This one was a partner WOD. It's a fairly simple WOD in terms of the movements, but the twist was that both partners had to take turns doing the movement before you could move on to the next one. So one person starts with the push ups, then the next person does the push ups. Then you move on to the sit ups, taking turns there again. Keep repeating this for the full 20 minutes. This does two things: it gives you a bit of rest every time, and puts peer pressure on you to not slow your partner down. You can decide whether this means you actually work harder during the WOD, but knowing myself, I'd probably end up trying very hard not to slow my partner down.
There are only three movements in this WOD, but the dumbbell cleans are one during which you want to emphasize your form. Like I keep saying, you don't necessarily need heavy weights to tweak your back; doing a lot of reps with poor form can do the trick as well. So avoid that risk by keeping good form throughout. You really don't want to tweak your back.
WoD
As Many Rounds As Possible (in 20 minutes) of:
- 5 push ups
- 10 sit ups
- 15 dumbbell cleans
Exercises
- Push Ups
Bring your chest to the ground for every single rep, and when you come up, make sure your arms are fully extended.
- Sit Ups
Keep your feet in butterfly position (heels touching each other), since that isolates your abs. Come all the way up, but don't pull on your neck or lean forward. Doing either of those things reduces the work that your abs have to do.
- 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 being with, put the weights 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 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.
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