Secondly, the explanations are going to be a bit wordy, so bear with me. Oh, and just for kicks, you finish with a Tabata with a hold for 3 different types of ab exercises, complete with a punishment if you mess up the hold. You should've heard the groans going around the room.
The WoD requires doing exercises at the beginning of every minute, so you're either going to need some sort of a timer or someone else is going to have to watch time for you. Take the first 10 minute group: at the beginning of every minute, you have to do 20 jump boxes. Once you finish those 20, you do burpees with dumbbells until that minute is up. So if it takes you 25 seconds to finish the 20 jumps, you have 35 seconds to do as many burpees with dumbbells as you can. Once you hit the 60 second mark, you switch right back to jump boxes. Repeat this until you have done a total of 50 burpees or the 10 minutes are up. If you finish in less than 10 minutes, you can rest for the remainder of that 10 minutes. This effectively punishes you for going slower, since it forces you to do more jumps the longer you take.
For the Tabata at the end (those four words should never be used in that sequence), there were a few twists. A normal Tabata involves 20 seconds of doing as many reps as you can, followed by 10 seconds of rest, with that 20-10 sequence repeated 8 times in a row for every exercise. This version substituted the 10 second rest for holding a static position in which your muscles were contracted. In this case, every one of them involved keeping your legs off the ground, since they were all some form of ab exercise. The final twist was that if your legs hit the ground before the 10 second hold was up, your very next 20 second round of work would be burpees. And just to make sure it really was a punishment, you had to do at least 4 burpees in the 20 seconds, so you couldn't just goof off during the punishment burpee round. Surprise, surprise, everyone kept their legs off the ground.
Warm Up
2 rounds of:
- 25 jumping jacks
- 5 T push ups (right/left = 1)
- 10 V-ups
- 10 squat jumps
- 10 bottom downs
- 10 cherry pickers
WoD
For 10 minutes:
- At the beginning of every minute, 20 jump box
- 50 burpees with dumbbells
For 10 minutes: (we only got through 5 minutes)
- At the beginning of every minute, 40 step ups
- 75 thrusters with dumbbells
- 8 rounds of: 20 seconds of sit ups, 10 seconds of 45 degree hold
- 8 rounds of: 20 seconds of elbow-to-knees, 10 seconds of elbow-to-knee hold
- 8 rounds of: 20 seconds of leg lifts, 10 seconds of holding a leg lift
(We only got through 4 rounds of this)
Exercises
- T Push Ups
Drop down on in to a push up position, and lower your body until your chest hits the ground. Push your body up off the ground, but as your arms start to get fully extended, lift one of them off of the ground. Rotate your torso towards the side where you lifted the arm, so that you are now facing sideways rather than towards the ground. At the same time, extend the arm you lifted straight up in the air. This is actually where the name comes from: at full extension, your body will make something of a T-shape. Lower your arm and rotate your torso back in to a regular push up position. Repeat this motion by lifting your other arm in to the air to complete a single rep. - V Ups
Lie on your back, putting your 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. Because you're lifting less weight with your abs, it takes some of the strain off of your core. - Squat Jumps
Do a normal air squat, but as you come up to finish the squat, jump straight up in to the air. You finish the rep when you land and reset yourself. It's not uncommon for people to go right in to the next squat, though. This is okay so long as you're not bending over and losing the lumbar curve in the process. Basically, you don't get to cheat on your form because you're jumping. - Bottom Downs
From a standing position, reach down and touch your toes. Without letting go of your toes, squat down in to a full squat. You may have to rotate your feet a tad in order to be able to get down in to a proper squat. Hold the bottom of this position for a beat, and then stand up without letting go of your toes. Your feet should be as close to locked out as possible, so that you're essentially bending down to reach your toes. Hold that position for a beat in order to finish the rep. The idea behind the hold is to ensure that you don't cheat by only coming up or squatting down part of the way. - Cherry Pickers
Start standing, with your feet a little farther apart than shoulder width. Reach down and tap the ground in front of one of your feet (it doesn't matter which). Without coming up, tap the ground directly in front of you and then tap the ground in front of your other foot. Then bring your torso all the way up, to release all of the tension in your back. It feels a little bit like you're swinging your torso in a giant circle. Since you have to do 10 of these, do 5 of them going left-to-right, and then 5 of them going right-to-left. The order doesn't matter so long as you go in both directions. - 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 hips should be pushed forward once you're standing on top of the box.
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. - Burpees with Dumbbells
If you know what a man-maker is, this is actually similar to that. Grab two dumbbells, and hold them at your sides. It’s a 4-step motion: 1) squat down & touch the dumbbells to the ground, 2) kick your legs out into a push-up position & do the push-up, 3) jump back to the squatting position, 4) stand tall with the weights at your side. You don't have to jump at the end like you normally do, but you do have to stand tall. This is what keeps you from cheating, since you can't stand tall and only come part of the way up at the same time. Scale down: Instead of jumping into a push up position in the second step, step back with one leg & then the other. The end result is the same, but it’s not as tough. - Step Ups
Lower your platform so that you're only using one riser on each side. Step up onto the platform, one leg at a time, and then come back down one leg at a time. Stepping up with both legs & stepping down with both legs counts as a single rep. The faster you do this, the more it feels like a "quick feet" exercise.
Even though it's only 1 riser, make sure you look down as you're doing this. After a while, your legs can feel tired enough where you'll slip if you're not careful. - Thrusters
Use the same weights that you were using for the burpees. Hold the weights up near your shoulders. The traditional start has your knuckles facing away from you and the weights resting against the upper part of your chest (this position is often called "racking" the weights). You can also hold them with your palms facing towards each other in a hammer curl position, if you like. The hammer curl position is technically a little bit easier.
Do an air squat so that your thighs end up parallel to the ground; if you can "break parallel," that's even better. 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. - Sit Ups
Keep your feet in butterfly position (heels touching each other), since that isolates your abs. Come up to about 45 degrees for each rep – it forces your abs to stay contracted, so it works them harder. Any more or any less, and you're doing less work. - Sit Up Hold
This is a little bit like a V-Up, if you're used to those. Lay down on the ground, and extend both your arms and legs away from your body. Raise both of them to about a 45 degree angle, then hold yourself in that position for 10 seconds. Remember, you're not allowed to drop your legs to the ground or else you have to do burpees. - 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. - Elbow to Knee Hold
Lie on your back with your hands behind your head. Touch your elbow to your opposite knee; for example, touch your right elbow to your left knee. In this case, your right leg would be extended straight out in the air. You can't let that leg hit the ground. Make sure to alternate, so that you have a different leg in the air every time you do the 10 second hold. Again, if that leg drops to the ground, you're on the hook for burpees. - Leg Lifts
Lie down on your back. Put your hands behind your butt for added support. Lift your legs up, and then bring them back down for a rep. Be sure not to simply let your legs fall to the ground on the tail end of the rep. You want to control the motion both on the way up and on the way down. Over time, you can hurt your back if you just let your legs slam to the ground. - Leg Lift Hold
This is pretty much the same as a regular leg lift, only you keep your legs a couple of inches off of the ground for 10 seconds. You don't bring them down until the 10 seconds are up, forcing your abs to contract to carry the weight of your legs. The same rule applies here as for the other holds: if your legs hit the ground before 10 seconds are up, you have to do burpees.
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