This WOD was a little special, because it happened to fall on Al's birthday. If you've never taken the class, we tend to do a WOD commemorating people's birthdays. It's always fun to help people celebrate in our way, but the WODs are usually a little tougher than usual (we don't have many 10 or 15 year olds in our class). Regardless, have fun with it if you didn't actually attend on the actual day.
You're going to need a pair of dumbbells and a platform for this WOD. You're going to use the dumbbells a lot, so make sure it's a weight you can safely handle. In particular, remember that you're going to do 350 sit ups using that dumbbell.
Speaking of dumbbells, be careful with the snatches and the cleans; they can tweak your back if you're not good about your form. Also, be sure to stomp on the platform hard once before you actually jump on it. You don't want it to move around at all once you start; that can hurt you.
Warm Up
- 25 jumping jacks
- 10 mountain climbers
- 10 arm circles
- 10 bottom downs
- 10 lunges to elbow
5 rounds of:
- 10 single arm dumbbell snatches
- 10 dumbbell cleans
- 19 jump box
- 70 sit ups with dumbbells
- 43 lunges with dumbbells
Exercises
- Mountain 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."
- 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.
- 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.
- Lunges to Elbow
This starts like any other lunge: from a standing position. Bring one leg forward in a straight line, and then bend your knees so that both your knees are bent at 90 degrees. The back knee should be close to the ground, and your front knee should be directly over your front foot (otherwise you're putting undue stress on your knees). One cue that can help some folks is to treat your lunge like you're going straight up and down with your front leg. 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.
Once your lead leg is forward and your knees are bent, reach down with your arms and touch the elbow on the side that's lunging forward to the inside of your calf. If your right leg is forward, touch your right elbow to the inside of your calf. If you can actually reach your elbow to your instep (the side of your foot), do that since that'll make it harder. Try to balance without reaching down your off hand, but if you need to, put your off-hand down on the ground to stabilize yourself.
If you need extra support, you can use your hands to push up off of the ground. Repeat the motion with the other leg coming forward to complete the rep. In other words, you have to lunge with both the right and the left leg coming forward for a single rep (or, "left & right = 1" for short)
- Single Arm Dumbbell Snatches
You'll only need one dumbbell for this. Stand with your legs shoulder-width apart, with the weight on the ground in front of you. Bring the dumbbell straight up, and aggressively shrug your shoulders (this helps generate momentum). You want to pull it straight up, so your elbow should flare out with your forearm parallel to the ground as it gets close to your chest. Once the weight comes to about chest level, squat down and raise the weight so that your arm is above your head. Again, you want the weight to travel in a straight, vertical line. A couple of cues that can help are to keep your ear close to your arm, so that you are bringing the weight straight up and down. Secondly, think of the squat as an aggressive stomp/jump to get into the squat position and keep your weight back on your heels. You can also hold your off hand out in front of you to maintain your balance.
Also remember that you want a good lumbar curve at the bottom of that squat. Just because you have weight in your hands, you don't get to cheat on your form (arguably, it's far more important then). Once you're down at the bottom of your squat with the weight directly over your head, stand up. Remember to keep your arm locked the whole time. so that the weight is above your head. It's safe to bring the weight back down to finish the rep AFTER you have completely stopped moving your feet and you are in a standing position.
The last thing to keep in mind is that you have to alternate arms for your reps, and each time you bring up the weight, that counts as a rep. In other words, if you do one with your left and one with your right, that counts as 2 reps (or "right/left = 2" for short).
- Dumbbell 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 keep using the same pair of dumbbells you've been using for all of the other exercises.
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.
- Jump Box
Use the same platform as for the hand stand push ups. 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: Jump up to the box, and then step down instead of jumping on the platform. If you do step, make sure you alternate which leg comes down off of the platform first. For today's WOD, the only people who were allowed to step up were people with medical conditions or injuries. Everyone else had to jump up.
- Sit Ups with Dumbbell
Lay on your back, and hold the dumbbell straight up in the air with one arm; your arm should be perpendicular to the ground. Keeping your arm locked and your eyes on the dumbbell, do a sit up. You will be keeping the dumbbell in the air as you move your trunk.
With these exercises, you also have to do a sit up with both arms to complete a single rep. That means that you want to alternate which arm holds the weight overhead every time you go to do a sit up.
- Lunges with Dumbbell
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. Each time one of your legs comes forward, it counts as a single rep (we call this "right/left = 2" 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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