This was another of the 5-10-15 AMRAP schemes, so it'll be CrossFit as usual. You may not be used to the stability ball sit ups, so give yourself a few minutes to figure out how to do them. You'll need a wall and a little bit of space, too.
For the strength portion, notice that you're supposed to do stiff legged deadlifts. That means you're not supposed to bend your knees when you do them. That uses different muscles, and I'd suggest going slowly when you do them.
This time around, the safety warning revolves around the stiff legged deadlifts, the barbell thrusters, and the weighted lunges. In all three cases, you want to look out for your back. Don't bow your back on the deadlifts, and keep a good lumbar curve on the thrusters and the lunges. You'll be fine if you stick to good form, so don't compromise your form.
Warm Up
2 rounds of:
- 25 jumping jacks
- 10 bottom downs
- 10 upward to downward
- 10 arm circles
- 10 seconds of Samson stretch (each side)
Strength
10 minutes of:
WoD
As Many Rounds As Possible (in 12 minutes) of:
- 5 thrusters
- 10 (front rack) barbell lunges (left/right = 2)
- 15 stability ball sit ups
Exercises
- Bottom Down
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.
- 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, 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.
- Arm Circle
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.
- Samson Stretch
From a standing position, put your hands straight out in front of you and interlock your fingers. Step forward into a lunge with either leg, and as you do so, stretch your interlocked hands straight up into the air above your head. Your arms should be perpendicular to your front thigh. Hold this position for 10 seconds. Come back to a standing position, then repeat this but bring your other leg forward this time. As before, hold the stretch for 10 seconds.
- Stiff Legged Deadlift
Place a 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. Without bending your knees, reach down to grab the barbell (that's what makes this a "stiff legged" deadlift). 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 hits 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.
Keeping your legs locked out, reach down to put the weight back down on the ground. You want to keep your back straight the whole time, so that there's no "rounding" of your back. That puts a lot more strain on your upper body, and can potentially hurt you.
- Thruster
Since you're already using a barbell for the hang power cleans, use the same bar for the thrusters. I usually see between 45lbs and 90lbs on the bar.
To start, hold the barbell slightly below shoulder level with both your palms facing away from your body so that you can see both palms in 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 through a lot of reps. Regardless of how high you bring your elbows, the weights are "racked" against your chest.
Keeping the barbell racked against your chest, 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 barbell directly over your head, until your arms are fully extended. Push the barbell straight up & down, since any horizontal motion will put undue stress on your shoulders.
To finish the rep, you have to bring the weight back to a rack position. 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 barbell, bring the weight back down before you start your next squat, and keep a good curve on your lower back the whole time.
- Front Rack Barbell Lunge
To start, hold the barbell slightly below shoulder level with both your palms facing away from your body so that you can see both palms in 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 through a lot of reps. Regardless of how high you bring your elbows, the weights are "racked" against your chest; this is the "front rack" position.
If you have difficulty with this or feel more comfortable with the bar resting on your back, it's safe to do that. Just make sure that you rest the bar on the muscles in your shoulders and upper back, not on your neck (that's dangerous). You also want to have full control of the bar when you go to move your legs, so adjust as necessary before you take any steps.
With the weight racked, you want to bring one leg forward in a lunge, and then bend your knees so that both your knees are bent at 90 degrees. Your front knee should be directly over your front foot, otherwise you're putting undue stress on your knees. One cue that can help some folks is to treat your lunge like you're going straight up and down with your back leg.
It's up to you if you want your back knee to touch the ground or not. Touching the ground forces you to complete the full lunge, but doing so means that you'd do your lunge slightly differently. First off, you'll want to put a mat down in front of you so that you don't end up scraping your knees every time you touch the ground. However, you really don't want your front leg to step on the mat, since that can slide as you're moving back and forth (slipping with a barbell in your hands is a BAD idea). So if you're going to make your back knee touch, step diagonally with your front foot and step OVER the corner of the mat. Again, avoiding stepping directly on top of the mat. That angle will allow you to make your back knee touch the mat, but will also give you enough stability to safely perform the exercise.
This time around, you get credit for a rep every time you bring either leg forward (or, "right/left = 2" for short).
- Stability Ball Sit Up
In some ways, this is like a poor man's version of a GHD sit up. Grab a stability ball, and roll it over near a wall. You'll want to sit on top of it so that your toes are touching the wall. In essence, you want to "anchor" yourself with the wall by not giving your feet any place to move forward. You can also do this by placing a pair of dumbbells up against the wall, and putting your feet underneath the dumbbells.
Once you're in the starting position, lean back and touch the ground behind you/over your head. You will need the muscles in your abs/core to stabilize yourself as you do this. This part can be challenging if you don't have good mobility in your core, so only go so far as you can safely control.
From there, sit up (using your abs, not your hips) and touch the wall with your hands. That's a single rep.
Scale down: If you can't reach behind you to touch the floor, you only have to lean back enough so that your body is parallel to the ground. That eases some of the strain on your abs, and doesn't require as much mobility.
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