I missed this one, but this one is going to beat up your legs. The strength portion is all about developing explosiveness in your legs, so expect that to work the large muscles in your legs. The WOD doesn't give you too much respite, either, since you're going to do lunges and dumbbell swings. In short, be sure to warm up your lower body well, because you're going to need those muscles.
For the sake of simplicity, I only wrote out the explanation for the pause squat once, since the main difference is where the weight sits. You will have to pay more attention to posture on the front squat (it's easier to lean forward), but otherwise, the movement is largely the same.
As far as safety goes, it's all about protecting your back with good posture and good form. Keep good posture for the pause squats, both front squat and back squat, or you'll tweak your back. The same goes for the dumbbell swings. Lastly, watch your footing for the overhead dumbbell lunges, you don't want to lose your footing and drop the dumbbells. It's pretty unlikely, but better safe than sorry.
Strength
Every Minute on the Minute (for 12 minutes):
- 1 rep of a 5 second pause front squat
- 1 rep of a 5 second pause back squat
WoD
5 rounds of:
- 10 overhead dumbbell lunges (left/right = 1)
- 20 single-arm dumbbell swings (left/right = 1)
- 30 sit ups
Exercises
- Pause Squat
You'll want to weigh a barbell with as much weight as you can handle. The most I usually see anyone use is 4 sets of plates on each side, so that worked out to about 90lbs total. You need to get the bar to a racked position for both variations of this. You'll either can either rack the bar against your clavicle/shoulders in front of you (a "front rack") or resting on top of your shoulders (a "back rack").
Once you've got the bar racked, do an air squat. Make sure you keep a good lumbar curve the whole time (you can tweak your lower back otherwise), and you bend at least far enough so that your thighs are parallel to the ground. You need to pause for 5 seconds at the bottom of the squat. To make sure you're counting a proper 10 seconds, add in "thousand" after each number.
Once the 5 seconds are up, come back up to the standing "racked" position to finish the rep. You want to drive the weight up, not just stand up, so think about squeezing your glutes together to generate some momentum. It might sound a little silly, but that motion helps to really push the weight upward. Each time you come back up, that's one rep.
- Overhead Dumbbell Lunge
Grab two dumbbells. Standing, hold the weight directly over your head with your arms locked. You want your spine & the dumbbells lined up (the idea is to keep you from leaning forward on the actual rep).
From this position, step forward by doing one lunge at a time. You're going to do a bunch of these, but you have to take a step forward with both legs for a single rep (or moving left & right = 1 rep). Keep your arms locked the whole time. If you need to rest, just put down the weight rather than bending your arm.
- Single Arm Dumbbell Swing
You only need a single dumbbell; I usually see people grab 10-15lbs. Do a squat, keeping a good lumbar curve, and hold the dumbbell between your legs at about knee/thigh level. Stand up from the squat, and as you do that, swing your arm upward in an arc until your arm is directly over your head. If you do the motion correctly, your legs will drive most of the momentum, and you're essentially just standing & squatting.
Your arm should stay locked the whole time, so that you're actually swinging the dumbbell. If you start bending your arm at the elbow, you're doing more of a bicep curl. That's not what you're after in this case, so that's wasted effort.
At no point should you bend over, that can hurt your lower back. You always want to be facing forward, with a good lumbar curve. If you get tired, it's preferable to stop for a bit than to do these reps with bad form.
- Sit Ups
Keep your feet in butterfly position (heels touching each other), since that isolates your abs. Also, be sure to keep your feet planted on the ground (lifting them off the ground generates momentum that doesn't really come from 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. You have to touch your toes to get credit for the rep.
Don't bounce your hips or your legs against the ground to generate momentum. That actually generates power from your legs, rather than your core. In essence, that's cheating since you're not working your core as much that way.
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