This one had a skill portion as well as a WOD. If you can set up a platform on risers, that's the simplest way to set up for an L-sit. I've also seen people use benches or parallettes, though that last one is far less common in your typical gym.
As far as safety goes, the power cleans are your biggest concern. Keep your form absolutely strict for those to protect your lower back from injury. You also want to make sure you don't lean forward on your dips, or you'll put undue stress on your shoulders. For the most part, though, it's just CrossFit as usual.
Skill
- Max L-sit (4 attempts)
WoD
As Many Rounds As Possible (in 10 minutes) of:
- 5 power cleans
- 10 dips
- 15 V-Ups
Exercises
- L Sit
There are a couple of different ways to do this, depending on how much equipment you have around. If you can grab some risers, sit down and set up a platform with 5 risers on either side of you. Put one arm on each platform with your fingers facing forward. From a sitting position, lift your body off the ground using your arms and keep your legs straight out in front of you. Your body will make the shape of an L (hence the name), but it feels a bit like holding a dip.
If you don't have any platforms available, you can do the same exercise on the ground. This gives you a little less height on the sit so you have a smaller margin for error, but that also means you can't hold the sit in as deep a position. It's not necessarily easier or harder this way, just a little bit different.
For the skills portion, count the number of seconds you're able to hold the L-sit. A watch or a timer is incredibly helpful in this scenario. As soon as your feet touch the ground, that's your score.
Scale down: If it's too hard for you to hold your feet straight out in front of you, you can bend your knees and bring them closer to your chest. That takes some of the pressure off your core and triceps, because your legs help carry some of the weight.
- Power Clean
You'll need a barbell for this, and you'll want to weight it fairly heavily. I usually see between ~45lbs and ~90lbs.
To begin with, put the weight 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 weight up to about chest level and do a quick hop at the same time. If you were to watch the path the weight travels, it should be as close to your body as possible, and as close to completely vertical as possible. 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 weight 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 with your knees slightly bent and the weight at your chest. Don't actually let go of the weight, that can be all sorts of bad. However, you'll find that because it's a quick hop, 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 that it feels natural.
Lastly, just stand up completely while holding the weight at your chest. You basically just need to straighten your legs out, but you don't want to do this step until you've got full control of the weight. Normally, you would then put the bar back down on the ground to finish the rep, but in this case, you are considered done when you stand tall with the weight racked at your chest/clavicle. All that's really left is to put it all together in a smooth motion.
- Dip
Set up a platform with risers; most people usually use at most 5 risers, though remember that your height makes a difference. For this movement, adding risers makes it harder, because the platform denotes how far you have to dip your body weight.
Position yourself so your arms are holding you up/off the edge of your platform, with your legs straight out in front of you. You should just be barely forward of the platform; your butt should practically touch the platform as you do your reps. If you come forward too far, you'll put unnecessary strain on your shoulders.
Lower yourself so that your butt touches the ground, and then raise yourself back to the starting position. That's 1 rep. If you do the exercise properly, you'll feel the exercise the most in your triceps.
Scale down: Bend your legs, and put your feet flat on the ground before doing your dips. Since you're lifting less weight this way, this makes the dips easier
- V-Up
Lie on your back, putting our hands parallel to the ground "above" your head (if you were standing, they’d be directly over your head). Lift your legs off the ground and bring your torso up at the same time to touch your toes. In essence, your body makes a "V" shape. Go back to lying on your back to finish the rep. Be careful about slamming your legs into the ground when you finish the rep, that can hurt your lower back. Some people call these "jack knives," if that helps at all.
Scale down: Bend your knees as your bring your lower body up. You only have to touch your knees this way
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