I tend to have a lot of meetings on Thursdays, so I had to miss this one. Al also happened to miss this one, so he sent the WOD to everyone. This one is pretty straight forward as far as the format goes, but you'll have to do some complex movements. If you haven't done power cleans or dead lifts before, do a few reps to get the feel for them first. Even with relatively low weight, you can tweak your back or pull a hamstring.
Even though this seems like it's a work out that's geared towards your upper body, be absolutely sure to warm up your lower body before you start. The deadlifts require your lower body to be limber, and both the power cleans and thrusters are essentially squats on steroids. If you do these exercises like you're supposed to do them, you will definitely work your lower body. So, be good about warming up your legs so you don't hurt yourself.
WoD
As Many Rounds As Possible in 20 minutes of:
- 4 deadlifts (with dumbbells)
- 3 hang power cleans
- 2 weighted squats
- 1 thrusters
Exercises
- Deadlifts with Dumbbells
Grab two dumbbells, and place them on the floor pretty much right in front of your feet. Stand with your feet about shoulder-width part, and keep a slight bend in your knees (about 20 degrees). Keeping your head up and your chest facing forward, lift your torso a few inches until the dumbbells almost hit your knees. Your arms shouldn't bend at the elbows, you're just lifting your upper body with the weights conveniently attached to the upper body. Also, the dumbbells should move in a straight vertical line, with no horizontal motion. It can help to think about it as if you're trying to skin your shins with the weight.
Once the weights are at about your knees, pop your hips forward to generate some more momentum. At the same time, contract your shoulder blades towards each other. This will naturally pull the weights up even more (again, in a straight line). You should be standing straight up with your chest out at the top of the movement. Even though it looks like you're pulling the weight up using your biceps, you should try to avoid pulling up with your arms. That actually decreases the amount of weight you can lift in the long run, and it's bad form.
- Hang Power Cleans
A single rep of a squat clean is essentially a weighted squat with some hand motions thrown in. This particular version is with a pair of dumbbells, so grab a weight that's comfortable (you'll end up doing a whole bunch of them for the WoD).
To begin with, hold one dumbbell in each hand, with your hands down near your thighs (this position is considered a "high hang" so that's where the name comes from). From that position, shrug your shoulders. I know it sounds silly, but it should be an *aggressive* shrug. You really want to build some momentum in that motion. Remember, though, keep your arms locked as you're doing this, or you'll end up doing more of a curl. If you need to make sure you've got it down, practice just that part of it a few times.
The next step, starting from the shrugged shoulder position, is to quickly bring the dumbbells up to about chest level and squat down at the same time. If you were to watch the path the weights travel, it should be completely vertical. If the weights travel in an arc away from your body, you're doing it wrong. Your hands don't lift the weight as much as they adjust themselves to hold the weight differently. At the end of this motion, you should have your palms facing away from your body, as if you were "racking" the dumbbells near your chest/clavicle.
You can almost think of it as letting go of the weight in midair, and positioning your body underneath the weight so that you end up in a squat with the dumbbells at your chest. Don't actually let go of the dumbbells, that can be all sorts of bad. However, you'll find that because it's a quick squat down, you're pretty much jumping into it. At the same time, your hands will suddenly shoot up to hold the weight at your chest.
As always, keep a good lumbar curve. You don't want to bend over as you do this. If you do it wrong repeatedly or with a heavy enough weight, your lower back will pay for it. Again, practice just the squat motion a few times so it feels natural.
Lastly, just stand up while holding the weight at your chest. Once you've stood all the way up, you can drop the weights back down to thigh-level to start over. That's the end of a single rep. Now all that's left is to put it all together in a smooth motion.
- Weighted Squats
Using the same two weights that you've used for everything else, hold the weights on top of your shoulders. From this position, do an air squat. Make sure you keep a good lumbar curve the whole time (you can tweak your lower back otherwise), and you bend at least far enough so that your thighs are parallel to the ground. Come back up to the standing "racked" position to finish the rep.
- Thrusters
You'll need the same two dumbbells for this. 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).
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 dumbbells 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.
No comments:
Post a Comment