2011.4.14

WOWA! Sorry for the delay... been busy and haven't had a lot of free time recently. I am catching up on three weeks of WoDs, so please bear with me.

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Warm Up

• 25 Jumping Jacks
• 2 rounds of:
  • 5 Pushups
  • 10 Sit Ups
  • 15 Mountain Climbers

WoD
1 round of:

• 30 Sit ups
• 30 Elbows-to-knees
• 30 V-Ups
• 30 Squat Jump to Box
• 30 Burpees
• 30 Sit ups
• 30 Elbows-to-knees
• 30 V-Ups
• 15 Single arm thruster (weak side)
• 15 Single arm thruster (strong side)
• 30 Sit ups
• 30 Elbows-to-knees
• 30 V-Ups

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Exercises

• Pushups
  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.
• Mountian 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.
  
  Both of your legs have to come forward one time to complete a single rep. For simplicity's sake, we describe that as "right/left = 1."
• 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.
  
  Scale down: Leave out the bicycle kicks.
• 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
• Squat Jumps
  You need to set up a platform with stackable risers. You're going to use this as a guide for your squats, so use as many risers as necessary for you to squat deeper than parallel. That means that at the bottom of your squat, your bottom will be closer to the ground than your knees. For most people, that was 3 or 4 risers, depending on height.
  
  Once you've done that, stand in front of your platform. Do a squat so that your bottom touches the platform. If you don't feel the platform, you didn't go low enough. When you come up, jump up at least an inch off the ground (shoot for 2 if you can).
  
  The platform forces you to go all the way down, and the jump forces you to come all the way up on your reps. The idea is to counter any bad habits that you may have built up.
• 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.
• Single Dumbbell Thruster
  Grab a dumbbell (guys used 15-25lbs, women used 10-15lbs), and hold it near your shoulder in the "racked" position. Do a full air squat (if you can, go lower). As you come up, press the dumbbell over your head, until your arm is fully extended. Push the weight straight up & down, since any horizontal motion will put undue stress on your shoulder. 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 dumbbell and bring the weight back down before you start your next squat. You also want to keep a good curve on your lower back the whole time.

As always, have fun with it.