Unfortunately, I had to miss this WOD, as well. Luckily, Al sent everyone the WOD, warm up included. It's a fairly simple one in terms of structure, but you'll need to set up a platform and some dumbbells before hand.
Warm Up- 25 jumping jacks
- 5 T push ups
- 10 jump squats
- 10 bottom downs
- 10 arm circles
- 10 second Samson stretch
5 rounds of:
- 10 burpees over box
- 20 dumbbell cleans
- 30 weighted lunges (left/right = 2)
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.
- Jump Squats
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. 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.
- Arm Circles
From a standing position, rotate your arm without extending your arm away from you. You're essentially making a windmill of your arm. Do this in both a clockwise and counter-clockwise motion for each arm, so that you fully warm up & stretch the muscles. Most people just do 10 rotations forward with one arm, 10 rotations backward with the same arm, and then they repeat this with the other arm.
- Samson Stretch
From a standing position, interlace your fingers and stretch out your hands directly in front of you. Next, lunge forward with one leg and raise your interlaced fingers/hands directly over your head as you do so. For the leg that lunges forward, make sure to keep your knee directly over your front foot, or you will be putting undue stress on your knees. Hold the lunge for 10 seconds, then come back up to the starting position and bring your hands back down. You want to stretch both sides, so alternate legs: bring your other leg forward while you interlace your hands and raise them above your head. Hold that for another 10 seconds, then come back to the starting position to finish the stretch.
- Burpees over box
If you're used to regular burpees, the only real difference is you jump on to your platform at the end of it. It's up to you how many risers you use, but you'll have to do 50 total reps.
If you're unfamiliar with the technique, it's a 6 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 onto your platform, 6) jump back off to finish the rep. Once it starts to feel normal to do this motion, you can start to make it a smoother motion by essentially dropping down into a push up position, rather than squatting and then kicking out your feet. It requires a little bit less energy, but it also requires more coordination and muscle memory.
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.
Scale down more: Step up & down from the platform instead of jumping.
- Dumbbell Squat 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. 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 Lunges
Hold the weights at your side, one on each side. You can also hold them on top of your shoulders, if that feels more comfortable. The idea is to weigh yourself down with the weights, so both ways work.
Do a lunge with either leg forward, and then do a lunge with the opposite leg forward. Both of your legs have to come forward for it to count as a single rep (we call this "right/left = 1" for short). Make sure that you bring your front leg forward far enough that your knee isn't farther forward than your foot; that puts undue stress on your knee. Also make sure to plant the heel of the leg that comes forward, and bring the knee of the back leg (the one that's bending) as close to the ground as possible.
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