Allan had to miss this one, but he was up really early, and he decided to forward along the WOD. Thanks, Al!
You're going to need a little bit of space for this one, because it has both box jumps and power cleans. You don't need to hog the whole gym, but you need slightly more room than if you were doing jumping jacks. As always, be slightly wary of hurting your back when you're doing any of the Olympic lifts, particularly once you're in the later rounds. The work gym where many of us do these WODs now have barbells that you can load up, so you can also get a good feel for the proper technique.
Warm Up
- 25 jumping jacks
- 10 bottom downs
- 10 jump squats
- 10 good mornings
- 10 arm circles
WoD
7 rounds for time:
- 16 single-arm dumbbell swings (8 left/8 right)
- 16 power cleans (with dumbbells or barbell)
- 16 box jumps
Exercises
- 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.
- 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.
- Good Mornings
Grab a bar: either one of the body bars or dumbbells. Standing, rest the bar on your shoulders behind your neck. Keep your feet about shoulder-width apart, and keep your legs locked. Bend at the waist (as if you’re bowing), keeping your eyes forward. Keep your back flat as you do that, and finish so that your back is parallel to the ground. Come back up to standing to finish the rep. Notice that this variation doesn't require a bend to your knees.
- 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.
- Single Arm Dumbbell Swings
You'll need a dumbbell for this (most people use 15 lbs). It doesn't matter which arm you start with, since you'll end up using both arms. Regardless of which hand you use, you want a curve in your lower back (your lumbar), as if you were sticking out your chest and bending your lower back inward towards your spine.
Do a quarter squat and put the dumbbell between your legs, right around mid-thigh. Stand up, and as you do so, swing the dumbbell in front of you, keeping your arm locked. Because it's a single dumbbell, you want to swing the dumbbell until it is perpendicular to the ground, directly above your head. Bring it back to starting position to complete the rep.
You want to maintain a good lumbar curve the whole time, and you should bend your legs as you finish a rep. If you’re bending at the waist, you’re doing it wrong, and you might hurt your back.
- Power Cleans
A single rep of a power clean is essentially a weighted squat with some hand motions thrown in. This exercise is meant to be done with barbells, so if you feel comfortable using that weight, go for it. If you aren't comfortable with that weight or the technique using a bar, switch to a pair of dumbbells. Remember, just make sure that you're comfortable with the form with whatever you use.
To begin with, put the weight on the ground in front of you (this is different than the "high hang" where you start with the weight near your thighs). Squat down to grab the weights, but remember to face forward and keep your chest facing forward. As you stand up, shrug your shoulders aggressively. I know it sounds silly, but it should be an *aggressive* shrug. You really want to build some momentum in that motion. However, 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 weight, 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 that 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 the ground 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.
- Box Jumps
Set up a platform with at least 4 risers on each side. 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 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.
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