I like to think of this one as "fun with power cleans." The strength portion involves a bunch of technique for doing power cleans correctly, and then the WOD lets you implement that technique for some more power cleans. Sure, there are some sit ups and thrusters thrown in, too, but the main idea is to work on those cleans.
Given that intro, it's probably no surprise that the cleans are the greatest focus area for this WOD. The whole point of this is to focus on getting the technique right, so really pay attention to your form for those reps. The same is true, to a lesser degree, for the dumbbell thrusters, since you can also tweak your back if you do those poorly. In either case, stick to good form so you don't get hurt.
Strength
10 minutes of:
WoD
As Many Rounds As Possible (in 12 minutes) of:
- 8 power cleans
- 8 dumbbell thrusters (hammer fist grip)
- 8 sit ups
Exercises
- Position 1 Clean
Essentially, this is a very specific type of hang power clean. "Position 1" just refers to the starting position. So, grab a barbell, and weight it as heavily as you can handle. I usually see between 45lbs and 90lbs.
You need to get the barbell up from the ground, and the safest way to do this is actually to deadlift the barbell. In essence, keep your chest up, bend down, and then lift the barbell from the ground using your legs (not your back). Once you've got the barbell hanging from your arms in front of you, slide the barbell down your thighs until they're at about the middle of your thigh (you're only going to move the bar a couple of inches). You will have a slight bend to your knees, but it won't be very exaggerated. This is "position 1," and that's where the name comes from. Squeeze your shoulder blades together at this point, and keep your chest up.
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.
- Position 2 Clean
Essentially, this is a very specific type of hang power clean. "Position 2" just refers to the starting position. So, grab a barbell, and weight it as heavily as you can handle. I usually see between 45lbs and 90lbs.
You need to get the barbell up from the ground, and the safest way to do this is actually to deadlift the barbell. In essence, keep your chest up, bend down, and then lift the barbell from the ground using your legs (not your back). Once you've got the barbell hanging from your arms in front of you, slide the barbell down your thighs until they're at about the middle of your thigh (you're only going to move the bar a couple of inches). You will have a slight bend to your knees, but it won't be very exaggerated. Squeeze your shoulder blades together at this point, and keep your chest up (this is position #1).
From there, stick your butt out just a little bit, and slide the bar down a little bit more so that it's an inch or so above your knee. Your torso will feel like it is "over" the bar, even though your chest should still be facing forward. By going a little bit lower, you've basically forced yourself to use proper technique to get back to, and past, position 1. If you had any kinks in your movement when doing cleans from position 1, this will expose them just a tad. This, incidentally, is position 2.
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.
- Position 3 Clean
Essentially, this is a very specific type of power clean. "Position 3" just refers to the starting position. So, grab a barbell, and weight it as heavily as you can handle. I usually see between 45lbs and 90lbs.
The barbell needs to be at about mid-shin. If you're using an Olympic barbell and heavy plates, that means that the bar is on the ground. You're going to work your way back up to position 2 and position 1 as the bar travels upward, but you have to do so with proper form. So, to begin, squat down and grab the bar with a grip wider than shoulder-width apart. Keep your chest up the whole time and keep a good lumbar curve. Basically, don't look at the ground as you do this.
Next, start to stand up and "roll" the bar up your shins. Your hamstrings will generate the power here, as you're basically moving back towards a vertical position. You want the bar to follow a strictly vertical path: if you were to watch the movement from the side, the bar should move perpendicular to the ground the entire time. Put another way, don't let the bar move away from your body as you start to stand. You will move the bar until it gets to an inch or so above your knee and your shoulders are directly over the bar. This just so happens to be position 2.
Now, you have to work your way back up to position 1. Bring your hips forward a little bit and stand up a tiny bit. The bar will move a few inches, again in a completely vertical path. Your arms should be locked out the whole time, with no bend in your elbows. You're not trying to pull the bar, you're trying to move it upward with a lot of momentum.
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.
- 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.
- Dumbbell Thruster
Grab a pair of dumbbells; this time around, I saw the guys grab 10lb dumbbells and the women grab 7.5lb dumbbells. The idea was to simulate a wall ball without actually throwing something at the wall, so the weights make up the weight of the medicine ball you're supposed to throw.
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.
- Sit Up
Keep your feet in butterfly position (the bottoms of your feet should be pressed against each other, so that your legs create a diamond-like shape), 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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