulder, just do the reverse: right heel off the ground, right knee down and to the left, left knee to the left, and open up hip to the left a bit.
Next, you want to swing the dumbbell to the side opposite of the dumbbell. Imagine chopping down a tree with an axe (that's where the exercise gets its name). You want the dumbbell to end up about hip level when you finish your swing. Again, be sure to move your lower body. Assuming you swing the dumbbell from right shoulder to left hip, your right heel should come off the ground and your right knee should move down and to the left a bit. Your left knee should also move to the left a bit, and your hip should open up the left side. It's the exact opposite of the way you pivoted your feet when you brought the dumbbell up to your shoulder, and identical to what would have happened if you brought the weight up to your left shoulder. That also means that if you're swinging from left shoulder to right hip, the lower body movement is the same as if you were bringing the weight up to your right shoulder.
Since you want to work both sides, make sure you do half your reps from left shoulder to right hip, and half of your reps from right shoulder to left hip. The pivoting works the same way regardless of which side you start on, it's just a matter of which heel comes off the ground first. - 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 3 inches off the ground.
If you're used to doing these, you're actually supposed to jump higher than usual. That's because this was an "awesome" workout. Otherwise, the motion is unchanged from what your usual burpee.
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. - Double-Unders
Jumping rope, you want the rope to make two full revolutions each time you jump. The important part is actually the flick of your wrists, not so much how high you jump. If you worry too much about jumping higher, you’ll throw your rhythm off. - Single-Unders
This basically means jumping rope. The “single” refers to how many times the rope revolves around you each time you jump. Try to keep a steady rhythm, so that you can do all of your reps without stopping.
As always, have fun with it.
18:56 (15lb weights)
ReplyDeleteFirst day back from vacation, and I got called a sissy. =p