Thursday, April 7, 2011

2011.4.7

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.

Warm Up
2 rounds of:
  • 5 Pushups
  • 10 Sit Ups
  • 15 Mountain Climbers
WoD
5 rounds of:
  • 5 Push Ups
  • 10 V-Ups
  • 15 Lunges (right/left = 1)
  • 20 Jump Box
  • 15 Thrusters
  • 10 Sit Ups
  • 5 Burpees

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."
  • 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.
  • Lunges
    Make sure you go all the way down on your lunges. In this case, each time one of your legs comes forward, that counts for one rep (or "right/left = 1," for short). Your knees don't quite have to touch the ground (you might get burns/scrapes that way), but come as close as you can to that. If you need extra support, you can use your hands to push up off of your lead leg.
  • Jump Box
    Set up a platform with stackable risers. Shoot for at least 4 risers; the most anyone uses is usually 6 risers. Before you even 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.

    When you do jump on it, you want to make sure that you stand tall once you're on the platform. If you stay hunched over the whole time, you're not getting the full effect of the exercise. One way to think about this is that you want your hips to "open up" on both the jump up and the jump down; all that really means is that your butt shouldn't be sticking out at all and your hips should be pushed forward.

    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.
  • Thrusters
    Grab two dumbbells - most guys used 15-20lbs, and most women used 8-10 lbs. Hold the weights up near your shoulders so your knuckles face away from you (this position is often called "racking" the weights). Do an air squat. 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 4-step motion: 1) squat down & touch the ground, 2) kick your legs out into a push-up position & do the push-up, 3) jump back to the squatting position, 4) come up & jump a couple of inches off the ground (touch your hands above your head).

    Since we only had to do 30 of these total, you're not allowed to scale down that much.

    Scale down: Cut out the push-up, so for steps 2 & 3, you just kick out your legs and then jump back to the squatting position Scale down some more: Instead of kicking your legs out in the second step, step back with one leg & then the other. The end result is the same, but it’s not as tough. Still no push-up
As always, have fun with it.

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