This WOD involves doing burpees every single minute, so you'll need a timer of some sort that can beep every 60 seconds. We also capped it at 20 minutes, but if you've got the time, you can keep going until you finish all 4 rounds. The basic idea is that you have to finish all 4 rounds, but every 60 seconds, you will be interrupted by burpees. Once you finish your burpees, go back to whatever exercise you were doing. Since no one likes doing burpees, the idea is to reward a faster finish time by having to do fewer burpees. With that said, you'll need a barbell for most of the movements, and possibly a dumbbell for the sit-stands. The fastest times were 18:53 for the guys and 19:49 for the women (guys, don't read too much into that, the women usually kick our butts).
All of the exercises involving the barbell are ones that can tweak your back so be mindful of your form. However, the ones that involve you lifting the barbell over your head require an extra bit of attention, as you're going to have enough weight over your head to hurt yourself if it falls on you. I really don't want anyone to get hurt doing this, so watch your form.
Warm Up
2 rounds of:
- 25 jumping jacks
- 10 squat jumps
- 10 upward to downward
- 10 good mornings (without bar)
- 10 arm circles
WoD
4 rounds of:
- 5 strict presses
- 10 sit-stands
- 15 sumo deadlift high pulls (SDHP)
- 12 deadlifts
- 9 hang power cleans
- 6 jerks
Exercises
- Squat Jump
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.
- 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.
- Good Mornings without Bar
Stand with your legs about shoulder width apart, and put your hands on the back of your neck. Don't apply pressure (that's bad for your neck), just rest your hands there. Bend your knees slightly, and bend at the waist (as if you’re bowing) while 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.
- 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.
- Strict Press
Grab a barbell and weight it with as much weight as you can handle (most I saw was ~45lbs). Place your hands on the bar about shoulder-width apart. Hold the barbell up near your shoulders, with the weight resting on your chest/clavicle. Your palms should be facing out, so that you could see them if you look into a mirror. If you've got enough strength and flexibility in your wrists, bring your elbows straight up so that they point away from your body. This will force more of the weight against your upper torso and put more of a strain on your wrists, so only do this if you can sustain this position.
Once you've got the weight racked, lift the bar straight over head without using your legs. You are not going to dip or do a quarter squat. This is pure upper body strength, with no legs to drive the momentum. Be sure to lift the weight straight up and down, and lock out your arms at the top of the press.
- 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.
- Sumo Deadlift High Pull
You'll continue to use the barbell you were using for the presses for this exercise. Keep your feet about 1.5 shoulder widths apart, and do a squat. Keep your hands between your legs, and reach down to grab the weight without bending at the waist. You want your hands to be about thumb-width apart from each other. Come up from the squat, popping your hips forward and aggressively shrugging your shoulders as you do that. It might seem a little silly, but both of these things help you generate momentum and drive the weight, without having to just lift the bar with your arms. Finish by bringing the hand with the weight to about your chin. This is one of the few times that you want your elbows to flare out to the sides; it should look like your forearm is roughly parallel to the ground. Without bending over at the waist, squat back down to bring the dumbbell back to the ground to finish the rep.
Realistically, most people go right into the next squat/high pull; that's okay, so long as you don't compromise the curve in your lower back to do so. You can also keep yourself honest by making sure that you hear the sound of the weight hitting the ground for every rep. In essence, you're doing squats while lifting weight off the ground for every squat.
- Deadlift
Place the barbell on the floor pretty much right in front of your feet (with a full Olympic bar, you'd put your feet right underneath the bar). Stand with your feet about shoulder-width apart, and bend your knees slightly (about 20 degrees) to reach down to grab the barbell. You want your hands on the outside of your legs/knees, and you want to start with the barbell to be high enough off the ground to be about halfway up your shin (this is about the same height as an Olympic bar resting on the ground with 45lb plates on it). Keeping your head up and your chest facing forward, lift your torso a few inches until the barbell almost hit your knees. Your arms shouldn't bend at the elbows, you're just lifting your upper body with the weight conveniently attached to the upper body. Also, the weight should move in a straight vertical line, with no horizontal motion. It can help to think about it as if you're trying to skin your shins with the weight. Once the barbell is at about your knees, pop your hips forward to generate some more momentum. At the same time, contract your shoulder blades towards each other. This will naturally pull the weight up even more (again, in a straight line). You should be standing straight up with your chest out at the top of the movement. Even though it looks like you're pulling the weight up using your biceps, you should try to avoid pulling up with your arms. That actually decreases the amount of weight you can lift in the long run, and it's bad form.
- Hang Power Clean
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
- Jerk
You'll want to start with the barbell racked against your chest/clavicle. From there, do a quarter squat. Do a small hop, shoot the weight straight up, and land in a quarter squat position. The idea is to land so that you have the weight raised above your head with your arms locked, and your body in a quarter squat position. In a way, you're almost trying to get your body under the weights rather than trying to get the weights above your head. From there, stand up with the weight still above your head. Finally, bring the weights back down to the racked position to finish the rep.
- Burpees
t's a 5 step motion: 1) squat down & touch the ground, 2) kick your legs out into a push-up position, 3) do a push up, 4) jump back to the squatting position, 5) come up from squatting and jump 2 inches off the ground. Once it starts to feel normal to do this motion, you can start to make it a smoother motion by essentially dropping down into a push up position, rather than squatting and then kicking out your feet. It requires a little bit less energy, but it also requires more coordination and muscle memory.
Scale down: Step back into the push up instead of jumping. Same goes for when you go back to the squatting position (step 4); step forward instead of jumping.
Used ~45lbs, finished in 18:53
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