2011.2.8

I was in meetings on Tuesday, so some of the movements don't have descriptions till I can talk to Al.

This workout is all about isolation. From experience I recommend starting with your weak arm first.

---

Warm Up
2 rounds of:

• 5 Pushups
• 10 Sit ups
• 15 Squats

WoD
8 rounds (4 rounds using your weak arm, 4 rounds using your strong arm):

• 25 Single-Arm Dumbbell Pull
• 25 Single-Arm Dumbbell Press
• 25 Dumbbell Chops
• 25 Push ups with 1 hand on box

---

Exercises

• Push Ups
  Bring your chest to the ground for every single rep, and when you come up, make sure your arms are fully extended.
  
  Scale down: Do the push ups on your knees. You lift less weight this way, so it's easier.
• 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.
• Air Squats
  Make sure that when you go down, your bottom ends up closer to the ground than your knees (this is called "breaking parallel"). If you have to do your squats slower to accomplish this, that's fine. 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. Scale down: If you can't squat that far, you should aim to end up with your thighs parallel to the ground at the bottom of your squat.
• Single-Arm Dumbbell Pull
  TBA
• Single-Arm Dumbbell Press
  Grab a single weight (12lbs for guys, 8 lbs for women). Hold the weight up near your clavicle (shoulder, essentially), with your palms facing away from you. That's the "racked" position.
  
  Do a quarter squat, and press the dumbbell directly over your head as you come up. At the top of your motion, you want your arm to be fully extended and your legs completely straightened out. Your legs should generate the momentum to drive the weights up, not your arm. Make sure you move the weights directly up & down; if you start moving the horizontally, you'll put extra stress on your shoulders. Bring the dumbbell back to beginning/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. So long as you fully extend the dumbbell and keep a good curve on your lower back, that’s fine.
• 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.
• Push ups with 1 hand on box
  TBA

As always, have fun with it.