Obviously, this one is from a while back. I have a backlog of these to go through, and I'm working my way through them. You'll need a platform with one riser on it for the toe taps, but otherwise, the WOD is all body weight. This one is going to be quite a bit of cardio and leg work, since the toe taps and squats are going to add up. Make sure you stretch and warm up those muscles well.
For the WOD, you have to do all 100 toe taps before you start on the push ups, sit ups, and air squats. Then, once you've done your 10 rounds of those, you have to finish with 100 consecutive toe taps. In other words, start and finish with the toe taps. You can't break them up, either. You have to do 100 of them in a row. It's only the 10 rounds in the middle that will make you switch from exercise to exercise.
As far as safety goes, the strength portion is the biggest concern. Protect your back by keeping strict form on the hang squat cleans and the front squats. You really don't want to tweak your back doing these, and the best way to prevent that is to be really good about your form (in particular, keep a good lumbar curve). You'll also want to watch where you're stepping for the toe taps, but that's less of a concern.
Strength
For 12 minutes:
WoD
- 100 toe taps (left/right = 2)
- 10 rounds of:
- 5 push ups
- 10 sit ups
- 15 air squats
- 100 toe taps (left/right = 2)
Cash Out
- 100 windshield wipers (left/right = 1)
Exercises
- Hang Clean
The starting position for this is with the barbell around mid-thigh in front of you, with a slight bend to your waist (this position is considered a "high hang" so that's where the name comes from). Obviously, though, you have to get the barbell there from the ground somehow. The safest way to do this is actually to deadlift the barbell. In essence, keep your chest up, squat down, and then lift the barbell from the ground using your legs (not your back).
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 weight travels, it should be completely vertical. 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 barbell 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 slightly 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.
- Front Squat
Hold the barbell at about shoulder level, with your palms facing away from your body so that you could see both palms in a mirror. In a sense, the weights are "racked" against your chest. 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 through lots and lots of reps. Regardless of how high you bring your elbows, the weights are "racked" against your chest.
Keeping the barbell in this position, do a squat. The same rules apply as always: keep a good lumbar curve while you do this, keep your weight on your heels, keep your head up & look forward, and keep your chest facing forward (don't bend over). With weight in your hands, these cues become more important. If you do enough reps poorly, you can tweak your back. Incidentally, this is also why we try to learn good from with air squats; so that it's habit by the time you put weight in your hands.
- Toe Tap
Set up a platform with one riser in front of you. From a standing position, bring one leg up and tap your toe on the platform. Bring that leg back down to the starting position, and tap the other leg/toes on the platform. You want to try to do this as quickly as possible, but it might take a few reps for you to start to get a rhythm. Ideally, you want to stay on your toes the whole time, so that you can quickly switch from one toe tap to the next.
This time around, you get credit for a rep every time you touch the platform with either leg (or "left/right = 2" for short).
- Push Up
You want your entire body straight/rigid, without a bend at the waist, and you want to maintain this position the whole time. If you start dropping your waist, you're not doing it right. Bring your chest to the ground for every single rep, and when you come up, make sure your arms are fully extended.
- Sit Up
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.
- Air Squat
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.
- Windshield Wiper
Lie on your back, and lift your feet so that they’re perpendicular to the ground. Your body should make an "L" shape at this point. Without lifting your back off the ground, swing your legs to one side without touching the ground. That will force your obliques to stabilize and lift your legs. Bring your legs back to the middle, and then repeat the motion to the other side. This time around, that’s 1 rep.
If you have a body bar (or a weight of about 10-15lbs), you can use that to keep yourself from cheating. While you're lying on your back, hold that directly above your chest with your arms fully extended. Don't move the bar/weight from its initial position, and don't rotate your upper body to counter the rotation of your lower body. Keeping that bar in place will show you that you're using your abs instead of your chest & upper body.
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