I finally caught up from all of the work piled up from vacation, so I made it to this class. Al joked that he'd pray for me since it was my first class back after a long lay off. It was a leg work out, so be sure to get those muscles warmed up and loose; stretch as necessary, but make sure your legs are ready for a bunch of work.
You're going to be lifting weights above your head (the thrusters) and throwing a barbell around, so watch your form. Both of these exercises can hurt your back, even if you're not using a ridiculous amount of weight. Form comes first, always.
One last thing: we capped the workout at 30 minutes, but there's no reason for you to do the same if you've got the time. Many people finished in less time than that, though, so it may be a moot point anyway.
Warm Up
2 rounds of:
- 25 jumping jacks
- 10 bottom downs
- 10 upward-to-downward
- 10 jump squats
- 10 arm circles
WoD
10 rounds of:
- 10 dumbbell thrusters
- 10 power cleans
- 10 sit-stands
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.
- Upward-to-Downward
This is a lot like a "judo pushup" in reverse, if you've ever heard of that. If you're familiar with yoga at all, the starting position should look like the "upward dog." Regardless, lay face down on the ground and then lift your entire body off the ground by extending your arms, as if you were doing a push up. However, bring your upper body all the way up, so that your chest up faces forward while your lower body is still parallel to the ground. This is the starting position. From there, lower your head and bring it down and in, as if you were trying to bring it to meet your waist. This will naturally force your hips to come up, and you'll end up holding yourself off the ground with a noticeable bend at the waist (your butt will be a bit higher in the air than your chest or lower body). To go back to the starting position, lower your head towards the ground, then lower your chest and bring it forward in the same motion. It's not a straight up and down motion like a regular push up, it's more of an arc. You should also keep your lower body off the ground at all times. Continue the arc by straightening your arms and elevating your torso. When you finish the arc, your torso/chest should be facing forward with your lower body parallel to the ground. All of that is 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.
- 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.
- Dumbbell Thrusters
Grab a pair of dumbbells; everyone used at least 10lbs but there were also quite a few people who grabbed 15lb dumbbells. Start with the dumbbells at your shoulders with your palms facing each other (towards your armpits) and your knuckles facing out away from your body. You're going to be doing this in the hammer fist grip this time around (your forearm and the dumbbell make a hammer that you could swing). This is the start, or "racked" position for this exercise.
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 weights over your head, until your arms are fully extended. Push the dumbbells 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 weight back down before you start your next squat, and keep a good curve on your lower back the whole time.
- Power Cleans
You'll need a barbell for this, but remember that you're going to be doing 100 of these in total. Most people I saw used ~45lbs, if that gives you any indication of what weight to 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. Stand up, but as you do so, 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 weight up to about chest level and do a quick hop at the same time. If you were to watch the path the weight travels, it should be as close to your body as possible, and as close to completely vertical as possible. If the weight travels 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 weight 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 with your knees slightly bent and the weight 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 hop, 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 completely while holding the weight at your chest. You basically just need to straighten your legs out, but you don't want to do this step until you've got full control of the weight. Once you stand all the way up, you can drop the weight back down to the ground to start over (if you want to slow this down, drop your hands/barbell to your waist, then squat down to put the weight down). That's the end of a single rep. Now all that's left is to put it all together in a smooth motion.
- Sit-Stands
Lie down on your back, and keep the soles of your feet flat on the ground. Aggressively swing/throw your arms in front of your legs, and then stand straight up. The momentum from the swing will help with this motion, so make sure you really throw your hands hard. Standing up is going to be all legs, though. Go back down to lying down to finish the rep.
If you're finding it hard to drive yourself upward to stand, one thing that can help is to stomp your feet into the ground as you're throwing your arms forward. This basically lets you push off the ground with your feet, so it can get you that extra bit of momentum to stand up.
Even so, this is an awkward motion for most people, so using some weight helps. Most people grabbed roughly 15lbs of weight (dumbbell, medicine ball, doesn't matter), and used that to help with the balance. You want to make sure that the weight is in front of you and it acts as a counter-balance as the rest of your body follows the path of the weight. Think of the weight as pulling your weight forward a little bit as you're standing up; that's why you want an aggressive throw.
Scale down: If you can't stand in a single motion, you can do a sit up, and then use one hand to help push yourself off the ground. Be very careful with where you place your hand, you don't want to twist a wrist the wrong way and then apply your whole body weight to it. It's almost preferable to do this part slowly to prevent injury.
15 lb dumbbells, 45 lbs on the bar. Finished in 27:42
ReplyDelete