For the WoD, as always, pay attention to your form.
Warm Up
2 rounds of:
- 25 Jacks
- 10 Shoulder rolls (forward and back)
- 10 hollow rocks
- 10 Downward to upward dog
WoD
4 rounds on your weak side:
- 25 Single-Arm Dumbbell Swing
- 25 Single-Arm Dumbbell Chops
- 25 Single-Arm Dumbbell Pull
- 10 Sit stand
- 25 Single-Arm Dumbbell Swing
- 25 Single-Arm Dumbbell Chops
- 25 Single-Arm Dumbbell Pull
- 10 V-Ups with Dumbbell
Exercises
- Hollow Rocks
Start laying down on your back. Extend your arm and legs straight up towards the ceiling. Now rock forward and back on your butt. Do not let your hands or feet touch the ground. You should aim to get to a 45 degree angel with either your hands or feet. Forward and back is 1. - Single-Arm Dumbbell Swing
Just like a kettle bell throw, but with a dumbbell (guys used 15-25lbs, women used 10-15lbs). 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 until your arm is almost 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. At no point should you bend over, that can hurt your lower back. If you get tired, it's preferable to stop for a bit than to do these reps with bad form. - Single-Arm 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. - Single-Arm Dumbbell Pull
This motion starts out very much like a dumbbell swing, if you're used to that. Use the same dumbbell that you used for the lunges. Do a squat, and keeping a good lumbar curve, 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/outward away from your body. Before the weight gets above your waist, pull the dumbbell straight back, as if you're pulling it toward your shoulder. The weight should finish at about shoulder level. Put the weight back down to finish the rep. If you do the motion correctly, the weight will swing away from you a little bit on each rep, so that you're not just pulling the weight straight up and down. - Situp to Stand (Sit/Stand)
Lie down on your back, and keep the soles of your feet flat on the ground. Aggressively swing/throw your arms in front of your legs, and then stand straight up. The momentum from the swing will help with this motion, so make sure you really throw your hands hard. Standing up is going to be all legs, though. Go back down to lying down to finish the rep.
This is an awkward motion for most people, so using some weight helps. Most people grabbed roughly 15lbs of weight (dumbbell, medicine ball, doesn't matter), and used that to help with the balance. Think of the weight as pulling your weight forward a little bit as you're standing up; that's why you want an aggressive throw.
Scale down: If you can't stand in a single motion, you can do a sit up, and then use one hand to help push yourself off the ground. Be very careful with where you place your hand, you don't want to twist a wrist the wrong way and then apply your whole body weight to it. It's almost preferable to do this part slowly to prevent injury. - V-Ups with Weight
Lie on your back, arms and legs extended parallel to the ground. Swing the weight up and bring your legs up at the same time, so that they both end up perpendicular to the ground. You’re supposed to touch the weight to your legs.
Scale down: Bend your knees, and only bring the weight to your knees when you come up. You're lifting less weight this way, so it's easier.
As always, have fun with it.
24:50. Had to scale down the core work to plain-old V-ups both times.
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