I had to miss this one because of meetings, but Al sent out the WOD. It's the sort of thing that's easy to write out, but you have to make sure you keep track of your reps. Essentially, you're going to alternate between hang squat cleans with dumbbells and hang power cleans with the barbell, with sit ups in between the two exercise. In case it's confusing, the difference between a high hang power clean and a high hang squat clean is mostly whether you squat down or not as part of the motion. In fact, the descriptions for the two are going to be very, very similar.
Note that if you're trying to write this out and you want to keep it simple, you can write it out as "1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 ..." For the odd numbers, do the squat cleans, and for the even numbers, do the power cleans. Each dash means 15 sit ups.
You're going to be doing Olympic style lifting for this one, so be good about your form. You're not throwing up a huge amount of weight, but bad habit are bad habits with any weight. Keep it up and you will eventually hurt yourself (your back in particular).
Warm Up
2 rounds of:
- 25 jumping jacks
- 10 bottom downs
- 10 lunges to elbow
- 10 jump squats
- 10 arm circles
WoD
In 20 minutes:
- 1 dumbbell high hang squat clean
- 15 sit ups
- 2 barbell high hang power cleans
- 15 sit ups
- 3 dumbbell high hang squat cleans
- 15 sit ups
- 4 barbell high hang power cleans
- 15 sit ups
- 5 dumbbell high hang squat cleans
- 15 sit ups
- 6 barbell high hang power cleans
- 15 sit ups
- 7 dumbbell high hang squat cleans
- 15 sit ups
- 8 barbell high hang power cleans
- 15 sit ups
- 9 dumbbell high hang squat cleans
- 15 sit ups
- 10 barbell high hang power cleans
- 15 sit ups
- 11 dumbbell high hang squat cleans
- 15 sit ups
- 12 barbell high hang power cleans
- 15 sit ups
- 13 dumbbell high hang squat cleans
- 15 sit ups
- 14 barbell high hang power cleans
- 15 sit ups
- 15 dumbbell high hang squat cleans
- 15 sit ups
- 16 barbell high hang power cleans
- 15 sit ups
- 17 dumbbell high hang squat cleans
- 15 sit ups
- 18 barbell high hang power cleans
- 15 sit ups
- 19 dumbbell high hang squat cleans
- 15 sit ups
- 20 barbell high hang power cleans
- 15 sit ups
Exercises
- Bottom Down
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.
- Lunge 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). One way to simplify this is to simply rotate your upper body to go from having the left leg forward to the right leg forward (keep your legs planted where they are). This can feel awkward at first, though, so it's up to you how you make sure you've done your reps.
- Jump Squat
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.
- 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.
- High Hang Squat Clean
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.
- High Hang Power Clean
This exercise is meant to be done with a barbell, so grab one and add an amount of weight that you're comfortable lifting. I usually see people use anywhere from 40lbs to 60lbs.
To begin with, hold the barbell 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 weight up to about chest level and bend your knees a tiny bit 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 so that you can receive the weight with the weight at your chest. Don't actually let go, that can be all sorts of bad. However, you'll find that because there's so much momentum and you're trying to "catch" the weight with your knees bent, 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. You can practice this one step at a time until the motion starts to feel more natural.
Lastly, just stand up straight while holding the weight at your chest. Once you've stood all the way up, you can drop the weight 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.
- Sit Ups
Keep your feet in butterfly position (heels touching each other), since that isolates your abs. Make sure you touch the ground when lying down/leaning back, and touch your heels when you come up. Don't pull your neck forward or bend over as you do so. That releases the contraction of your ab muscles, so gives you less of a work out.
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