Al had to miss this one, so he sent us the WOD. It's pretty much all legs, so be absolutely sure to warm up your lower body before hand. Incidentally, make sure to go slowly on the bottom downs and the squat jumps, so that you do precisely that. For the box jumps, you want to jump onto the box and then jump off to the other side. Essentially, you're hopping forward and backward from one side of the platform to the other.
Be careful when doing both the box jumps and the thrusters. The former can mess up your shins/legs if you lose your footing or don't quite make the jump. The latter involves you lifting weight over your head, and that always involves a slightly higher element of risk. Also, you don't want to screw up your back with poor form.
Warm Up
2 rounds of:
- 25 jumping jacks
- 10 bottom downs
- 10 jump squats
- 10 good mornings
- 10 shoulder rolls
WoD
As Many Rounds As Possible (in 12 minutes) of:
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 three seconds, 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 three seconds 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
This one starts like a normal air squat, from a standing position with your feet about shoulder-width apart. Make sure that when you go down, your thighs are at least parallel to the ground. If you can, squat farther down than parallel, so that your bottom ends up closer to the ground than your knees (i.e., "break parallel"). You want to keep your weight on your heels the whole time, that will help ensure you keep a good lumbar curve & will help with any potential balance issues. For some people, it helps to look up at about 45 degrees to ensure you're not leaning forward & straining your lower back. To ensure this happens, you can throw your hands up to 45 degrees and focus your eyes on your hands on each rep. However, 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 and weight so that you can do a lot of reps with it (~45lbs is pretty common). Standing, rest the bar on your shoulders behind your neck. You'll want to squeeze your shoulder blades together, and keep your hands slightly wider than shoulder-width apart. 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. Your back needs to be flat as you do that, and you should 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.
- Shoulder Rolls
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.
- Jump Box and Over
You'll need to set up a platform with risers; most people use at least 2, but I've seen up to 5 on occasion. 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.
In this case, you want to jump down on the other side of the box. In essence, jump forward when you're on top of the platform, so that you land on the other side. When you land, you want to have a slight bend to your knees, so that you aren't taking the full brunt of your weight hitting the ground in a stiff-legged position. That can hurt your knees.
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.
- Dumbbell Thrusters
Grab a pair of dumbbells; this time around, go as heavy as you want (the most I usually see is people using 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.
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